Early postwar Sydney: a comparison of its portrayal in fiction and in official documents

Literature is a valid source for geographers. In particular, it can offer the humanistic geographer a source of information about the experience of living in certain environments and about the way people thought about their lives. When writers are dealing with their firsthand experience, literature can also be a source of factual data Two novels by Ruth Park and one by Dorothy Hewett, set in early postwar inner Sydney, are analysed on the basis of Ley's (1983) humanistic parameters of security and stress, stimulus and ennui, and stigma and status. The fictional picture is then compared with an official planning document published in 1948. It is concluded that not only literature, but also non-fiction should be approached sceptically.     

PUTTING LITHICS TO THE TEST: NON-SITE ANALYSIS AND THE NEOLITHIC SETTLEMENT OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND

Summary. The earliest farming communities in Southern England were for a long time represented solely by the structural remains left behind in the form of burial monuments, henges and causewayed enclosures; only recently, through problem-oriented surface collection, has any attempt been made to locate their settlements. This paper suggests that such attempts have been limited by the very desire to locate 'sites' which made the technique attractive in the first place. Instead it is suggested that we should be attempting to 'think Mesolithic', and by using our knowledge of Neolithic settlement and land-use strategies, attempt to locate zones of continuity which undoubtedly occurred in certain 'favourable locations'within the landscape. Case studies from East and West Hampshire are discussed and two types of adaptive behaviour are identified.     

Capacity for Freedom – Using a New Poverty Measure to Look at Regional Differences in Living Standards within Australia

Using a recently developed measure of multidimensional poverty, the Freedom Poverty Measure, the difference in poverty rates of major cities, inner regional, and other areas have been compared. The population living in ‘other areas’ had the highest proportion of individuals living in freedom poverty. Those in inner regional areas (P = 0.0303) and those in major cities (P < 0.0001) were significantly less likely to be in freedom poverty than those in ‘other areas’. However, when breaking the analysis down to look at the different poverty rates for different age groups across the three regional classifications, it was found that there was no difference in the likelihood of being in freedom poverty between children in inner regional and other areas, adults in inner regional and other areas, and older people in inner regional and other areas. This may indicate that the disadvantage experienced by those living in regional centres has been overlooked in the past and is an emerging contemporary issue for health and education equity as well as economic equality.     

Impacts of River Regulation on the Terminal Lakes and Mouth of the River Murray,South Australia

The River Murray is a highly regulated, low gradient stream. Prior to barrage construction near the Murray Mouth saline water was present sporadically far upstream. Barrage completion by 1940 has had geo-morphic and ecological impacts. Estuarine Lakes Albert and Alexandrina became permanent freshwater bodies with elevated water levels. Exposed lake margins have eroded by up to 10 m yr', whereas along sheltered shorelines, sedimentation has accompanied reed growth. Upstream weirs have inhibited coarse sediment from reaching the lakes. In the Goolwa Channel, sedimentation changed from bioclas-tic sands to muds, accumulating at up to 4.5 mm yr' over the past 50 years. Regulation has also transformed a migrating flood tidal delta at the Murray Mouth into a permanently vegetated island.