Racial Segregation in the (Post) Colonial City: The Case of Indonesia1

Urban society in colonial and early postcolonial Indonesia was stratified along ethnic and class lines. This stratification was given concrete shape in the urban residential landscape. Our article starts from the working hypothesis that under the impact of decolonization the changing social status system was reflected in a changing residential pattern. We offer empirical evidence to weigh the relative validity of the from-race-to-class-segregation thesis during colonization against the class-segregation-throughout-decolonization thesis. On the basis of our findings, we argue that the second thesis presents the more accurate depiction of urban society. Looking at spatial segregation, decolonization was characterized by continuity. Decolonization by itself was therefore insufficient to alter sociospatial inequality in postcolonial Indonesian cities.     

Salinity in Colonial Irrigation: British India and south-eastern Australia

Salinity is an environmental phenomenon that affects the world's arid and semi-arid regions, where it causes soil degradation and problems for agriculture. Salinity began to attract serious attention in the irrigated districts of the Murray Valley in south-eastern Australia in the 1960s. However, observations that the south-eastern Australian landscape was affected by naturally occurring salts predates this period of awareness by more than half a century. Drawing on documentary history, the present paper reveals what soil chemists in New South Wales in the 1890s already understood of the potential dangers of salinity. These scientists were aware of the experience of their colonial colleagues in British India, where the seriousness of the problem had been recognised by the 1870s. Using evidence from India and south-eastern Australia in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, the paper outlines the opposing worldviews of scientists and engineers in New South Wales about the potential dangers of intensive irrigation. It offers an explanation as to why that understanding was insufficient to prevent the growth of the problem.     

Housing Policy for the Colonial City: The British and Dutch Experience Compared, 1901-19491

A comparison of the British and Dutch experience in the 20th century makes it possible to deepen our understanding of colonial urban housing policy, and hence of the colonial city in general. Both colonial powers expressed new concern about urban living conditions at the time when they began to promote colonial development. In the British case this began in the 1930s, largely in response to local unrest and partly because of international pressure. By the 1950s, British colonial governments used housing programs to placate nationalists and to help prepare colonial societies for self-rule. The Dutch undertook similar initiatives earlier, after 1901, by forming municipal governments, improving services in autonomous native settlements, and by bringing these kampongs under municipal control. Their initiatives were more a response to domestic considerations than to colonial unrest. The Dutch incurred expenditures beyond what Indonesians could afford, but were less active than the British in house-building. Their efforts flagged as nationalist sentiment grew. Neither colonial power responded directly to poor urban conditions. Although the colonial city might have existed, it did not shape colonial urban policy in a predictable way.     

西安地区湿地的历史与现状

在自然和人为因素影响下,西安地区湿地系统结构和功能发生明显的退化趋势,湿地面积缩小、调节功能减弱。基于西安湿地历史及现状的论述分析,水陆界面的脆弱性是湿地退化的环境背景条件,而气候干旱化、水利工程设施建设、城市拓展中土地资源的不合理开发利用及环境污染等自然、人为因素的耦合作用,加速了湿地的退化过程。据此,提出保护西安湿地要从搞好国土规划、制定湿地保护法、加快湿地资源研究、加强湿地保护区管理、开展生态恢复工程及提高全民保护意识等方面入手。     

海南桉树现状与发展趋势

<正> 桉树,原产大洋洲和印度尼西亚及其附近岛屿,其纯种、变种及天然杂交种多达945种,为高大乔木,速生丰产,生产周期短。目前,在世界90多个国家和地区广泛栽种,占世界人工林的三分之一。