Using best available science to protect critical areas in Washington state: challenges and barriers to planners

Urban development has profound impacts on ecological patterns and processes making the scientific information required for developing environmental ordinances central for mitigating these negative ecological impacts. Washington State requires that planners use the best available science (BAS) to formulate land use ordinances as part of the state’s Growth Management Act (GMA). We present empirical findings describing challenges to planners in defining “best available science” and using BAS to create local ordinances that balance development needs with natural resource protection. We interviewed city and county planners (and their consultants) in western Washington to determine what they find useful about BAS, whether or not BAS is applicable to their jurisdictions, and what constraints they experience in reviewing and using BAS to create or update their land use ordinances. Our results suggest that applying the BAS requirement is particularly difficult in urban areas. Specifically, planners had difficulty applying results from research conducted in systems dissimilar to their urban landscapes. These challenges to planners were exacerbated by (1) a lack of resources and (2) political tensions among stakeholders with competing values in urban settings. We conclude with recommendations for improving the consideration of science in statewide land-use planning.     

The Balance Point: Keeping Serial Bibliographic Records Viable in a Digital Age

Abstract

Michael Norman, head of serials cataloging at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) library, describes his library's development of an integrated management system for serials, the Online Research Resources (ORR). The ORR was designed to draw together and deliver to the public a wide range of information related to the library's serial holdings that previously could only be obtained by consulting a number of sources. With a single search, UIUC patrons can now consult the ORR for serials information such as variant titles, online availability, subject categories, print summary statements, ISI impact factor, where the title is indexed, and whether it is peer reviewed—an innovation sorely needed and highly welcomed by librarians and patrons alike.     

The Incompatibility of Materialism and the Desire for Children: Psychological Insights into the Fertility Discrepancy Among Modern Countries

We examined factors related to attitudes toward marriage and the importance of having children in both the US and Singapore. Path analysis indicated that life dissatisfaction leads to materialism, and both of these factors lead to favorable attitudes toward marriage, which leads to greater desire for children. Further analysis indicated this model was effective in explaining the difference in desire for children between Singaporeans and Americans, whereby Singaporeans have lower life satisfaction, higher materialism, and lower attitudes toward marriage and children. Materialistic standards of success were also related to the emphasis women placed on potential marriage partners’ earning capacity. As Singaporean women had higher materialistic standards, they also placed higher emphasis on potential mates’ earning capacity. Results suggest a consideration of psychological variables such as life satisfaction, materialism, and mate preferences may lead to a better understanding of larger-scale socioeconomic issues, including low fertility rates among developed East Asian countries.     

Social orders

This review discusses the stability of social orders in light of the recent work Violence and Social Orders by Douglass North, John Wallis and Barry Weingast (hereafter NWW). The purpose of this book was to understand the two great transitions that have occurred in human society. The first, the agricultural revolution, resulted in a transition from hunter–gather society to what NWW call limited access society. This first transition occurred at various times and places, but generally about 10,000 years before the present. The second revolution, the social/industrial/technological revolution, from limited access to what NWW call open access, occurred initially in a few societies, particularly Britain and the United States, within a fairly brief period between 1600 and 1860. Currently, all the West European economies, as well the Western offshoots (the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and Japan have crossed the economic threshold of $20,000/capita. However, inequality across the set of all political economies is extreme, and likely to increase. The paper attempts to complement the institutional analysis of NWW, deploying some theoretical ideas from social choice theory, game theory, and economics (particularly the role of factors of production, land, capital and labor). Emphasis is placed on the variation of risk preference between autocrats and other factor groups. The discussion also alludes to the notion of structural stability of dynamical social systems, and the possibility of chaos. It is argued that all the limited access societies face a Malthusian constraint, generated by the pressure of population on land. In such societies, particularly in Africa in the present day, this quandary over land is likely to lead to the exercise of power by risk preferring autocrats who will restrain any move to open access democracy.     

The marketing strategy worksheet—A practical planning tool

The Marketing Strategy Worksheet is a simple aid to strategic planners. It enables a coherent and integrated plan to be produced and communicated to others. It is a three-level flow chart comprising an analytical stage, formulation of some key primary decisions and subsequent settlement of strategic issues within the marketing mix. The analytical stage incorporates both external and internal analysis. The primary decisions concern company objectives, marketing objectives, demand management, target market and positioning. Using the conventional marketing mix format, decisions are made about product, promotion, distribution and price.     

Son survivorship motivation and family size in India: A computer simulation

Abstract Many sociologists and demographers have argued that the comparatively large families of six to eight children found in rural India to-day result from ignorance of family planning methods, from tradition, and from passive indecision; and that large reductions in the Indian growth rate to Western levels would occur spontaneously if each Indian family were given access to birth control facilities, materials and information. On the other hand, it has been maintained that large family sizes are functional for rural families in India and other developing countries; and that they result from conscious or unconscious choice based upon enlightened self-interest.