Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space

There is a continual interest in research on multipurpose shopping (MPS), because it provides a further extension of rational decisionmaking, whereby consumers who combine shopping activities reduce the time and cost of travel. The literature describes the importance of this type of shopping for infrequent trips to higher order centres (Bacon, 1984) or MPS constructed around convenience, supermarket, or comparison trips (West, 1993). A study of MPS at a range of planned suburban shopping centres (PSSCs) in Sydney, Australia during 1988/89 endeavoured to relate these hypotheses to results from a space—time differential consumer-trip model (Baker, 1994). The standardised number of MPS consumers is shown to form a substantial quadratic relationship with centre scale. The model predicts positive and negative states of MPS. An investigation of the shopping patterns within the data set shows the ‘negative’ MPS is based around the supermarket visit (supporting the West hypothesis). This strategy is adopted both by low mobility and by high disposable income groups within a shopping-centre hierarchy. ‘Positive’ MPS occurs for shifts in trip purpose, where comparison shopping (such as, for gifts or clothing) is the fundamental construct behind the multipurpose trip. This study shows that distinctly different socioeconomic groups can have in common an MPS strategy independent of centre scale, and it is argued that these groups are using this strategy as a mechanism to minimise the total effort in the shopping cycle.

In this paper I provide a conceptualization of international migration networks, which can be used to identify and integrate the internal components of migration systems, and formalize the relationships in an analytic model of the internal network dynamic. With the use of the operationalized model, and microlevel and macrolevel data for guestworkers in Germany during the period 1970 to 1989, we can empirically test the relative influence of internal network variables versus external forces on the attraction of immigrants over time. The empirical results suggest that—as the system matures—network variables have an increasing impact on the attraction of immigrants, while the impact of economic factors declines. The research is concluded with a series of simulations that further highlight the internal dynamic of international migration systems.

In this paper it is argued that identification and analysis of spatial patterns have an important role to play in the development of materialist social theory. Spatial forms reveal material conditions that govern social processes and, therefore, provide keys to the understanding of how societies work. Two examples are provided. First, it is argued that gravity patterns in spatial interaction are an outcome of human intentionality but that they also show how human actions are controlled by material conditions. Second, it is shown how the spatial structure of multiplant firms reflects the need for cooperation and control in capitalist production.

Engineering services are important venues for international flows of capital and specialized forms of knowledge, and are extensively traded internationally. In this paper the geography of global supply and demand for engineering services for the years 1982–92 is examined. First, trends in six major world market areas are highlighted. The US, by far the world's largest provider, generated more than $3 billion in foreign engineering sales in 1992. Second, I examine the domestic employment impacts of US engineering sales abroad using input—output analysis. Third, I explore the theoretical implications of the relatively few linkages to manufacturing that engineering, like other services, exhibits. As a subtext, I attempt to forge linkages between the literatures on global trade in services and world systems theory.

This paper is aimed at assessing how far an individual-level analysis can contribute to our knowledge of neighbourhood familiarity over space and time. An appropriate theoretical framework and a careful methodology (with special attention to variable control and measurement problems) are used to gain new insights into processes of neighbourhood cognition. Although classical results are corroborated at the aggregate level, specific results are derived at the individual level: (1) large differences are found between individual learning processes; (2) differences in individual cognition decrease over time. Methodological conclusions are also provided. The main likely conclusion is that currently unidentified variables are to a large extent responsible for the observed impressive diversity of individual learning processes. This is a challenge to future research on cognition.

In this study we analyze the changes that take place in intersectoral linkages in the process of diversification, and the roles of sectors in such changes. Data from input—output and structural path analysis are utilized to develop indices that can be used for assessing the connectedness of sectors (and industries within sectors) in any economy. In addition, measures are developed for quantifying linkages, and the economic influence transmitted by them, that are sensitive to structural change over space and time. The indices are then used to examine the relationship between sectoral diversity, linkages, and development by analyzing the economic relationships between sectors in the form of intersectoral linkages of six planning districts in Virginia, in addition to the economies of the State of Virginia and the USA. On the basis of these analyses, it is concluded that:

(a)

contrary to Hirschman's suggestion that the complexity of linkages increased with industrial diversification, the results suggest that diversification leads to less complexity in the linkage relationships; and

The implications of these findings for policy and planning are discussed.

The vision of modern urban planning after World War 2 was a remarkably standardized project around the world. Implementation was also universally problematic, the heady reformism of 1940s reconstructionism never being comprehensively realized. Moreover, by the 1970s the early ‘heroic’ modernism had evolved into a counterrevolutionary ‘high’ modernism. Exemplifying these themes was the career of the Sydney-based architect—planner Walter Bunning (1912–1977). In this paper I provide an overview of his particular brand of modernist thought, his central planning ideas, and his physical planning work, with special reference to a disastrous redevelopment scheme near the end of his life. The nature and scope of Walter Bunning's professional life represent a virtual microcosm of the uneven course of planning in Australia in the postwar years: genesis in the avant-garde Le Corbusier-tinged modernism of the 1930s, the early priorities, the broadening agenda but ever moderating tone, the difficulties in translating heady dreams into reality, and the crises which led to the emergence of a new paradigm. I will demonstrate how a biographical approach to planning history can illuminate the origins, meanings, hopes, and outcomes of modernist planning in the urban arena.