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.     

AGENCY FRACMENTATION AND ITS EFFECTS ON IMPACT: A BORDERLANDS CASE*

The US-Mexico border is both a line of potential separation and a span of contact and blending of cultures. National and local perceptions and intentions about this boundary often differ, and the formulation and implementation of border policy is thus subject to many conflicting pressures. Not the least are those generated by government agencies with border responsibilities. Perspectives as local, border, and field offices, combined with inter-agency rivalry and uncertain jurisdictions, lead to border management operations that are inconsistent with apparent national (central) policy, illustrated by the complex bureaucracy present in El Paso—the largest urban site on the border. Proposed solutions cluster around improvement of the existing structure (with better equipment, budgets, or staffing) or reorganization of the primary border agencies. Recent efforts by the federal government to introduce changes based on both of these approaches have been markedly unsuccessful, reflecting a continuing inability to resolve fundamental differences of opinion (both intracentral and central-border) on the goals of border policy.     

The Politics of Credit in Presidential Signing Statements

The separation of powers often makes it difficult to understand who is responsible for legislative outcomes. Both members of Congress and presidents seek to shape perceptions of policy responsibility to their advantage. Yet, the relative size of the president's rhetorical stage gives him disproportionate influence in molding these discussions at critical moments. Given these circumstances, how, when, and why, do presidents claim credit for themselves and attribute credit to members of Congress for legislation? Using an original dataset based upon a content analysis of all presidential signing statements from 1985–2008, we find that presidential strategies to claim and attribute credit for laws are greatly impacted by both political context (approval, divided government, midterm elections, and party power) and bill-specific attributes (appropriations, salience, and veto threats). The theory and results highlight the importance of taking multiple institutions into account when thinking about credit.     

Between the Vinča and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Linearbandkeramik</Emphasis> Worlds: The Diversity of Practices and Identities in the 54th–53rd Centuries cal BC in Southwest Hungary and Beyond

Perhaps nowhere in European prehistory does the idea of clearly-defined cultural boundaries remain more current than in the initial Neolithic, where the southeast–northwest trend of the spread of farming crosses what is perceived as a sharp divide between the Balkans and central Europe. This corresponds to a distinction between the Vin?a culture package, named for a classic site in Serbia, with its characteristic pottery assemblage and absence of longhouses, and the Linearbandkeramik (LBK), with equally diagnostic but different pottery, and its apparently culturally-diagnostic longhouses, extending in a more northerly belt through central Europe westward to the Dutch coast. In this paper we question the concept of such a clear division through a presentation of new data from the site of Szederkény-Kukorica-d?l?. A large settlement in southeast Transdanubia, Hungary, excavated in advance of road construction, Szederkény is notable for its combination of pottery styles, variously including Vin?a A, Ra?i?te and LBK, and longhouses of a kind otherwise familiar from the LBK world. Formal modelling of its date establishes that the site probably began in the later 54th century cal BC, lasting until the first decades of the 52nd century cal BC. Occupation, featuring longhouses, pits and graves, probably began at the same time in the eastern and western parts of the settlement, starting a decade or two later in the central part; the western part was probably the last to be abandoned. Vin?a pottery is predominantly associated with the eastern and central parts of the site, and Ra?i?te pottery with the west. Formal modelling of the early history of longhouses in the LBK world suggests their emergence in the Formative LBK of Transdanubia c. 5500 cal BC followed by rapid dispersal in the middle of the 54th century cal BC, associated with the ‘earliest’ (älteste) LBK. The adoption of longhouses at Szederkény thus appears to come a few generations after the start of this ‘diaspora’. Rather than explaining the mixture of things, practices and perhaps people at Szederkény with reference to problematic notions such as hybridity, we propose instead a more fluid and varied vocabulary, encompassing combination and amalgamation, relationships and performance in the flow of social life, and networks; this makes greater allowance for diversity and interleaving in a context of rapid change.     

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.     

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.