Relational concepts of space and place: Issues for planning theory and practice

This paper seeks to conceptualize and explore the changing relationships between planning action and practice and the dynamics of place. It argues that planning practice is grappling with new treatments of place, based on dynamic, relational constructs, rather than the Euclidean, deterministic, and one‐dimensional treatments inherited from the ‘scientific’ approaches of the 1960s and early 1970s. But such emerging planning practices remain poorly served by planning theory which has so far failed to produce sufficiently robust and sophisticated conceptual treatments of place in today's globalizing’ world. In this paper we attempt to draw on a wide range of recent advances in social theory to begin constructing such a treatment. The paper has four parts. First, we criticize the legacy of object‐oriented, Euclidean concepts of planning theory and practice, and their reliance on ‘containered’ views of space and time. Second, we construct a relational understanding of time, space and cities by drawing together four strands of recent social theory. These are: relational theories of urban time‐space, dynamic conceptualizations of ‘multiplex’ places and cities, the ‘new’ urban and regional socio‐economics, and emerging theories of social agency and institutional ordering. In the third section, we apply such perspectives to three worlds of planning practice: land use regulation, policy frameworks and development plans, and the development of ‘customized spaces’ in urban ‘regeneration’. Finally, by way of conclusion, we suggest some pointers for practising planning in a relational way.     

The risk of harm to archaeological artefacts in soil from dynamic subsurface pressures generated by agricultural operations: experimental studies

An investigation was made of the fracture risk to buried ceramic pots and bones from the subsurface pressures generated by agricultural operations. A method for generating subsurface pressures at 0.25 m depth in a soil bin was developed and used to explore fracture failure of modern replicates of ceramic pots corresponding to different archaeological periods and aged medieval human bone. Application of conductive traces to the objects’ surfaces allowed detection of fracturing in real‐time without excavation. Predictive models relating fracture of objects to subsurface pressure application were developed by relating the probability of fracture to observed survival statistics at increasing subsurface pressures. Subsurface pressures of above 100 kPa were sufficient to fracture the more fragile pots at a probability level of 90%. The lowest subsurface pressure causing bone fracture was 280 kPa; however, no relationship was observed between subsurface pressure and bone fracture, probably due to variation in bone material. The subsurface pressures generated and applied are within the range reported from field measurements during typical agricultural operations. They indicate that measures to control the generation of subsurface pressures would be necessary to mitigate risk of harm from agriculture to buried archaeology; for example, via low‐pressure tyres, tracks and appropriate tillage.     

Partisan Efficiency in an Open-Rule Setting: The Amending Process in the U.S. Senate, 1865–1945

Given significant differences between the House and Senate's amending processes, one would anticipate the Senate majority party to be far less successful when voting on the floor. However, recent work has demonstrated that majority party success on the Senate floor is remarkably similar to the House. We argue that an overlooked explanation for majority party success stems from its ability to control intra-party amending activity through coordination between members of the majority party. Utilizing a new data set consisting of all amendments receiving recorded roll call votes in the Senate from 1865–1945, we demonstrate that majority party extremists refrain from offering amendments despite the relative open-floor setting. Nevertheless, chamber majorities cannot restrict minority legislators from offering amendments designed to force them to cast uncomfortable votes and delay the legislative process.     

People and Things on the Move: Domestic Material Culture,Poverty and Mobility in Victorian London

The development of what Mayne and Lawrence (Urban History 26: 325–48, 1999) termed “ethnographic” approaches to studying nineteenth-century households and urban communities has gathered momentum in recent years. As such research agendas have taken hold and been applied to new contexts, so critiques, methodological developments, and new intellectual and theoretical currents, have provided opportunities to enhance and develop approaches. This article contributes to this on-going process. Drawing upon household archaeological research on Limehouse, a poor neighborhood in Victorian London, and inspired by the theoretical insights provided by the “new mobilities paradigm,” it aims to place “mobility” as a central and enabling intellectual framework for understanding the relationships between people, place, and poverty. Poor communities in nineteenth-century cities were undeniably mobile and transient. Historians and archaeologists have often regarded this mobility as an obstacle to studying everyday life in such contexts. However, examining temporal routines and geographical movements across a variety of time frames and geographical scales, this article argues that mobility is actually key to understanding urban life and an important mechanism for interpreting the fragmented material and documentary traces left by poor households in the nineteenth-century metropolis.     

Ancient DNA typing of archaeological pig remains corroborates historical records

The recent increase in both the abundance and taxonomic range of DNA sequence data in public repositories makes it possible to determine the maternal origin of lineages of faunal archaeological material by characterizing its mitochondrial DNA. Among the most commonly represented taxa are domesticated animals, for which extensive genetic characterization has revealed high levels of genetic diversity and (in at least some cases) strong phylogeographic clustering. Such information has significant implications not only for characterizing important aspects of the occupation history of archaeological sites, but also in providing novel insights into colonisation history and the scale and scope of trade and exchange networks. This can be done through studying the origins and dispersal of proxy organisms such as commensal and domesticated animals, as well as economically important wild fauna. To illustrate this approach, we compare historical records of maritime movement of people and pigs from two sites on Lord Howe Island, Australia, to phylogeographic results of DNA extracted from pig bones.