Book Reviews 181

TONY NEWSON, Homing Policy - An International Bibliography. Manse11 Publishing Ltd, 1986, 398 pp.

No one can claim that a bibliography makes sensational bed-time reading; but such books can be vital research tools and important holdings for libraries and reference collections. The author is to be commended in not trying the impossible - that is, a bibliography which attempts to cover all the housing literature, everywhere, covering every aspect of housing design, construction, management, finance, policy, etc., etc. The stated aims of the book are to select the most important and influential works on housing policy published in this century with the provisos that the work must have appeared in English, to have been published, to be reasonably accessible and to make some important contribution to its topic. Approximately half of the references are to British housing policy (which is covered up to April 1985) and for the remainder dealing with “overseas” housing, the references cover up to December 1984.

The entries are not annotated or evaluated in any way. However, research on specific topics will be facilitated by the breakdown of the vast subject of housing policy into 25 chapters, starting with the inevitable “Housing Policy: General Works” but going on to include topics such as “Construction and Energy Conservation”, “Alternative Tenures”, “Race and Housing”, “New Communities”, “Second Homes” and “Statistics”.

DONALD N. ROTHBLATT and DANIEL J. GARR, Suburbia - An Znter- national Assessment. Croom Helm Ltd, 1986, 318 pp.

The authors of this study are both of the Urban and Regional Planning Department at San Jose State University in California and base their findings on work in, and literature from the USA, Israel and the Netherlands. The very detailed research findings are presented through the use of extensive tables, many figures, seven appendices and copious footnotes - all reproduced in a rather unpleasant typewriter/computer style of print.

The lessons for planners, many of whom are still anti-suburbia despite the work of Gans and others which has been in circulation since the 196Os, continue to emphasize the basic satisfaction of many suburban residents with their environment. Within this general overall satisfaction, the authors do point out that:

“Creating small towns within suburban . . . may fill the need of many people for a sense of community and identity. “While the traditional suburbs were dominated by nuclear families . . . con- temporary suburbia attracts smaller households of single adults, divorced parents, childless couples, senior citizens and many other groups that characterise the heterogeneity of urban areas. “ . . . combined high and low density housing should be encouraged in suburban areas, and public transportation should be expanded . . . to facilitate equal opportunities for women and non-traditional suburban residents, and to accommodate the social changes related to this process.”

STEPHEN L.J. SMITH, Recreation Geography. Longman Group Ltd, 1983, 220 pp.

This volume, now out in paperback, is part of a series entitled “Themes in Resource Management”. The series aims to provide introductions to key areas in resource management for students and teachers and to emphasise the practical tasks of resource management as an applied discipline. This particular contribution to the series covers the

182 Book Reviews

range of research activity in recreation geography, including descriptive, explanatory, predictive and normative research on both location and travel. The fullest weight is on the means of research with a subsidiary interest in creating a working definition of the field of recreation geography. Examples are taken from all over the world, from developed and less developed regions.

As befits what is primarily a textbook and guide to existing research, there are useful suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter and almost 20 pages of references at the end of the volume. One nice touch is the author’s final words, a blessing as it were for the next generation of resource planners:

“Those who enter the field in the next few years will have an opportunity few other people can share. They will be defining and nurturing a new intellectual creation, a new discipline. The challenges, difficulties, and frustration that come with that opportunity are great , .”

RAY HUDSON and JIM LEWIS (eds.), Uneven Development in Southern Europe. Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1985, 398 pp.

This book is a selection of papers prepared for a conference on “National and Regional Development in the Mediterranean Basin”, held in St Aidan’s College, University of Durham, in April 1982. The editors selected 13 papers from the total of 40 which were presented at the conference, with the selection covering Italy (three papers); Turkey, Spain and France (two papers each); and one paper each on Greece and Portugal.

The approach followed in each chapter is that a “theoretically informed case study” within a common framework set by political economy. Whilst dealing with issues specific to each country or region, the contributors incorporate consideration of the effects of labour migration on regional and local economies, the analysis of socio-economic changes in specific areas and the relationships between the resultant uneven develop- ment and political legitimacy. Perhaps predictably, in the chapters on Turkey, migration is of prime importance as is regional development in Greece and Portugal. Less predictable is the essay on southern Italy which discusses “restructuring in Fiat”.

It is unclear who this book is intended to interest and inform. Some of the chapters are rather simple for the specialist and others quite technical for the generalists. The documentation is not sufficiently consistent or detailed to make the collection a sound introductory volume for students, although the bibliography could be useful for those with a command of six or seven languages and access to excellent information facilities.

PETER E. MURPHY, Tourism - A Community Approach. Methuen Inc., 1985, 200 pp.

The author’s aim is to present a way of planning for tourism which integrates the requirements and needs of the tourist industry into the overall community planning process. He deals with tourism in the industrial nations of North America and Western Europe and approaches tourist planning from the viewpoint of the destination areas. The book is divided into five sections “Tourism and its Significance”, “The Environment and Accessibility”, “Economics and Business”, “Society and Culture” and “Planning and Management”. Within these sections, the topics covered are quite predictable, including amongst others, the growth of tourism, carrying capacity, the multiplier concept, economic leakages, cultural impacts, concentration and dispersal et al.

The advocacy of an ecological and systems approach to tourist planning - one involving the destination community - leads to the restating of sound principles and objectives for tourist planning. The conclusion of the book is unlikely to be disputed by objective professionals involved in the tourist industry: