Book reviews

Books reviewed:
Hall, Peter. Cities in civilization. Culture, innovation, and urban order
Gottdiener, M., Collins, Claudia C. and Dickens, David R. Las Vegas: the social production of an all-American city
Duncan, James and Gregory Derek (eds) Writes of passage: reading travel writing     

The Politics of Eminent Domain: From False Choices to Community Benefits

Large-scale urban redevelopment projects catalyze moments of peril and opportunity. In the wake of the United States Supreme Court's Kelo v. New London decision affirming economic development as a public use under the takings clause of the Constitution, these perils and opportunities have again become a site of major contestation. An unusual alliance of libertarian property-rights ideologues and civil-rights organizations has joined forces to challenge the use of eminent domain in urban economic development. In this article, I analyze the history of these alliances and their implicit reinforcement of deeply reactionary constructions of property. I conclude with an evaluation of two emergent models—community benefit agreements and community equity shares—that provide promising community tools for alternatives to homeowner rule and neoliberal urban renewal.     

Evidence for coelacanths in the Late Triassic (Rhaetian) of England

The right gular plate of an indeterminate coelacanth from the Westbury Formation (Upper Triassic, Rhaetian) of Blue Anchor Point, Somerset, southwest England is reported. This occurrence represents the first convincing evidence of coelacanths from the Triassic of the United Kingdom. The new specimen suggests a fish of approximately 0.61 m length.     

A geological model of London and the Thames Valley,southeast England

Many geological survey organisations have started delivering digital geological models as part of their role. This article describes the British Geological Survey (BGS) model for London and the Thames Valley in southeast England. The model covers 4800 km² and extends to several hundred metres depth. It includes extensive spreads of Quaternary river terraces and alluvium of the Thames drainage system resting on faulted and folded Palaeogene and Cretaceous bedrock strata. The model extends to the base of the Jurassic sedimentary rocks.     

《伦敦公约》正朝向《联合国海洋法公约》接轨

《伦敦公约》(下简称公约)是1972年在伦敦召开的政府间关于海上倾倒废物公约会议上通过的。该公约的问世,是鉴于到本世纪70年代初期,已认识到海洋环境净化人类工业活动废物的能力并不是无限的,海上倾倒作为处置废物的一种手段所带来的弊端,已逐渐引起国际社会的关注,在这种背景情况下召开的特别国际会议,终于通过一项防止海上倾倒造成海洋污染的多边公约。公约自1975年生效以来,已成功地对海上倾倒实施了管理,完善了控制海上倾倒体系,交流处置废物科学方法的信息等方面起到了积极作     

Edgar Hynes Thompson Centenary

A significant landmark for British and international photogrammetry, as well as for this journal, occurred in January 2010 with the centenary of the birth of E. H. Thompson. Soldier and academic, polymath and wit, his scholarly contribution to our discipline has endured long after his too early death in 1976. So too have the vivid memories of those who worked with him or who were taught by him. This centenary tribute has been written by an author, E. H. Thompson's first cousin once removed, who has researched the Thompson family genealogy. The second author was a student and then an academic colleague of Thompson as well as being Assistant Editor of this journal for 11 years under Thompson's editorship.     

The political topology of urban uprisings

This article examines the relationship between political uprising and megaproject-based global city reform in Paris and London. On the one hand, it considers the banlieue uprisings in Paris in November 2005 as an impetus for the Grand Paris renewal initiative launched in April 2007. This is compared with the large-scale reformations of space across London in advance of the 2012 Olympics as a contributing factor in the riots of August 2011. In both of these cases there is an integral though indirect link between urban planning and resistance. Engaging with Marxist political theory and critical urban geography, I argue that uprisings and global city developments relate in a mutually constitutive fashion. I also locate the suburbs, broadly defined, as an important site of contemporary political antagonism. I use the concept of “political topology” to suggest that global city pursuits present a new mode of uneven development that has not yet been adequately met in thought or practice. The two cases are thus used to open up to a more general analysis of twenty-first-century urban politics.     

A new exposure of Quaternary deposits at Poets’ Corner Yard,Westminster Abbey,Central London

Work prior to the construction of a tower for access to the triforium, Westminster Abbey, provided temporary exposures of Quaternary deposits. Two units were seen: the Shepperton Gravel Member, and overlying Poets’ Corner Sand (new name). Distinctive features of the Poets’ Corner Sand are described. The age of the base of the Poets’ Corner Sand by optical dating is 15 000?±?1000?years BP. The foundations of the Abbey are briefly described.     

The 2012 Olympic Learning Legacy Agenda – the intentionalities of mobility for a new London model

This paper investigates the emergence of a Learning Legacy Agenda (LLA) in the wake of the London 2012 Olympic Games as a governmental tool for the dissemination of urban development and infrastructure project delivery best practice. Focusing on the inception, coordination and implementation of the LLA we outline the intentionalities of mobility that underpin its formation and appropriation and suggest how this points to the emergence of a new “London model” of development and governance. Three intentionalities of knowledge capture, public duty and extra-local salience are unpacked to demonstrate the range of ways in which the bureaucratically initiated LLA banner has been used by various development actors and organisations to validate their existing practices. The case study of the LLA as an institutionalised governance apparatus is used to analyse the impact of specific forms of social relations on the ways in which “models” are produced, what their content consists of, how dominant agendas and narratives co-evolve with the priorities of an assemblage of actors and the processes of selective abstraction used to curate particular messages and forms of fixed and potentially mobile knowledge, yet dubious claims of “learning”.     

Fourierism, colonization and discourses of associative emigration

Drawing upon recent discussions in geography, this paper examines the discourses of emigration and colonization put forward by members of the British Fourierist movement. Through a close reading of the Fourierist newspaper, The London Phalanx , this paper explores how a set of ideas that are at face value a failure, when placed in context allow an understanding of nineteenth-century colonial projects.