Life in the Woods: Tree-throws, 'Settlement' and Forest Cognition

The deposition of Early Neolithic material within tree-throw hollows in described, and the possible role of fallen trunks as places of occupation, settlement foci and landscape markers is discussed. Having implications for the interpretation of ubiquitous later Mesolithic pit dwellings, the evidence suggests a continuity of forest 'identity'. Accordingly, patterns of clearances are also explored in relationship to modes of occupation, and the employment of 'big wood' in Neolithic monuments discussed.     

THE EFFECTS OF LOCAL TAXES AND PUBLIC SERVICES ON RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT PATTERNS*

ABSTRACT. This paper incorporates an exogenous taxing and service-providing public sector into a dynamic residential land-use model in order to examine how local-government fiscal policies alter the pace and pattern of residential development. The model is used to derive the comparative-dynamic responses to variations in the income, sales, and property taxes and public-service time paths. The results show how tax and expenditure effects systematically depend upon the anticipated relative growth rates in rents to alternative uses and vary across locations within a given urban area as well as across urban areas themselves.     

REVIEWS

The Sacred Remains: Myth, History and Polity in Belau. By Richard J. Parmentier. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1987. Pp. xxiii + 341. Price U.S.$49.95 (cloth); U.S.$15.95 (paper).     

The assumption of equilibrium in the analysis of migration and interregional differences: a review of some recent research

"This paper questions the plausibility of the assumption of interregional equilibrium in recent research into migration and the valuation of amenities in the United States. It is shown that it is difficult to develop a satisfactory explanation for continuing net migration which is compatible with the equilibrium assumption, and that recent relevant research generally fails to support the idea that the U.S. economy is in equilibrium. The association of higher rent levels with in-migration is explained as a short-run phenomenon. If the spatial economy is in disequilibrium, then the valuations of amenities assuming equilibrium will be biased, being probably too low in areas of net in-migration and too high in areas of net out-migration."