Regional planning in Catalonia

After 1975 the main weight of Spanish regional planning passed down to the 17 autonomous communities. This has resulted in very variable territorial planning activity. Since 1980 the Catalan government, the Generalitat, has been preparing a territorial plan for the whole of Catalonia. A draft of the plan was issued for discussion in 1993. The history of the making of the plan is analyzed, before giving an account of the plan's content. The plan received many criticisms and these are described and assessed. In particular, several paradoxes are considered: why has one of the most dynamically distinctive of Spanish autonomous communities, with a great commitment in 1980 to produce a plan, taken so long to complete the exercise? How is it that a centre‐right government has produced a plan with certain clear goals on such a long time‐scale—to 2026? And why has such apparently ambitious planning been criticized so strongly by professionals and authorities to the left of the government?     

Book reviews

Small Firms, Technical Services and Inter‐firm Cooperation. Frank Pyke, Geneva, International Institute for Labor Studies, 1994, 126 pp, 20 Swiss francs, ISBN 92 9014 527 7

Uneven Regional Change in Britain. Alan Townsend, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993, £9.95 ($19.95) pb, ISBN 0 521 40870 9.

European Fort Cities in Transition. B. S. Hoyle and D. A. Pinder (Eds), London, Belhaven Press, 1992, 207 pp, £35.00 hb, ISBN 1 85293 170 1.

Introducing Town Planning. Clara Greed, Harlow, Longman, 1993, 283 pp, £12.99 pb, ISBN 0 582 09107 1.

Contemporary Transport Trends. Michael Asteris and Peter Green (Eds), Aldershot, Ashgate Publishing, 290 pp, £35.00 hb, ISBN 1 85628 2848.

The Rise of Regional Europe. Christopher Harvie, London, Routledge, 1994, 92 pp, £6.99 pb, ISBN 0 4150 9523 9.     

Frustrated,reconciled or divided? The Australian labor party and federalism

The Australian Labor Party has always been, and remains, a complex entity which encompasses both centralist/national and decentralist/federal interests and values. The common interpretation that the party has been historically ‘frustrated’ by federalism but is now ‘reconciled’ with it thus exaggerates both the frustration and the reconciliation.     

An exhumed palaeo-hydrocarbon migration fairway in a faulted carrier system, Entrada Sandstone of SE Utah, USA

The Moab Anticline, east‐central Utah, is an exhumed hydrocarbon palaeo‐reservoir which was supplied by hydrocarbons that migrated from the Moab Fault up‐dip towards the crest of the structure beneath the regional seal of the Tidwell mudstone. Iron oxide reduction in porous, high permeability aeolian sandstones records the secondary migration of hydrocarbons, filling of traps against small sealing faults and spill pathways through the Middle Jurassic Entrada Sandstone. Hydrocarbons entered the Entrada Sandstone carrier system from bends and other leak points on the Moab Fault producing discrete zones of reduction that extend for up to 400 m from these leak points. They then migrated in focused stringers, 2–5 m in height, to produce accumulations on the crest of the anticline. Normal faults on the anticline were transient permeability barriers to hydrocarbon migration producing a series of small compartmentalized accumulations. Exsolution of CO₂ as local fault seals were breached resulted in calcite cementation on the up‐dip side of faults. Field observations on the distribution of iron oxide reduction and calcite cements within the anticline indicate that the advancing reduction fronts were affected neither by individual slip bands in damage zones around faults nor by small faults with sand: sand juxtapositions. Faults with larger throws produced either sand: mudstone juxtapositions or sand: sand contacts and fault zones with shale smears. Shale‐smeared fault zones provided seals to the reducing fluid which filled the structural traps to spill points.     

Clubs,Spades, Diamonds and Disadvantage: the Geography of Electronic Gaming Machines in Melbourne

Opportunities to gamble, particularly on electronic gaming machines (EGMs) have been rapidly increasing in Australia during the 1990s. The increase in expenditure on gambling and the related problems have subsequently become a growing concern, particularly in relation to disadvantaged sectors of the population. Given this, the development of a geography of gambling is an important step in understanding the implications of this rapidly expanding industry. This paper addresses this issue at two distinct geographical scales in metropolitan Melbourne and considers the distribution of EGMs in relation to levels of economic well‐being. Findings suggest that patterns evident at the wider Melbourne scale of greater concentration of EGMs in less advantaged regions are also reflected at a local level. These findings are related to the wider issues of accessibility to gambling facilities and problem gambling.     

Connectivity and Restructuring: Identity and gender relations in a fishing community

Until very recently, fishing communities have sustained themselves through their reliance upon the sea, in the context of cultures that have resisted outside forces of change. With the increasing impacts of environmental degradation and globalisation, these communities are undergoing rapid change, not only in terms of economic restructuring, but fundamentally in areas of social and spatial relations. Focussing on the concepts of connectivity and proximity within a framework of Mead's (1934) social interactionism, this article shows how histories of migration, mobility and communication underpin the consequences of these changing realities for gender relations in a small island fishing community on Canada's east coast. It highlights the contradictions and paradoxes intrinsic to the choices women are having to make, and argues that understanding historical context, both as affecting mobility and as a source of rootedness, is crucial in the illumination of this process of change. Based on interviews over 5 years, the article looks specifically at the roles of in- and out-migration, tourism, technologies and external relations associated with aquaculture, the mass media, and new communications technologies, as agents of change.     

The skulls of Chief Nonosabasut and his wife Demasduit – Beothuk of Newfoundland

In March 1819 a young woman was abducted by white settlers and her husband was killed. They were among the few remaining members of the Beothuk of Newfoundland. Eight years later their skulls were removed from their burial hut and transferred to the University of Edinburgh. This paper describes these two important skulls and details injuries and pathologies not previously recorded in detail. Chief Nonosabasut displayed evidence of extensive trauma to the region of his chin which is most likely to be evidence of previous, but well‐healed, combat injuries. His wife, Demasduit, presented with an intriguing perimortem fracture to the left parietal bone which extended onto the base of the skull. This is discussed in the light of evidence available at the time of her death. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fluvial sediments, correlations and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction: The development of robust radiocarbon chronologies

Multiple sequences of radiocarbon dates extracted from organic materials are increasingly being used to provide robust chronologies for landscape development, particularly the timing and correlation of significant climatic and ‘process’ events. Whilst the validity of using such frameworks in sedimentary environments such as lake basins and raised bogs has been the focus of much attention, such debates have not extended to fluvial systems. Using examples from three lowland, vertically accreting river valleys in East Anglia, UK, this paper assesses the robustness of their associated radiocarbon chronologies by assessing the contrasting age estimates that are obtained by dating different parts of the same organic sample (humic, humin and plant macrofossils) at a variety of stratigraphic levels. Overall, the humin and humic acid fraction results were statistically consistent, whilst the plant macrofossil remains were found to be of a slightly younger age. In these examples, it is argued that the younger ages appear to be the result of Phragmites (common reed) roots pushing plant macrossils through the sedimentary sequence or opening up voids for material to fall through, although studies in lacustrine and mire environments suggest alternative explanations may also be possible. Whichever explanation is preferred, this study demonstrates clearly that the complexity of valley floor stratigraphy and processes is such, that using single radiocarbon dates, whether AMS or bulk samples to reconstruct chronologies of ‘geomorphic system response’ may need to be refined and subjected to the same level of assessment that has been applied in other sedimentary systems.