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Oxford Street is one of the best‐known shopping streets in the world, but it suffers from serious problems. Investors are cautious about it; many of the buildings are of poor physical quality, and new developments pose technical difficulties. Russell Schiller offers several solutions to these problems. Oxford Street could be better managed, as are some of our better quality covered shopping centres. But in itself this would not be sufficient: what is also needed is a courageous decision to reduce traffic and introduce more pedestrianisation. Another possibility is to increase the physical depth of Oxford Street. This article is based on a talk given by Russell Schiller at a conference in September on the future of Oxford Street, organised by Westminster City Council.

The evidence is confused, but it looks as if shop numbers in the UK may be rising, according to our contributors. There are interesting implications if this is so; fringe areas round town centres may not be declining, and there may be growing variety in our high streets.

British town centres are suffering from the growing trend towards out‐of‐town retailing. The Continental model for the future of town centres appears attractive, but there are problems. National durable multiples face a locational dilemma – they have a commitment to town centres but wish to follow the market out of town if that is necessary. The result is that many run both town centre and out‐of‐town operations in parallel. The three waves of retail decentralization – food, bulky goods and comparison goods‐have varying effects on different sizes of centre. Larger durable‐based town centres are likely to suffer slow attrition, but some food‐anchored district centres could suffer from new, smaller, out‐of‐town supermarkets. There is a growing amount of leisure‐based shopping which could work to the advantage of some small market towns. The tide of out‐of‐town retailing is running so strongly that the new tighter government policy is unlikely to stop it completely. Many town centres could contract commercially, but they could continue to prosper by encouraging housing and services.

Before we consider the subject matter of this paper we should briefly remind ourselves as to what investment is! Basically, this involves a sacrifice of something now for the prospect of a future gain. This will inevitably cause the individual or company to give up the purchase of goods or services today in order to achieve greater consumption in the future, despite the uncertainty of the return of the investment made.

Marks & Spencer's decision to go out of town is one of the most significant in the retail sector in recent years, but so far little research has been done into its implications. In July 1987 Marks were granted planning permission to put up a shopping complex at Sprucefield, on the southern edge of the Belfast conurbation, and trading will probably start in December 1988. A survey into this development, of both retailers and consumers, was carried out by the Department of Marketing at the University of Ulster. The favourable views of shoppers were perhaps not all that surprising — but the support of retailers is contrary to received wisdom.

Predicting the future is a risky business, and in retailing in particular it is especially hazardous. Which may be the reason why only one or two of the speakers at the Financial Times conference, “Retailing to 1996”, actually dared to prophesy. Nonetheless the two‐day conference, held in London in May, was valuable in that it put forward some useful analyses of current trends in retailing. The range of themes tackled was comprehensive; it included the changing consumer, the two‐nations syndrome, multi‐niche formulae, the specialists versus generalists debate, the emergence of the cellular household, out‐of‐town developments — and the retailer as entertainer! The 150 delegates comprised a wide range of interests — retailers, market analysts, technologists and property developers — and included our contributor, Michael Poynor.

The means to quantify the inputs to be used by a valuation surveyor in an explicit model for appraising contaminated land are explored. These relate to treatment techniques and cost estimates; and forecasting techniques and the forecasting of future rent and capital flows, cost changes and depreciation. A comparison is made with a “traditional” valuation approach. It is concluded that an explicit approach is more likely to satisfy the calls for more sophisticated and creditable approaches and more explanation and justification in appraisals and valuations.

As physical evidence, servicescapes play a crucial role in tangibilizing service value. Since value creation and consumption are inseparable in many services, servicescapes also contribute significantly to consumer experiences. By reviewing the role of design factors on the physical and psychological safety of customers, particularly in different service contexts based on social factors, this paper aims to provide insights into how servicescape frameworks may be re-examined from a safety perspective.

Based on a critical review of studies in multidisciplinary domains, including environmental psychology, community medicine, architecture and engineering, this paper proposes a conceptual model anchored in stimulus–organization–response (S-O-R) theory and presents related propositions for safer servicescape designs.

The study reveals the need for re-evaluating current servicescape design frameworks by incorporating the concept of servicescape safety, discusses the significance of various interior factors and presents the moderating effects of social factors and service types on perceived safety.

With no robust models currently available to evaluate the impact of servicescape designs on users' physical and psychological safety, this paper provides guidelines based on a multidisciplinary review of studies. A healthy and safe servicescape requires interdisciplinary investigations, the results of which will reshape future design approaches.

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

This paper aims to provide a research guide with recent resources in a variety of formats covering issues related to Haitian Americans and Haitian migration to the USA.

Local and union online catalogs, electronic indexes, bibliographies, and the worldwide web were searched to identify relevant items. Items were annotated after personal examination of the material, or after consultation of published reviews and abstracts.

The literature covering this population group is dominated by research from scholars addressing social identity, health issues, religious practices, and the socio‐economic and political determinants of migration.

No previous print bibliography has been limited in scope to Haitians in the USA. The few bibliographies that do address this population group are dated and do not reference recent literature. Furthermore, none of the previously published bibliographies consulted by the compiler include references to audio‐visual materials and web sites.