Classical Central Places as Protected Thresholds

Previous research efforts demonstrate the use of location covering in the spatial structuring of central places within a single-good context. In a multilevel context, this paper similarly develops a mathematical programming approach to the siting of central places based on the “protection” of inner (or threshold) markets. The objective function maximizes both market coverage of demand and market overlap, subject to an upper bound on market overlap; this allows the formation of different market structures consistent with the various K-valued central place systems of Christaller and Lösch. Siting examples serve to illustrate the working of the protected threshold model in isotropic settings. Furthermore, ways in which the present model might be extended for other situations are examined.     

DO METROPOLITAN AREAS MEAN ANYTHING? A RESEARCH NOTE*

This note analyzes whether central cities and suburbs of a metropolitan area relate to each other in a meaningful way. Specifically, it analyzes whether there is a factor specific to the metropolitan area in central-city and suburban growth once national and regional factors have been taken into account. Data are analyzed for growth of metropolitan areas from 1960 to 1980.     

Political institutions,punctuated equilibrium theory,and policy disasters

This paper develops a theory of the relationship between policy disasters and political institutions. Policy disasters, defined as avoidable, unintended extreme negative policy outcomes, are important political, and historical events above that receive relatively little attention from political scientists and scholars of public policy. Using the predictions of punctuated equilibrium theory, I argue that systems with higher error accumulation will experience more policy disasters. Systems with more veto players and weaker information flows will experience more policy disasters, but information flows will have a stronger impact than veto players. I test this theory using data on financial crises and natural and technological disasters across 70 countries over 60 years. I find strong evidence that systems with weaker information flows and more veto players tend to have greater policy disaster risk.     

The Clear Categories of Olive Pink

This paper explores Olive Pink's writings of the 1930s, with particular emphasis on her stern moral convictions, and her insistence that persons of mixed Aboriginal and other descent were not Aborigines. It suggests that these two issues were linked, and may best be understood in the context of the contemporary preoccupation with saving a race which had long been regarded as doomed to extinction.     

Contextualizing Welfare's Work Disincentive: The Case of Female-headed Family Poverty

The conventional model of the relationship between welfare incentives and poverty rates holds that welfare payments produce an income-enhancement effect that removes families from poverty until some threshold. Beyond this point increased payments engender a work-disincentive effect resulting in increased rates of poverty. We challenge the model's assumption that poverty levels are a simple and spatially invariant response to welfare incentives, contending instead that local employment conditions may substantially alter the relation. Our reformulation of the conventional modeling approach is based on the expansion method. Specifically, we extend the model to include the effects of local labor-market conditions on the response of poverty levels to welfare incentives. In contesting the invariance assumption, the expansion method allows us to determine where and in what contexts welfare is “work discouraging.” The empirical analysis, which is undertaken at the county level, indicates that welfare payments vary in their influence on poverty rates across different employment contexts. A national map portraying this parameter instability demonstrates that female-family poverty rates are most responsive to welfare assistance in the rural South and least responsive in the metropolitan Northeast. Finally, we examine two sharply contrasting locales to illustrate how poverty is governed by specific employment and welfare characteristics.     

Conflict, Uncertainty, and the Role of Planning and Analysis in Public Policy Innovation

Innovation by "groping along," in which appointed public officials experiment during program implementation after little, if any, initial planning and analysis, has been promoted as a more accurate model of policy innovation than the rational comprehensive model of policy change. Analysis of two cases of environmental regulatory policy innovation suggests that administrative agencies may be more likely to follow the conventional model of the policy cycle when high levels of conflict are likely to accompany policy initiatives. The cases also suggest, however, that public officials will experiment during the innovation process when they are uncertain about the nature of the problem and the probable impacts of alternative solutions.     

RADIOCARBON DATES FOR BEESWAX FIGURES IN THE PREHISTORIC ROCK ART OF NORTHERN AUSTRALIA

Accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon ages have been taken for a test suite of small samples of material removed from some of the ‘beeswax’art figures found in rock shelters in northern Australia. The results indicate that we can reliably date this unique form of rock art with no noticeable damage. We had not expected to find figures of any great antiquity, and so we were surprised to find that the ages obtained spanned the time period from the recent past to about 4000 BP.