Land Absorption in U.S. Metropolitan Areas: Estimates and Projections from Regional Adjustment Models

This article adapts a regional adjustment model to estimate and project the spatial outcome of population and employment growth in U.S. metropolitan areas. The three-equation multiplicative model of population change, employment change, and land absorption is estimated using three-stage least squares to account for endogeneity among the dependent variables and contemporaneous correlation across the system of equations. In addition to the core model, alternative specifications are estimated, imposing the initial conditions of size, land availability, and economic structure. The stability of the solutions is then examined using reduced-form equations estimated via the seemingly unrelated regression equations approach. The results reveal substantive evidence that population and employment growth are jointly determined, of how the two affect the outcome of land development, and, perhaps most importantly, stable and fractionally reasonable estimates at projected equilibrium points. Lastly, the adapted model controlling for the initial condition of land availability is used to project patterns of land consumption at equilibrium in 50 rapid-growth metropolitan areas.     

A PROVENANCE STUDY OF TANG SANCAI FROM CHINESE TOMBS AND RELICS BY INAA*

In order to group specimens of Tang Sancai of unknown provenance to the different kilns according to their chemical compositions, we studied the elemental abundance patterns of Tang Sancai body samples from different tombs, relics and kilns by instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA). Our results indicated that the development process of Tang Sancai in the Prospering Tang period could be divided into at least two phases, with ad 705 or so as the boundary between them. The results of factor analysis showed that the red‐bodied samples were more likely to be produced near Xi’an, whereas the white‐bodied Tang Sancai wares dating to before ad 705 were most probably produced at Huanye Kiln (also known as ‘Gongxian’ Kiln), and the figures were very likely made at an undiscovered kiln near Luoyang or an undiscovered part of Huangye Kiln. Among the white‐bodied samples dated from ad 705 to ad 755, both types of figures and wares were mainly produced near Xi’an and Luoyang.     

Broccoli and Desire

Abstract: Tracing the commodity chain of broccoli from Nashville, Tennessee supermarkets to Maya farmers in highland Guatemala, this paper examines relations of desire and political economic power. We argue that the global broccoli trade is shot through with desires—desires of Western consumers to eat healthy foods as well as desires for Maya farmers to get ahead economically. Such desires simultaneously subvert and sustain the hegemonic constellations that anchor crucial nodes in the international broccoli trade.     

Electoral Pluralism,Social Division and the 2016 Parliamentary Elections in Jordan

Representing one of the most stable regimes in the Middle East, Jordan has been undergoing a process of political liberalization since 1989. Due to the so‐called East Bank‐West Bank cleavage that followed by the influx of Palestinian migrants to Jordan, the country has also come to epitomize a divided society. Within this context, this paper aims to analyze the ongoing prospects for democratization in Jordan through an examination of four persistent debates shaping its electoral pluralism: those over social/identity division, electoral law as a regime‐survival mechanism, the role of the Ikhwan and the IAF's electoral boycotts, and electoral apathy. Finally, the impact of the Arab upheavals/revolts on restructuring the process of political reform — as well as opposition in the kingdom in the post‐2011 era — will be explored with reference to the changing dynamics of Islamist opposition.     

The utility of livestock dung for reconstructing recent ethnological and environmental histories

Animal dung is evaluated here as a tool to reconstruct recent societal and environmental changes. Studies completed on the macro- and micro-contents from dung deposited in a mountain cave in Catalonia during the 1970–1980s, preceding the socio-economic changes in the area, was supplemented by the testimony of the last shepherd alive in the area. This information was also compared with evidence from aerial photographs of the area surrounding the cave taken in 1956 and 2009. Although taphonomic distortion of the dung shape precluded its assignment to its producers based on morphology, information from the organic remains reflects the agro-pastoral activities in the mountainous area of the Catalan coast. A lack of calcium phosphate and abundant phytolith and epidermal remains from wild species indicates that the dung was excreted by ovicaprines, who sheltered in the cave during spells of adverse weather. These indicators also signify that the animals fed only on natural vegetation. Insect remains in the dung include fragments of chafers, dung and ground beetles, bees and ants, and whilst the latter may have foraged in the cave, the others may have been accidentally ingested by herbivores. The nannofossils and diatoms found in the dung derive from tertiary crops 4 km away from the cave but within the range of the ovicaprine herd. The lack of cereal and vegetable remains in the dung is consistent with the ethnographic record that shepherds and farmers could not afford to supplement the herds’ diet with fodder crops or grain, a consequence of the low productivity of the local subsistence agriculture. This study further discusses the socio-economic impacts of the introduction of intensive farming, industrialisation and tourism in Catalonia during the latter part of the last century and how they are represented in the dung.