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an ongoing process, but few communities prepare in advancefor tourism; instead, they wait until a specific project is cho-sen and try to adopt later. A large number of communitiesaround the world encourage tourism development becausethey see prosperity in this quickest growing industry of theworld; very few ask whether the new development will con-tribute to civic communities that make for quality places andpeople.

In conclusion one can say that the bookRiches andRegrets: Betting on Gambling in two Colorado MountainTownsby Patricia A. Stokowski, an outstanding professionaland teacher at Texas A&M University, should be a mustreading for planners, policy makers, gaming professionals,students and anyone considering using gaming as an eco-nomic development tool. But not only in the United States,in Europe as well. The casino towns of Seefeld in the Aus-trian Alps and Kranjska Gora in the Slovenian Alps canserve as an example as well. But there will soon be severalmore in Eastern Europe. Judging from the gaming develop-ments in Central City and Black Hawk one can conclude,that gaming tourism development affects life and culturallandscape in rural and mountainous areas to a large extent.Communities working on similar tourism projects should notrepeat their mistakes and should be informed about the stepsrequired for coherent and sensitive community tourism plan-ning. There is enough literature on the market, the discussedbook being one of the best.

Anton F. Gosar,Department of Geography,University of Ljubljana,Aškerceva cesta02,SI-1001 Ljubljana,Slovenia

North Sea Ports in Transition: changing tides.T. Kreukelsand E. Wever (eds), Van Gorkum, Assen 1999, 156 pp.,Hfl 42,50, ISBN 90 232 3415 4.

This small book provides a very interesting contempo-rary overview of the seaports around the North Sea. Thefact that this region includes the largest ports in Europe andone of the largest assemblages of marine terminals in theworld makes it of particular significance. The book com-prises a collection of papers presented at a symposium onNorth Sea Ports at the 1996 Conference of the InternationalGeographical Union held in the Netherlands.

Inevitably in an edition comprising collected papers thereis an unevenness in content, approach, style and com-pleteness of citations. However, the book is held togetherremarkably well because of a number of factors. There is avery strong introductory chapter by the editors. Kreukels andWever have put together a 30 page overview of the situationamong the ports, and they discuss the main factors shapingcompetition. From local conditions such as infrastructure,through global tendencies such as shipping alliances, to pol-icy developments in Europe, they cover the field in a very

comprehensive fashion. They also make reference to thework of the other contributors, thereby providing a usefuldegree of integration. Although the succeeding chapters arevery distinct and different, interest is maintained becausethey are written by experts. For Antwerp and Rotterdam, theauthors are port officials. They provide a degree of imme-diacy and first hand experience of particular challenges andresponses that is refreshing. While the ports of Hamburg, LeHavre and Felixstowe are covered by academic authors, theirapproaches are quite different, more conceptual in the caseof Le Havre (Baudoin and Collin), more a narrative in thecase of Felixstowe (Baird) and Hamburg (Lapple).

F. Suykens, the doyen of European port management,provides an overview of European port policy, and takesthe reader through some of the complexities of recent di-rectives and reports. This is followed by a stimulating paperby Schrey, President of the port of Frankfurt, who looks atthe inland movement of containers from the North Sea ports,and discusses the opportunities for further development ofrail and barge connections, including those of his own port.

Despite the individual coverage and different ap-proaches, several themes are repeated. Concern about facil-ities and infrastructures are universal. The need to expandsites and develop (or redevelop) existing facilities appearedin every paper. Clearly, ports have to equip themselvesto compete. The question of duplication and over-capacitywas largely ignored however. Hinterland access is a sec-ond theme, in which the problems of road congestion andthe need to exploit other transport systems are stressed indifferent ways. Institutional relationships are mentioned byseveral authors, and there was an opportunity by reading thechapters to compare how different regimes, private, munic-ipal, region and state, shape development. The role of theports in logistical chains is a further theme developed in allthe papers, and several interesting divergencies are noted.

One theme that is mentioned frequently but less well de-veloped is that of the environment. While port expansionis seen as a universal problem, the enviromnental conse-quences are treated unevenly and the issue of sustainabiltyis dealt with to any degree only by Blomme (Antwerp) andSchrey (Inland). The focus of the book is clearly on con-tainerisation. Bulk, neo-bulk, break-bulk and RORO cargoesare largely ignored once the authors finish reviewing overalltraffic patterns.

There are many interesting ideas presented in the book,and I found myself making notes for further thought. The no-tion of the port as economic capital rather than social capital;ports as centres of high value-added activity or as distribu-tion centres to other nodes of high value added services; thespatial distribution of port-dependent logistics (which in thecase of Hamburg are outside the city); the advantages of aprivate port; what is meant by sustainable transportation.

The weakest section of the book is the Epilogue. Sup-posedly identifying a possible research agenda, some of thetopics are somewhat bizarre: whether Russian-built inlandships will promote inland traffic? Furthermore, the answersto these questions are frequently provided.

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A further weakness of the book is careless copy editing.There are many typographical errors and at least two para-graphs are repeated (p. 67 and 923). Figure 5.1 is incorrectlycaptioned. Given that English is the first language of onlyone of the authors, the over-all standard of expression isgood, with the exception of Chapter 5, which could havebeen greatly improved by a closer attention to the translation.

These criticisms apart, the book is an extremely usefulreview of port developments in one of the key areas of mar-itime trade in the world. Its brevity will make it accessible

to urban planners and policy makers in Europe as an excel-lent survey of the challenges being faced by ports and theirregions. For students of the maritime industry it providesuseful case studies and a further indication that while eachmajor port is unique to a certain degree, the problems andchallenges they face are comparable.

Brian SlackDepartment of Geography, Concordia University,Montreal, Canada