On the role of amenities in models of migration and regional development

"The role of location-specific amenities in human migration decisions, and subsequently regional development, is explored. A framework is developed which motivates a new assessment of existing alternative models of regional development, indicating the need for additional modeling efforts which focus upon amenities as critical elements in such analyses. The approach hinges upon the notion that amenity values are capitalized into wages, rents, or other local prices. This process of capitalization enables researchers to explore the implicit value that society places upon amenities, which can then be used in assessing future regional-development trends in a more comprehensive manner."     

The use of predictive modelling to target Neolithic settlement and occupation activity in mainland Scotland

A central aim of Neolithic studies in Europe is to understand settlement or domestic activity of the first agriculturalists. In Scotland, the continued absence of unambiguous Neolithic settlement or domestic occupation activities on the mainland remains an unresolved issue. It is proposed that areas attractive for settlement and occupation activities may be identified by constructing GIS-based models of sites believed to be related to settlement or occupation activities, including chambered cairns, timber halls, and sites containing pit-digging episodes. Statistical analyses undertaken in this process suggest new insights into the locations of the chambered cairns, timber halls, and pits. Finalised models are constructed and desktop assessments are conducted to examine model performance. Research priorities for improving significant environmental variables driving the current models are identified.     

Irrigated taro (Colocasia esculenta) farming in North Kohala,Hawai‘i: sedimentology and soil nutrient analyses

How did traditional farming transform the natural environment in the Hawaiian Islands? This question is one that has largely been addressed for rainfed farming of crops like sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), but evidence is lacking for irrigated farming of the critical staple crop taro (Colocasia esculenta). We describe the results of soil nutrient and sedimentological analyses of deeply-stratified pondfield deposits representing a 600-year-long record of irrigated taro farming in the North Kohala District, Hawai‘i Island. Soil is categorized by particle size to determine modes of transport and deposition, and concurrent soil nutrient analyses were conducted to infer shifts in the source of sediments and changes associated with taro harvesting. The advent of farming is clearly detectable in sedimentology, the presence of charcoal found within sediments, and soil chemistry. However, diminished nutrient concentrations can be attributed largely to deposition of a mixture of upstream sediments. Overall, there is no clear evidence for nutrient draw-down by taro harvesting, but we cannot yet rule it out as a factor. This study demonstrates the inherent difficulty of correlating changes in soil nutrients evident in irrigated pondfields with the long term history of soil nutrient cycling.     

Alive and Kicking: Municipal Affirmative Action Policy in Texas Cities, 1980s–1990s

This article evaluates the impact of opposition originating at the national level on affirmative action policies in 13 Texas cities in the late 1980s and early 1990s. We find that increased national hostility to affirmative action in hiring and contracting has had little effect on the content and strength of affirmative action programs in Texas municipalities. In fact, most programs have been maintained or strengthened since the 1980s. However, there is no clear and consistent relationship between the strength of municipal programs and either minority political representation or the size of a city's minority population. City size appears to be a relevant, but not decisive, factor in maintaining comprehensive policies. As such, we explore two additional hypotheses—policy time lag and bureaucratic insulation—to account for the survival and strengthening of municipal affirmative action policies in the 1990s.     

Breaking down ceramic variation: Testing models of white mountain redware design style development

Design styles on White Mountain Redware pottery from the American Southwest are analyzed, drawing on ethnoarchaeological work conducted among the Kalinga of northern Luzon, the Philippines, to establish a strong relationship between distinct social groups and ceramic decoration. From this base, regional production zones are identified for several White Mountain Redware design styles in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico. In addition, the temporal and spatial distribution of these styles is compared to expectations generated by three models of design style development, none of which is completely acceptable. An alternative explanation is proposed in which White Mountain Redware stylistic change is linked to the development of (1) symbolic association between design styles and regions or communities of production, (2) increasing exchange of pottery over longer distances and in larger numbers, and (3) part-time specialization in pottery production. These trends, in turn, are a likely consequence of population increase and aggregation into larger puebloan communities in which contradictory processes, such as economic interdependence and competitive interaction between settlements, may have emerged to disrupt the late prehistoric evolutionary tendency towards greater social complexity.     

Migration with a composite amenity: the role of rents

An attempt is made to analyze the phenomenon of migration using rent as the single variable that could serve as a proxy for the many amenities that might affect migration patterns. A theoretical treatment of the implications of rent capitalization for migration is first outlined. Empirical results indicating the usefulness of this approach are then presented. The geographic focus of the study is on the United States.