LOCATIONAL SIGNALING AND AGGLOMERATION

Agglomeration can be caused by asymmetric information and a locational signaling effect: The location choice of workers signals their productivity to potential employers. The cost of a signal is the cost of housing at that location. When workers' marginal willingness to pay for housing is negatively correlated with their productivity, only the core‐periphery (partially stratified) equilibria are stable. When workers' marginal willingness to pay for housing and their productivity are positively correlated, there is no core‐periphery equilibrium. The urban wage premium is explained when there is a core‐periphery equilibrium. Furthermore, location can at best be an approximate rather than a precise sieve for high‐skill workers.     

Aboriginal Participation in Environment Planning

The efforts to involve Aboriginal people in the development of a management plan for a newly created World Heritage Area (WHA) in northern Queensland are examined. Although the management agency expended considerable effort to encourage the participation of local Aboriginal people the program was flawed and served to marginalise some Aboriginal groups from the management of their traditional lands. The management agency failed to understand the nature of contemporary and traditional Aboriginal social organisation. Insensitivity to the diverse nature of Aboriginal social organisation, and ignorance of the complexity of Aboriginal representation, rendered the interests of some groups with traditional interests invisible to the management agency. Because the management agency uncritically accepted the claims to a mandate for regional representation by one Aboriginal lobby group, this group was able to assume a dominant position in liaising with the management agency.     

Conservative Think Tanks and Public Politics

The privileged position occupied by think tanks in public debate is reflected in their access to mainstream media and their political commentary frequently accepted as independent expert opinion. However, behind the carefully constructed and closely guarded façade of intellectual autonomy is a network of interests drawn together in a campaign to reshape political values. By tracing the intellectual antecedents and the historical origins of think tanks and their role in fostering neoliberalism, we assess the emerging neoconservatism and the implications for public debate.     

Gunnar Olsson's Transformers: The Art and Politics of Rendering the Co–Relation of Society and Space in Monochrome and Technicolor

Human geography is concerned with the co–relation of society and space. However, every device that has been used to express the co–relation of social space breaks down. Consequently, this paper engages with the fundamental difficulty of providing a consistent and effective rendering of relations. Specifically, the paper explores the poststructural work of Gunnar Olsson, a writer who has provided the most sustained and far–reaching engagement with co–relation to date. Consideration is given to Olsson's deconstruction of logic, dialectics, semiotics and the empty forms of co–relation (=, /, —, □, ?, ○, etc.). This deconstruction enables one to appreciate the ethical and political performativity of Olsson's surrealist and hyperrealist optical art: dematerialized points, torpedoes, ovoids, Moebius bands, and so on. In addition, the paper raises a peculiar but nonetheless vital question: what is the colour of co–relation and social space? In answering this question, the paper moves through two monochrome series (one rendered in black and white; the other in blue–grey) and one Technicolor series (rendered in ruby and gold). In the final showdown, however, the dyes leak in all directions. Social space is iridescent.