Community opposition is an increasingly common response to the siting of controversial human service facilities. This paper explores the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) syndrome by presenting an analysis of the first national survey of attitudes toward controversial human services conducted in the United Scares. The analysis focuses on the volatility and synergy of attitude change, the degree of regionalization of rejecting and accepting attitudes, the differences between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan responses, and the perceived exclusionary nature of suburban respondents. The results indicate that the dynamics of community opposition consist of client, community, and facility variations significantly influenced by regional context and the spatial location of respondents.

This paper is a review of books published in 1988 and likely to be of interest to readers of this journal.

This paper is a review of books published in 1986 and likely to be of interest to readers of Environment and Planning D. Once again, the usual mixture of the theoretical and the empirical, the transcendental and the whimsical, is discovered and described.

"At last you can be comfortable while revolting in style. Baggy black levi 501's worn with waxed Dr, Marten shoes or black Clarks desert boots form the classic new look: sensible, practical and relatively inexpensive. National chain stores provide the basics, but markets allow you to accessorise cheaply. Finally, to be left is to be hip. Soviet badges, worn as much for the effect of red and black as for any political principle, are a must on the right arm of your buffalo bomber jacket. Slip the jacket on over the most stylish T-shirts of the moment (probably from the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign and Anti-Apartheid Enterprises). Confident political expression goes best with stylish accessories like subtle silver watches with metallic wrist-bands, American badges (safe sex safety pins will do the trick), rubberised rucksacks and cycle paraphernalia. Baseball caps (red cotton and black leather) and metal braces complete the East meets West look" Consumer Choice section advertisment, Marxism Today, June 1987, page 45.

This is the first part of a two-part investigation of the utility of structuration theory in empirical analysis of the urban built environment. An exegesis of Giddens's structuration theory is presented (section 2), and its geographical applications are assessed (section 3). A reworking of the structuration model is subsequently developed (section 4), and the difficulties of applying it to empirical problems are discussed (section 5). Finally, in section 6, a model for analyzing the structuration of urban space is proposed. This model is subsequently employed in a companion paper.

Postmodernism seems able to embrace any discourse on style, architecture, literature, with equal facility. Yet its erratic and chameleon-like form renders it susceptible to quick dismissal. In this essay, I attempt a tolerant assessment of the meaning of postmodernism as it applies to planning. The notions of postmodernism as style, as method, and as epoch are examined. The history of planning from 1945 to 1985 is deconstructed, and reveals the pastiche of ‘postmodern planning’. A metalanguage for discourse on a reconstructed planning theory suggests three evaluative dimensions: function–context; commodification–noncommodification; and penetration–participation.

This is the annual review of books appearing in 1985 and likely to be of interest to readers of Society and Space. The areas of work covered are, by and large, the same as last year.

This paper is the second in a two-part investigation into the utility of structuration theory in urban analysis. The focus here is on an application of the theory to analyze the “ghettoization” of ex-psychiatric patients in the City of Hamilton. First, methodologies are developed for institutional analysis and for the analysis of strategic conduct, utilizing the concept of bracketing. Secondly, a structuration analysis is undertaken of the ex-patient ghetto. This requires an institutional analysis of the deinstitutionalization policy and of the process of ghettoization, and a focus on strategic conduct to explain local outcomes in the built environment. The empirical application of structuration theory provided methodological and practical insights, as well as requiring a substantial development of some theoretical constructs. We are satisfied that structuration theory has sufficient merit for empirical work to warrant continued development and assessment.