4647

41

Golden Gate Bridge, which opened in 1937 – a beautiful suspension bridge over the Golden Gate, a strait connecting San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. Actually, the famous Golden Gate Bridge is red. On most mornings, clouds of fog roll under it.

The heart of San Francisco is Market Street, from which the city spreads to adjacent hillsides and on through Chinatown and the North Beach. Northwest of Chinatown is Russian Hill, so named because supposedly some Russian sailors had been buried here. It is a fashionable center for residences and artists’ studios. North Beach is known as the “Latin Quarter” with avant-garde theater, cosmopolitan cafes and restaurants. In the mid 1960s, the districts gave rise to hippies. With their celebration of free love, use of psychedelic drugs, and communal living, the hippies of the 1960s brazenly challenged the values of the “Establishment”. Heirs to the hipster beatniks of the previous decade, they first appeared on college campuses during the era of sit-ins and anti-Vietnam War protests. Their emphasis on environmental conservation, along with the communes they founded in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and many rural areas, has led historians to compare hippies with 19-century Utopian idealists. Many people dismissed hippies as dropouts, but no others they were the gentle conscience of a tumultuous period in American history. In the late 1960s, America was swept by college protests. These protests also began in the San Francisco area – at Berkley, the University of California, which has always been known for academic excellence. The University, charted in 1868, stands at the head of widespread system of public education.

The state system of higher education, like California’s population, is ever growing.

The University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, is one of the picks for the places creating buzz among students, parents and school officials. But unlike the snobbish and most selective Harvard and Yale, UCSD is the school that makes the grade and proves that science can be fun. On campus where a quarter of the $1.8 billion in revenue is federal research funds, and where there are eight Nobel laureates on the faculty, the science is also quite serious Welcoming undergrads into labs is a priority. The school raises the quality of undergraduate education by offering new science majors. Faculty and alumni have spun off nearly 200 companies, including about a third of the region’s biotech farms.

California is the state which is situated nearer to Hawaii (Honolulu) than any other state. However, they are not alike: Hawaii, 50th state to join (1959) the Union, is one of the smallest (1,600 miles from border to border) and least populated states. Crests of volcanoes taller than Mount Everest emerge over 3, 200 km out in the Pacific Ocean from the coast of California to form the 8 major and 100-odd minor Hawaiian islands, 7 inhabited. A racial mixture populates the inlands. It is a strategic US military outpost.

42

The salaries of military personnel and civilians employed at the military bases constitute

Hawaii’s principal source of income. Agriculture is also important, as is tourism.

Pineapple plantations and Waikiki Beach are world known. People living here speak of the rest of the US as The Mainland.

Alaska and Hawaii and all other regions of the USA are in sharp contrast to each other. The geography and climate and kinds of people who have settled them have shaped their destinies differently. But all are bound together by a way of life that is American.

Questions

1. What is the country’s largest state? 2. Is California the most populous state? 3. When did the state get its first swarm of settlers? 4. What does the term “forty-niners” stand for? 5. Why is California seen as “the Promised Land” by many? 6. What are California’s pressing and complex problems? 7. What is Silicon Valley famous for? 8.What (who) is “Homo Siliconus”? 9. Where is the hottest and driest point in the USA? 10. Which city is the most ‘Spanish’? 11. What’s the capital city of California? 12. Which is the nation’s third largest city: San Francisco or Los Angeles? 13. How did

Hollywood get its name? 14. Why is California called the educational center? 15. What makes San Francisco an unusual and picturesque city? 16. What is the city’s symbol? 17. When and where did hippies appear? What lifestyles and beliefs did they share? 18. What makes Hawaii a strategic US military outpost? 19. What do California and Hawaii have in common?

THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS REGION

includes five states: Montana(Helena),Idaho(Boise), Wyoming (Cheyenne), Utah(Salt Lake City) and Colorado(Denver). This is the least well-defined of the regions. The people of its three states – Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana - are much more interested in their own identity than in the development of a regional sense. The mixture of the peoples is as representative of the nation as a whole as that of the central

Midwest, their attitudes have always reflected the region’s extreme topography and climate. The region is very sparsely populated. It is a long drive between the few towns (most of which are small) on the plains. Most of the population is engaged in mining, cattle-breeding and farming. It is a frontier area, the true home of the cowboy and the sheepherder. Farms are huge here200 hectares or more, worked by one man. He is a scientific farmer who plants a variety of crops and enriches the soil. He may hire a crew with a giant combine harvester in the summer but that’s all. And the rancher runs his cattle carefully to preserve the land. Tourism is very important. People come here for sports such as skiing, fishing, hiking, climbing, and riding and to enjoy the beautiful

43

scenery. In Montana (Treasure State) from Glacier Park, there are fine views of mountain lakes and glaciers. Here you may see a bald eagle, the American national bird, restored ghost towns – clusters of weathered wooden buildings in the gulches - where people once came to pan for gold. Today, you can walk the wooden side-walks and peer into saloons and stores. Almost every town in Montana has rodeo. Gold opened the territory to settlement in the 1890s, mineral riches still abound. In Wyoming, there is Yellowstone National Park -a broad volcanic plateau surrounded by mountain ranges. The park has several lakes and the famous Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone - 30 km long, its walls reaching a height of 370 m. The walls of volcanic rock display shades of yellow, red, orange, and brown, and rugged rock formations take on unusual shapes. Another feature of the park is Obsidian Cliff, a mountain of volcanic black glass and one of the largest deposits of obsidian in North America. Yellowstone has more than 10,000 thermal sites. These include more than 300 geysers as well as hot springs, mud volcanoes (known as paint pots), and fumaroles (vents issuing gasses and steam). The most famous geyser called Old Faithful, erupts on the average of every 75 minutes for up to 5 minutes, shooting a column of hot water as high as 50 m. Mineral deposits from the waters of the hot springs have formed cones and terraces. Wyoming is second only to Texas in wool production. Idaho is the land of resorts such as Sun Valley; the Snake River at Hell’s Canyon has cut a 7,900-foot chasm – the nation’s deepest canyon. In Colorado live two-thirds of the population. Great rivers flow toward the Mississippi and

Gulf of Mexico; the world’s highest suspension bridge crosses the Arkansas River at

Royal Gorge. An aerial tram-way runs beside the bridge. Colorado is the state of the highest mountains. The metals mined here are used in rocketry. Denver is a large city. A manufacturing and meat-packing center, it sits 1,000 meters above sea level in the foot hills of the Rocky Mountains. Utah is a treasure-trove of nearly every mineral used by industry. The southeast Idaho and Utah are the Mormon Region. Utah was settled by Mormon pioneers led by Brigham Young in 1847 in the New England tradition, as a model state based on particular religious vision. Aside from the region’s overwhelming adherence to the Mormon religion, it is notable for very high educational and health standards. The emphasis on family and community has also led to a high birthrate. The Mormon settled in the desert by an enormous salty inland sea and established Salt Lake City that remains the heart of the Mormon movement.

Questions

1. What states make up the Rocky Mountain Region? 2. Is the Rocky Mountain Region most well-defined of all the areas? 3. What have peoples attitudes always reflected? 4.

44

Is it a densely or sparsely populated region? 5. What is most of the population engaged in? 6. What are ghost towns? 7. What opened the territory to settlement? 8. Where is the Yellowstone? What is remarkable about it? 9. Who settled Utah and the southeast Idaho? What are these areas notable for? 10. Are there people in your country who would share Mormon beliefs and values?

THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

includes three states Washington(Olympia), Oregon(Salem) and Alaska(Juneau). The Pacific Coast from San Francisco to Seattle, was first reached by English, Russian and other explorers. Some established fur trading posts. The settlers found there rich soil, abundant water and rather mild climate. This region is noted for its natural beauty. The coastal part of this region is more populated than the interior. The politics of the region has tended to be moderate and liberal. The society is homogeneous, largely white, and environment and wilder-ness-concerned. Washington (Nickname: Evergreen State) is the only state named after a president; it is leader in nuclear research, lumbering, apples and wheat production. Oregon (Beaver State) is the nation’s lumber state. Portland and Seattle are important ports for trade with Asia. Seattle is located on six hills overlooking Elliot Bay. It is one of the great timber regions of the United States, but it is also known for many other varied production activities. On Lake Washington is the campus of the

University of Washington. Seattle’s other institutions of higher education include Seattle University and Seattle Pacific University. It is a city of many cultural assets. Seattle is a gateway to Alaska. You must drive through Canada or take a boat or airplane to get to Alaska.

Alaska’s nickname is the Great Land. The name of the state is derived from an Aleut word meaning “mainland”. It is both a state and a region. It is the first among the states in area (twice as big as its nearest size-rival, Texas), last in population. It is still a frontier area with a low percentage of native-born aside from the Indians and Eskimos. It has a glacier as large as Rhode Island, a national monument (Katmai) almost as big as

Connecticut, and North America’s highest peak, 20,320-foot Mount McKinley. William

H. Seward, Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State, purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867. At the time, and decades afterward, many Americans used the derisive name

Seward ‘s Folly or Seward’s Icebox for what they thought was a value less region of ice and snow. In 1912, the US Congress established Alaska as a US territory. In 1959 Alaska became the 49th state of the USA. Among the natives are Eskimos (or, as they prefer to be called, Inuit), Indians, and Aleuts. Alaska’s largest cities are Anchorage,

Fairbanks, Juneau (the state capital), Sitka. The State Flag is a deep blue field with seven gold stars in the shape of the Big Dipper constellation at the left and a single gold

45

star representing Polaris (the North Star) in the upper right-hand corner. Alaska’s chief executive is a governor, selected to a 4-year term and may not serve more than two consecutive terms. Alaska is represented in the US Congress by two senators and one representative. It is a leading state in commercial fishing and forest products. Alaska’s economy is known mainly for exploration of mineral resources. The discovery of vast oil deposits on the north in the 1960s and production of petroleum on the Arctic coast resulted in construction of 1,300km pipeline. Petroleum and gas are by far Alaska’s most important mineral resources which attract newcomers. Oil revenues enabled the state to abolish its personal income tax and to distribute annual cash dividends to all state residents. Because of its severe climate and the high cost of living it seems unlikely to soon become a stable cultural area, though tourism has developed into a major industry.

Questions

1. What states does the Pacific Northwest consist of? 2. What is this region noted for? 3. Is society of the region heterogeneous? 4. What makes the region different from the Rocky Mountain Region? 5. How did Alaska become a USA’s state? 6. What does the name “Alaska” mean? 7. Which state is larger: Alaska or California? 8. How is Alaska represented in the US Congress? How many has it there? 9. What is Alaska’s economy based on? 10. What is the capital city of Alaska?

THE NEW MEGALOPOLISES

In recent decades, metropolitan areas (cities plus suburban rings) have expanded and grown so large that they have overlapped, and have begun to merge. This new urban network has been called “megalopolis,” a term coined by Jean Gottman to identify the largest of these sprawling regions occupying an area on the Atlantic seaboard from north of Boston, through New York, south to Washington, D.C. – “Bonywash”, economic power corridor. Around the world, cities have grown together to form giant urban galaxies. Growth and innovation these days come from “urban corridors”- the booming mega-regions (in fact, nations don’t spur growth so much as dynamic regions). The New Megas are the real economic-organizing units of the world, powerful complexes of multiple cities and suburbs, bound together by many economic and social relationships, forming a vast expanse of trade, transport, producing the bulk of its wealth, attracting a large share of its talents and generating the lion’s share of innovation. The great urbanologist Jane Jacobs was the first to describe why megalopolices grow. When people cluster in one place, they all become more productive. Mass production and distribution of necessary goods are best accomplished

46

when many people live together in a community. And the place itself becomes much more productive, because collective creativity grows exponentially. As Nobel Prizewinning economist Robert Lucas explained it: “What can people be paying Manhattan or downtown Chicago rents for, if not to be around other people?”

Americans live in cities from economic necessity and a desire to enjoy the social and cultural advantages cities offer. On the other hand, they yearn to own a separate piece of land, to be closer to nature and to be free of the limitations imposed by living too close to others and. In the multinational American society, members of many ethnic groups find themselves living very close to one another and trying to tolerate and accept one another’s different ways of living. Besides, the increased cost of services, forces of price, crimes and congestion, in general, ups and downs of the national economy, begin pushing people away from the center. But it has nothing to do with “de-centralization of work” as many have argued. The huge economic advantages of clustering still guide the process, which is why second cities emerge near big cities or in the corridors between them, not in the middle of nowhere.

The biggest Mega in economic terms is the original, the Boston-to-Washington (BosWash) corridor. In 1961 it was home to about 32 million people; today its population has risen to 55 million, more than 17% of all Americans. The region generates $2,5 trillion in economic activity, making it the world’s fourth largest economy, bigger than

France or the United Kingdom. Next in the line is Chi-Pitts, the great Midwestern Mega running from Chicago to Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburg, with population 45 million, with $2,3 trillion in economic activity. Three of the power centers of the US economy even stretch beyond American borders: So-Cal runs from Los Angeles to San Diego across Mexican border to Tijuana; Tor-Buff-Chester sprawls from Toronto to Buffalo, Rochester, Ottawa and Montreal (20.1million people); and Cascadia from Portland, Oregon, to Vancouver. The southern Chatlanta cuts across Atlanta to Charlotte and Raleigh, 19.6 million; So-Flo (Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville) with 13.7 million people. The maps make it clear that the global economy takes shape around perhaps 20 great Megas – half in the US. The New Megas are real engines of innovation, worldclass scientific and economic activity and growth.

Chapter 3 The Founding of America

All wonderful innovations in their way had advanced the cause of man. But nothing yet accomplished would rival in importance the discovery, colonization and eventual democratization of the New World. America was a new world for the European settlers, but it was the ancestral home of thousands of tribal people. Their presence affected the

47

nature of colonial life as Europeans carved out settlements in the midst of tribal lands. The civilization which developed in North America was no simple extension of European culture but a unique and different way of life.

Yes, America would become what de Tocqueville described as the “total package.” America’s journey from undiscovered frontier to independent nation to transcendently perfect beacon of freedom was long, complex, and fascinating. But to fully understand this journey you only have to memorize a few dates.

1492 In fourteen hundred ninety-two

Columbus sailed the ocean blue…

… and discovered America. It was history’s most glorious mistake. A young merchant from the Italian city-state of Genoa became convinced he could obtain access to the wealth of spices, silks and gold in Asia by heading west across the “Sea of Darkness’- the Atlantic. The King of Portugal refused to pay for the voyage. In 1485, Columbus went to Spain for help and got it – on August 3, 1492, three ships left Spain. In a remarkable feat of courage and seamanship, Columbus led 88 sailors across the Atlantic, trying to find a short sea rout to the Indies (a group of islands off the coast of China and India) by sailing west from Spain. Six weeks later, his men landed in what is now the Bahamas. As an expression of his gratitude to God for protecting them through their dangerous trip, Columbus named the island San Salvador (Holy Savior), and, of course, claimed it for Spain. Thinking he had landed in the Indies, Columbus called the people he met “los Indios (“Indians”). The name “Indian” remains in the English language. Columbus sailed on expecting to reach China. He explored Cuba, thinking it to be Japan, than Haiti and some other islands which are now known as the West Indies. On his third voyage, in 1498, Columbus touched the northern coast of South America; in 1504, on his fourth voyage, he touched the mainland of North America, when he tried to discover the way to India.

The lands discovered by Columbus did not bring gold, silks or spices. The expeditions were considered to be a failure at last. Ironically, the land discovered by Columbus never bore his name. The continents we call North and South America are named after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer who made four voyages to the “New World” some time after Columbus but without ever once seeing North America. A German mapmaker, M. Waldseemuller, drawing maps based on Vespucci’s reports, thought that he had discovered the whole continent and put his name on the map. When Waldseemuller learned his error, he took the name off, but by then it got stuck.

In 1792, New York City honored Columbus and dedicated a monument to his memory. Soon after that, the city of Washington was officially named the District of Columbia

48

and became the capital of the United States. In 1892, a statue of Columbus was raised at the beginning of Columbus Avenue in New York City, and at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago viewers saw replicas of the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria - the boats Columbus sailed to the New World .

Columbus was foremost a navigational genius On the other hand, as many scholars have since pointed out, his motives were primarily financial and personalized – he was seeking new lands for Spain and riches and glory for himself. However, his achievements were key in the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern age. Christopher Columbus became the first explorer to alert Europe to the vast lands that could be found by sailing west. This single act of courage and skill, thought foolish or suicidal by many at the time, set in motion global population shifts and advances in human knowledge that profoundly changed history. Columbus’s voyage had an enormous impact - the immigration of thousands of refugees, pilgrims, missionaries, conquerors, opportunists, and people like our own ancestors who wanted a better life for themselves and their children. As a result of his succeeding journeys, Europeans encountered not only a new world, but also crops that radically altered their diets: potatoes, tomatoes, corn, chocolate, peppers, beans, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, squash, peanuts, pine-apples, blue-berries, and sunflowers. At the same time, he and those who followed him brought to the New World wheat, barley, onions, lettuce, citrus fruit, horses dogs cats, beef, cattle pigs, and chickens. Colonization by the English, French, Spanish and Dutch eventually led to the American Revolution and the founding of the American republic.

Unfortunately, tragedy also accompanied these events as Old World diseases accompanied the immigrants - diseases for which the New World had no natural immunity: smallpox, measles, cholera, and whooping cough. There was also greed, cruelty, and racism. Columbus’s discovery also began a clash of cultures that proved disastrous for the aboriginal peoples of the Americas. European colonization was not an unalloyed triumph. While Columbus is often venerated in our history books, he is no hero to most tribal peoples. For them his voyages resulted in sometimes unintended, but nonetheless real, catastrophe, genocide, forced relocation and the destruction of their traditional ways of life. The story of the Native Americansor American Indianis unique and tragic because the conflict between the Indians and whites is that of traditional peoples throughout the world who have come in contact with expanding European societies and succeeded in retaining their identity and culture de-spite the onslaught of modern civilization. The survival of the American

49

Indians over the past five centuries is remarkable in itself. If Christopher Columbus had not been born in Italy, Americans might not have a Columbus Day.

Out of pride for their native son, the Italian population of New York City organized the first celebration of the discovery of America on October 12, 1866.. In 1869, when Italians of San Francisco celebrated October 12, they called it Columbus Day. In 1905, Colorado became the first state to observe a Columbus Day. Over the next few decades other states followed. Finally, in 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed every October 12 Columbus Day. Since 1971, the holiday has been celebrated on the second Monday of October to give Americans a three-day weekend.

Controversy still surrounds the “facts of the discovery of America. It is possible that Scandinavian Vikings as well as Irish missionaries reached the New World before Columbus did. Nonetheless, most Americans continue to honor Columbus as the discoverer of America, and Columbus Day remains a holiday dear to all of them.

PERIOD OF COLONIZATION. EARLY ENCOUNTERS

The scientists think that the people of Asia found the land bridge between Asia and North America 15,000 to 40,000 years ago. They passed through what is now Alaska and western Canada. American Indians, descendants of the first settlers, lived in or near all these regions. The North-west Indians lived near the forests of the Pacific Ocean; the California Indians settled between the Rocky Mountains and the California coast. Like their neighbors, they fished and hunted. The Plains Indians hunted in the central part of the continent. The Southwest Indians inhabited what is now Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico They were farmers and grew corn and beans. The Eastern Woodland Indians fished in the Atlantic Ocean and in the rivers, hunted in the forests, many of them built villages and became farmers.

From the very first, Europeans who explored North America were looking for riches. Every trip was a journey into unknown. From the sagas of a Scandinavian Viking called Leif Ericsson we know about the trip to the North American shores (Newfoundland) in 1001. He called the land Vinland because he found there grapes, wheat and trees. He even built a settlement there.

In the late 1400’s Spain began searching for a fast and safe water route to the East.

Spanish were the first white men to reach in 1513 the land on the coast of beautiful flowers which caused them to call it Florida (Flowery). They wandered for years between the Mississippi and California . The search for gold led them and others to explore the southern part of what is now the USA territory – Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. They explored the region now known as Arizona,

50

New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. These travels gave the Europeans some idea of the great size, the geography, and the people of the New World. In the 1580s, some Spanish priests began building missions in New Mexico and in California. The wandering Indians were brought to live in villages around the missions. Santa Barbara, California, was one of such missions where the Indians were forced to labor in their fields, mines and houses. The Spanish treated the Indians so cruelly that the native population was dying off rapidly. But there was one more reason for that - diseases, to which the Indians had no immunity. Almost 90% of the Native American population perished during the 16th century.

Spain today owns no land in North or South America, but the Spanish language is widely spoken in Americas. Many geographical names still tell the story of Spain in America, as, for instance, El Paso (the pass), Rio Grande (great river), San Antonio (St. Anthony), Colorado (red). We should not forget that the Spanish founded the two oldest cities in US: St. Augustine, Florida (1565), and Santa Fe, New Mexico (1598).

The French and the Dutch came to the New World in search of profit. The French explorers found the St. Lawrence River and explored it as far as present-day Montreal, Canada. In early 1600s, they explored what is now eastern Canada and Northern New York State; besides, they set up a settlement at Quebec. In 1682, when traveling down to the mouth of the Mississippi, they discovered the surrounding area which they called Louisiana and claimed it for France. The Dutch explored the Atlantic shore, the Hudson, and set the first Dutch colonies – New Nether-lands and New Amsterdam. Some came to the New World to farm, but many were planning to grow rich by buying furs from the Indians.

The news of the discoveries made by the Spanish made a great stir in England. The country also wanted to have a share in the trade across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1497, John Cabot and his men became the first Europeans to reach the North American land (Canada). It looked very much like Scotland. Afterwards it was named Nova Scotia, or New Scotland and claimed for England. The land was thought to be a part of Asia. Two voyages brought nothing but the great disappointment.

Since plantation owners in the New World needed more slaves, they bought them from some European sailors who made money on slave trade and kidnapping Negroes in Africa. That was a very profitable business, and many English seamen became slave traders or pirates. In the mid 1500s, England began to compete with Spain for the right to settle its own colonies in the New World. It needed more territories to accommodate a great number of poor people who couldn’t find work in England and were dying from hunger. That was a serious social problem. People said it was necessary to take them