REJECTING VIOLENCE ON THE LANDSCAPE IN LAWRENCE,KANSAS*

ABSTRACT. Lawrence, Kansas, survived a tumultuous beginning. The young town endured attacks twice, in 1856 and 1863. The second raid, by the guerrilla William Quantrill's troop of more than 400 men, resulted in the deaths of 143 citizens. Lawrence serves as an example of how Americans memorialize unconventional warfare, targeted at citizens, in a material and permanent fashion on the landscape. Small and obscurely placed memorials fill the town, to the point that they have become ordinary. The memorialized landscapes of these tragedies thus display ambivalence toward the past and symbolically reject the loss of lives despite this era's high position in the literature and archival history of the town. Additionally, Lawrence has found alternative sources for its historical identity that do not reflect these tragedies but instead celebrate the city's pioneer establishment. In this article I use a set of methods for reading the memorialized landscape that includes archival and landscape analysis and uncovers the processes that have led to this town's understated and ambivalent memorialization and identity.     

RESURGENT MEXICAN PHOENIX*

ABSTRACT. Popular impressions of Phoenix, Arizona perpetuate the notion that this metropolitan area is an overwhelmingly Anglo place. We challenge this assertion and demonstrate that the city has substantial Mexican roots and is presently being shaped by a vibrant, resurgent Mexican population. Employing historical records, surveys, and landscape data, we articulate the Mexican character of early Phoenix and highlight how the revival of Mexican Phoenix has transformed the urban landscape. We then relate how Phoenix's Mexican population is a more nuanced regional subculture formed through both historical and contemporary connections with specific Mexican states. We conclude with a call for greater understanding of the internal heterogeneity of Mexicans in the United States and how this can inform our geographical interpretations of the growing Latinization of American cities.     

AMERICAN NATIONAL IDENTITY AND THE PROGRESS OF THE NEW SOUTH IN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE*

ABSTRACT. This article examines how National Geographic Magazine's coverage of the U.S. South contributed to the production of an exalted American national identity. The framework of internal orientalism is employed to explain the role of the South as an internal other in the national discourse and to show how even positive representations of the South are often implicated in this othering. In the pages of National Geographic, the New South's progress is measured by the steps it takes away from the Old South. In highlighting the improvements made within the South, the articles provide subtle hints that the legacy of segregation, intolerance, racism, and poverty continues to haunt the region. The articles set up a spatial distinction that construes these evils as inherently southern problems, which implies that however far the New South moves away from the problematic legacy of the Old South, it will never quite reach the American ideal.     

HIGH-RISE HOMES FOR THE ANCESTORS: CREMATION IN HONG KONG*

ABSTRACT. A massive, voluntary shift to cremation has taken place in Hong Kong over the past forty years. The provision of facilities by the colonial government and private organizations began with niche walls in existing cemeteries. These were soon supplemented by sizable buildings known as columbaria. The largest and most recent columbarium, completed in 1996, provides 49,884 niches, each of which can hold at least two sets of ashes. Designing columbaria that are functional, sensitive, and culturally specific provides a fascinating challenge to architects. This article contrasts the conservative response of the public sector with the more expressive solutions of private providers.     

MESSAGE IN THE PLAZA: LANDSCAPE,LANDSCAPING, AND FOREST DISCOURSE IN HONDURAS*

ABSTRACT. As visible, material expression of human activities and goals, the landscape communicates as well as reflects. Specific landscapes communicate specific messages within the public sphere of which they are a part. In Honduras, many plaza landscapes have seen recent changes in form and in what they communicate. Once open, treeless spaces, many Honduran plazas are now filled with trees. These trees often support signs announcing the virtues of forests, linking the trees themselves to the official discourse on forest issues and illuminating the role of public‐space landscapes in influencing public perception. This article points out the links between such iconographic landscapes and the complex, multitiered environmental issues that are part of environmental conditions and their perception by local actors.     

TREE INVASION IN MEADOWS OF LASSEN VOLCANIC NATIONAL PARK,CALIFORNIA*

The causes of tree invasion into meadows in Lassen Volcanic National Park were investigated by dating invasive trees and associating age structure patterns with regional variations in fire history, grazing, and climate change. Massive invasion was associated primarily with cessation of livestock grazing and burning between 1905 and 1933, but climatic change may also have contributed. Maintenance of meadows may require continued use of unnatural processes due to uncertainties about pre-European fire regimes and other resource considerations.     

THE U.S. MILITARY AS GEOGRAPHICAL AGENT: THE CASE OF COLD WAR ALASKA*

ABSTRACT. Alaska was strategically key to the U.S. defense plan during the cold war (1946–1989). As such, it was the scene of an enormous and sustained military investment, the effect of which was amplified by Alaska's undiversified economy, sparse development, small resident population, and marginalized political status at the beginning of the era. The strong military presence affected Alaskan demographics, economic development, and infrastructure and figured prominently in the admission of Alaska to the union in 1959. The high profile and long‐term presence of the U.S. military had such a dramatic affect on the course of Alaska that the result was tantamount to a “militarized landscape.”     

NARRATIVES IN CITY LANDSCAPES: CULTURAL IDENTITY IN ISTANBUL*

ABSTRACT. Since the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, when the Turkish nation was defined as ethnically Turkish and Muslim, the issue of ethnic minorities has been at the root of a deep insecurity concerning cultural identity and what it means to be Turkish. The movement to “recover” ethnic minority in history and in place is most visible in Istanbul, the city identified as the location of European culture in Turkey and Turkey's most culturally pluralistic city. The movement has gained pace since the formal acceptance of Turkey as a candidate for membership in the European Union and the push for reforms in human rights. It is promoted by a very small cultural and economic elite and works together with gentrification to produce elite spaces in the city, as exemplified by two neighborhoods: Kuzguncuk, a historic minority neighborhood on the Asian shore of the Bosporus; and “French Street,” a new commercial development in Beyoǧlu, on the European side of the city west of the Bosporus. These landscapes articulate a European, cosmopolitan, and multicultural place identity for Istanbul and reflect a particular notion of Turkey as modern and European, providing insight into the contemporary debate in Turkey concerning the tensions embedded at the core of Turkish cultural identity.     

THE GRAVESTONE INDEX: TRACKING PERSONAL RELIGIOSITY ACROSS NATIONS,REGIONS, AND PERIODS*

ABSTRACT. Given shortcomings in traditional methods of gauging levels of religious sentiment in national or local communities—affiliation with a congregation, church attendance, responses to opinion polls—this exploratory article proposes a novel, arguably more sensitive measure of personal religiosity, the Gravestone Index; that is, the incidence of religious symbols, iconography, or text on permanent memorials. Its application to 58,490 grave markers observed in 111 community, or nondenominational, cemeteries in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain yielded substantial findings, some expected but others violently at odds with the conventional wisdom. Seemingly reflecting the secularization of society, the Gravestone Index declines throughout the early twentieth century but, contrariwise, has rebounded strongly since the 1960s, indicating some sort of ongoing religious revival in all three lands. However, it fails to show any of the anticipated regional variation within the United States, notably that between South and non‐South. Even more surprisingly, it records a level of British and Canadian religiosity persistently far above the U.S. value.     

THE NON‐PENNSYLVANIA TOWN: DIFFUSION OF URBAN PLAN FORMS IN THE AMERICAN WEST*

ABSTRACT. Wilbur Zelinsky's classic 1977 account of the Pennsylvania town as a cultural place type–the urban component of the nationally influential Pennsylvanian culture region–acknowledged that it was not exported intact across the successive western frontiers of the United States. But, aside from Edward Price's specialized study of courthouse squares, we know little that is systematic about how town‐planning ideas diffused across the continent. This investigation offers evidence from the Willamette Valley in Oregon of the eventual variety and geographical distribution of town‐platting conventions that developed in this Pacific Coast “destination’ setting and the possible provenance in the Ohio Valley of certain early Oregonian town‐plan features. The evidence raises questions about the resilience of town‐planning conventions in light of the distance carried, cultural time lags, and changing ideas about best practice and local suitability.     

INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE AND PLACE IDENTITY IN SPAIN: FROM MONUMENTS TO LANDSCAPES*

In Spain, the birth of interest in the nation's industrial heritage dates from the 1980s and occurred alongside the process of deindustrialization. Policies concerning derelict industrial sites have shifted gradually from destruction to preservation, rehabilitation, and enhancement, and industrial heritage enhancement projects are now widespread in the country. However, a clear mismatching has arisen between institutional and academic initiatives and local communities, which exhibit widespread disinterest in or even rejection of industrial remains. This problematic situation can be related to the utilization of industrial heritage as an economic resource without paying much attention to its connections with memory and identity. Also, the mismatching is due to a positivist approach to industrial heritage whereby the monument and the museum are prioritized. We argue that projects which consider industrial remains as part of cultural landscapes might shorten the gap between the institutional and economic side of industrial heritage and its identity‐building and popular facets.     

CHIRICAHUA APACHE HOMELAND IN THE BORDERLAND SOUTHWEST*

The creation of the present United States‐Mexico boundary in the mid‐nineteenth century interrupted and disregarded the traditional territorial space of the Chiricahua Apache, whose ancestral homeland transcended this new line. As a result of their land claims, the United States created a reservation for the Chiricahua Apache, but it was later withdrawn. Today members of this group officially reside among Mescalero Apache in New Mexico and Fort Sill Apache in Oklahoma. This essay assesses the historic and contemporary impact of geographical borderland changes for the Chiricahua Apache and discusses the legacy of a transformed homeland.     

COLORADO FOURTEENERS AND THE NATURE OF PLACE IDENTITY*

ABSTRACT. The fifty‐four Colorado Fourteeners–mountains more than 14,000 feet in elevation–were early symbols of westward expansion, mineral wealth, and wondrous scenery, and they are increasingly popular as environmental icons in place attachment at national, regional, state, and local scales. The symbolism of this contrived yet iconic collection of peaks is examined through the evolution of the Fourteener concept, the popularity of peakbagging, and the role of the Sawatch Range Fourteeners in creating a larger community identity. Elevation is the gatekeeper into the Fourteener club, in which a distinctive landscape iconography of shape, accessibility, and aesthetics reflects the role of idealized nature and mountains in place identity.     

BRINCK JACKSON IN THE REALM OF THE EVERYDAY*

ABSTRACT. Academic geography is dotted with fly-specks from the fashion conscious who have skittered from one enthusiasm to another like aggravating bugs in midroom flight. Our disciplinary history in fact abounds in dead-end roads entered at fatally high speed, theoretical turns not negotiated, crossroads oracles proved dismally inaccurate. By contrast, the formidable cultural geographer and landscape historian J. B. “Brinck” Jackson (1909–1996) conceived of a more slowly developing world, replete with enduring geographies. Although firmly Brahmin by origin, Jackson was chary of the fleeting fashions and power tropes of what he sometimes dubbed the Establishment. He was inclined instead to attend to the structures of the everyday, emphasizing community and connection over didactic fashion. With writing grounded in daily experience and a consummate ability to witness pattern, he urged geographers to think and envision.     

MUSLIMS,HINDUS, AND SIKHS IN THE NEW RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE OF ENGLAND*

ABSTRACT. This article examines the dramatic changes brought to English townscapes by Islam, Hinduism, and Sikhism. These “new” religions have arrived with the large‐scale immigration and subsequent natural growth of the minority ethnic populations of Great Britain since the 1950s. The article traces the growth and distribution of these populations and religions, as well as the development of their places of worship from front‐room prayer rooms to cathedral‐scale buildings. It explores the way in which the British planning process, dedicated to preserving the traditional, has engaged with the exotic.     

REVISITING THE AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCE: TRANSMILLENNIAL CONJURINGS*

ABSTRACT. Ever anxious about real and apparent “identity” crises, Australians have in recent years been increasingly better served by interdisciplinary academic writings. A common theme is the clarification and resolution of recurrent national uncertainty. Others, intimately related, include the divide between indigenous and imported conceptualizations, especially notions of sacredness, together with broadly targeted historical interpretations of environmentalism, environmental management, and violent social clashes on settlement frontiers. Although these academic writings represent welcome additions to civic scholarship, they are also variously influenced, and their purchase on the public imagination limited, by the effects of current intellectual trends. While it might be expected that fictional exemplars would address place‐making and place‐securing in rather more comfortable fashion, they have not been immune to similar destabilizations. Nonetheless, one intriguing, problematical work makes a useful civic point in dealing creatively with Australia's epidemic of premillennial doubt.     

THE TEMPORAL STABILITY OF PERCEIVED* NEIGHBORHOOD AREAS IN GLASGOW

Lack of knowledge on the temporal stability of subjectively defined local areas represents a fundamental obstacle to the use of such areas as spatial frameworks for urban government and management. This paper presents the findings of a longitudinal empirical analysis of perceived local area boundaries in Glasgow. The level of temporal integrity displayed in the study area suggests that the application of popularly defined local areas merits rigorous investigation in other cities.     

EXPRESSING “LOCAL CULTURE” IN HAWAI'I*

ABSTRACT. Detached from the mainland and with a distinct historical ethnic geography, the conquered kingdom of Hawai'i, now the fiftieth state, is the only U.S. state with an Asian and Pacific Islander majority as well as the highest percentage of racial and ethnic intermarriage. Hawai'i's population reflects the tensions between the culturally pluralistic “spirit of aloha” and the ethnic‐cum‐social stratification that has evolved from its historical economic geographies. In this article I focus on one of these strata—what is referred to as “local” culture—discussing its ethnogenesis and contemporary manifestations, and I apply Jonathan Okamura's 1981 model of situational ethnicity to examine how locals and new immigrants negotiate the ethnic dynamics and social expectations of their daily lives. I also discuss various ways in which “localness” is represented on O'ahu's economic landscape, with an analysis of the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet, as a holistic expression of local culture.     

COUNTERURBANIZATION IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY*

Since Berry argued in 1976 that counterurbanization had replaced urbanization in the U.S., a debate has ensued as to whether the phenomenon also exists in Western Europe. Proponents of a developmental theory of counterurbanization contend that the phenomenon should be evident in countries which have achieved a very high level of socioeconomic development, including the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). Most of the German and English language literature on the topic suggests the contrary for the FRG. Here urbanization and counterurbanization are restricted to specific geographic meanings, i.e., spatial agglomeration and deglomeration. Results from four interrelated tests show a trend toward counterurbanization evident as early as the 1960s in the post-war regional demographic data of the FRG.