Vertical capitalism: Skyscrapers and organization

This paper employs the skyscraper to show how culture and economy are necessarily intertwined. I begin with the idea of the sublime, and then move on to consider representations of the tall building from the 1870s to the present day in order to illustrate what these artefacts are understood to ‘mean’. But skyscrapers are not merely symbols of modern organization, they are themselves forms of economic organizing and the second section of the paper notes the various ways in which the tall building, and the divisions of labour that enabled it, began by ‘making the land pay’ in cities with a burgeoning rental market for small firms. This shift involves partly displacing the architect and the corporation, and instead focussing on project organization and rental values. I conclude by suggesting that the term ‘organization’, because of its mutability, can provide a bridge between culturalist and economic representations.     

Theoretical properties of tests for spatial clustering of count data

Testing for spatial clustering of count data is an important problem in spatial data analysis. Several procedures have been proposed to this end but despite their extensive use, studies of their fundamental theoretical properties are almost non‐existent. The authors suggest two conditions that any reasonable test for spatial clustering should satisfy. The latter are based on the notion that the null hypothesis should be rejected almost surely as the amount of spatial clustering tends to infinity. The authors show that the chisquared test and the Potthoff—Whittinghill V have both properties but that other classical tests do not.     

Recent trends in marital disruption

The post-1980 decline in the crude divorce rate must be interpreted in the context of the long-term trend and in terms of what we know about composition effects on crude measures-particularly given shifts in age at marriage and the age composition effects of the baby boom. Data from the June 1985 Current Population Survey permit more detailed, exposure-specific measurements as well as the use of separation as the event terminating marriage. Estimates from these data suggest a decline followed by a recovery. Taking into account well-known levels of underreporting, we find that recent rates imply that about two-thirds of all first marriages are likely to end in separation or divorce. We examine the persistence of major differences in marital stability and evaluate the comparative stability of first and second marriages.     

Conversation with Herbert S. Strean

Dr. Herbert Strean has been a most influential practitioner and educator in the advancement of clinical social work. Not only has he made an outstanding contribution to our professional literature, but has also been a major critic of our profession's movement away from its therapeutic obligation to clients. Since its inception, he has been on the editorial board of this journal and a regular contributor. After a distinguished career as a professor at Rutgers University Graduate School of Social Work he has retired to direct the New York Center for Psychoanalytic Training. We are fortunate to have the first interview with him after his retirement from Rutgers.