20. The largest metropolitan cities

Most Americans live in urban setting today. By 1990 – 80% lived in metropolitan areas. Strong economic & social currents encourage the continued concentration of the urban population which otherwise might disperse into more sparsely settled areas. Creation of large metropolitan markets for goods, services, jobs acts as a magnet for further growth. Industrial revolution – increasing number of unneeded farmers. Largest cities: New York(has always been the gateway to the US. It is the nation’s largest city and leader in business, finance ,fashion and arts.5 botough: Manhattan, The Bronx, Qu, Brooklyn and Richmond. M- the heart of the city. Br-the richest in population. The Bronx is residential part of the city.), Los Angeles ,Chicago(the 2^nd largest city. The centre of the country, the most important Great Lakes port. An important centre of culture and science. It is the seat of the University of CH. And of several institutions. Is known for its sky-scrapers) Boston, Dallas, Denver, Baltimore, Washington,D.C., (was created to be the seat of government. Only industry is government. The White House where the US`s president lives and works, the Capitol, the home of the US congress and the supreme court are all here), San Francisco, Phoenix, Houston. Today cities are overpopulated & people try to relocate from them to suburbs.

21. The American city

Almost 80 percent of the population live in cities. Strong economic and social currents encourage the continued concentration of the urban population. The creation of large metropolitan markets for goods, services and jobs acts as a magnet for further growth. There are many activities which can only thrive in central locations with large populations. These include manufacturing, business and government administration, large-scale cultural and retail activities, and a whole host of service occupations.

The city is a product of the machine age; it is a creation of the industrialization which produced much of the country's wealth and strength. Much that is best and most innovative in education, culture, and political and social thought is available in cities. On the other hand, poverty, overcrowding, social conflict and criminal violence are also much more common in cities than in rural areas. Demands for social services which cities can’ provide have created problems which make living in the cities less attractive.

Many city dwellers relocate from the city center to less heavily populated areas at the edge of the city. These areas, known as "suburbs," have combined elements of both urban and rural living, and have blurred the dividing line between city and countryside. Central cities and their suburbs together form metropolitan regions and must be considered economic and social wholes. As a result of the expansion of these suburban rings, many metropolitan areas have grown so large in recent decades that they have overlapped, and have begun to merge into megalopolises. The largest of these are occupying an area on the Atlantic seaboard from north of Boston, through New York, south to Washington, D.C.—"Bosnywash." This megalopolis contains more than one-sixth

of the entire United States population. It is bound together by many economic and social relationships.

A pattern of urban is in sharp contrast to that in cities in other industrialized countries. Elsewhere in the world because of the advantages which city life can offer, city centers are regarded as the most desirable living space. In the United States, many in the wealthy and the middle class have moved to the periphery, the city centers are perceived as among the least desirable areas to live. Cities such as New York, Boston, Baltimore, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco have accomplished major "urban renewal" projects, rebuilding and renovating huge tracts of the central city area, and thus once again attracting businesses and more affluent groups to settle there. An important source of urban population growth, especially since 1945, has been the migration to cities of black Americans and Hispanics.

22. Elementary and secondary education Each fall almost 50 million young Americans walk through the doorways of about 100 000 elementary and secondary schools. About 85 % students attend public schools, supported by the Am. taxpayers, the other 15 % attend private schools, for which their families choose to pay special attendance fees. Most public schools are coeducational, girls and boys study together. But a lot of church supported schools are for boys or girls only. There are some laws which regulate ed.; all states require young people to attend school( the age limits vary), some states play a strong role in the selection of learning material for their students. Almost every elementary school provides instructions in these subjects; math., language arts( a subject that includes reading, grammar, composition and literature): science: social studies( includes history, geography and economics), music, art and physical education. The elementary school in the US is generally considered to include the first six or eight grades of the common-school system, depending upon the organization that has been accepted for the secondary school. It has been called the "grade school" or the "grammar school". The elementary school is followed by four years of secondary school, or high school. Often the last two years of elementary and the first years of secondary school are combined into a junior high school. Admission to the American high school is automatic on completion of the elementary school. During the four-year high school program the student studies four or five major subjects per year, and classes in each of these subjects meet for an hour a day, five days a week. In addition, the student usually has classes in physical education, music, and art several times a week. Students are guided by school counselors in choosing electives, which can range from specialized academic to vocational subjects. If he fails a course, he repeats only that course and not the work of the entire year. Students must complete a certain number of courses in order to receive a diploma, or a certificate of graduation.

23. Higher education Out of the more than three million students who graduate from high school each year, about one million go on for “higher education”. Successful applicants at such colleges are usually chosen on the basis of: high school records; recommendations from high school teachers; the impression they make during interviews at the university; their scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT); The system of higher education in the United States is complex. It comprises four categories of institutions:1.the university, which may contain several colleges for undergraduate students seeking a bachelor's (four-year) degree; one or more graduate schools for those continuing in specialized studies beyond the bachelor's degree to obtain a master's or a doctoral degree; 2.the four-year undergraduate institution-the college-most of which are not part of a university; 3.the technical training institution, at which high school graduates may take courses ranging from six months to four years in duration and learn wide variety of technical skills, from hair styling through business accounting to computer programming; 4. the two-year, or community college, from which students may enter many professions or may transfer to four-year colleges or universities. During the first two years of a student's studies, three-quarters of his studies will be made up of prescribed courses in the humanities, the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the fine arts. The remaining quarter will be "elective" courses selected by the student himself from a very wide range of options. In the third and fourth years, a student will specialize in one or perhaps two subject fields, with the equivalent of a full year of study in a major field and a full year in a number of supporting studies. Any of institutions of higher ed. may be private or public. American universities are most being private. All universities, even state one, are fee-paying. The best-known private universities are the oldest ones in the Northeast, known informally as the Ivy League: include Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Other main universities are California Un., Catholic Un. Of America, Cornell Un., Columbia Un., Chicago Un., Stanford Un. The academic year is usually of 9 month duration, or 2 semesters of 4 and a half month each. Students are classified as freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors. A peculiar feature of Un. Life is numerous students unities, fraternities and sororities.

24. Black Slavery America. Civil rights movement. The history of blacks in NA began in August 1619 when a small Dutch warship sailed up the James River to the young English colony of Jamestown, Virginia. In 1619 the Europeans didn’t have the practice of slavery – the complete ownership of one person by another one. But they did have the practice of an indentured service. The 20 Blacks landed from the Dutch ship were viewed as indentured servants. Between 1640 and 1680 Virginia and other southern colonies drifted steadily towards the establishment of a system of slave labor. Blacks were brought to America by ships’ captains who sold them to the highest bidder. In the early 1960s the buyers and sellers sometimes agreed on a period of servitude for black indentured servants. Throughout the 18^th cent. an increasing number of people in Britain and NA spoke out against slave trade. But the wealthy slave owners and slave traders had powerful friends in government and were able to defeat all attempts to end the slave trade. In 1865 when the war ended and Congress passed the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution, which completely abolished slavery. Another amendment the 11^th gave blacks full citizenship rights. For a time many hoped that blacks and whites could live together in a state of equality and tolerance. But local laws and customs were used to deprive blacks of voting rights. However, progress did occur during the difficult years from 1919 to 1950. Individual blacks made breaks through in education, science, sports, entertainment, business, engineering, and most of all in music and arts. At the same time black leaders felt that the people would have to take action to end discrimination of civil rights. One opportunity for action was presented by the arrest of woman named Rosa Parks in Mont Gomery. , Alabama on December 1, 1955 for refusing to give up her seat to a white person on a city bus. Then there was a boycott. It lasted a year. Cost the city more and more money. A high point of the civil rights movement occurred on August 28, 1964, when 250000 people of all races marched in Washington to demand that the nation keep its pledge of “justice for all’. The civil rights acts of 1964, 1965, 1968 were landmarks in dismantling the legal basis for discrimination.

25 The Native Americans. The story of NA is one that is unique, tragic and inspiring. It’s so because Indians were the original inhabitants of the American continent and experienced every phase of its European settlement. Today NA are full citizens of the USA who are proud to be Americans. However, they are equally proud of their own cultural heritage and though it’s difficult in the modern world. They are trying to protect it. About 60% of Indians in the USA live in large cities and rural areas scattered throughout the country. There is the Indian population in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Minneapolis, Albuquerque, and Chicago. Nearly 40% of NA live in reservations. There are 200 of them. The social and economic conditions in reservations are terrible. There is a high death rate Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States.

There is no positive knowledge concerning the origin of these of American Natives; their own traditions widely vary, and conjecture is unsatisfying. Recent investigations favor a theory that, if they be not indigenous, they came from two great Asiatic families: the more northern tribes of our continent from the lighter Mongolians, who crossed at Bering Strait, and the more southerly ones, in California, Central and South America, from the darker Malays, who first peopled Polynesia, in the southern Pacific Ocean and finally made their way to our continent, gradually spreading over it from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Language fails to connect any of them with the Asiatic families, but their traditions, implements, and modes of life point to such a relationship. It has been suggested that the Mandans and Chinooks, who are almost white, are descendants of a Welsh colony said to have been lost in the wilds of North America 700 years ago.There seems to be a physical identity of race throughout most of the continent. Their skin is generally of a dark reddish-brown, or cinnamon, color; they have long, black, and straight hair, prominent cheek-bones, and broad faces; eyes deep-set, full and rounded lips, broad and prominent noses, scanty beard; their heads are generally square, and their stature about the same as that of other races of the same latitude. Their muscular development is not great, and their hands and feet are small; their skin is thinner, softer, and smoother than that of Europeans; the expression of the men is often noble, and many of the women are handsome. Their mental temperament is poetic and imaginative in a high degree, and it is often expressed in great beauty and eloquence of language. The tribes south of California have always been noted for significant mental development.

Since the end of the 15th century, the migration of Europeans to the Americas, and their importation of Africans as slaves, has led to centuries of conflict and adjustment between Old and New World societies. Europeans created most of the early written historical record about Native Americans after the colonists' immigration to the Americas. Many Native Americans lived as hunter-gatherer societies and told their histories by oral traditions. The indigenous cultures were quite different from those of the agrarian, proto-industrial, mostly Christian immigrants from western Eurasia. the people occupied lands for use of the entire community, for hunting or agriculture.The differences in culture between the established native Americans and immigrant Europeans, as well as shifting alliances among different nations of each culture through the centuries, caused extensive political tension, ethnic violence and social disruption.The Trail of Broken Treaties (also known as the Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan) was a cross-country protest in the United States by American Indian and First Nations organizations that took place in the autumn of 1972. It was designed to bring attention to American Indian issues, such as treaty rights, living standards, and inadequate housing.In August 1972, Rosebud Reservation tribal chairman Robert Burnette voiced the idea of a march on Washington D.C., dubbing the march the “Trail of Broken Treaties.“ Indian activists began coordinating across the country for the proposed march. The activists planned to converge on Washington D.C. during the final week of the 1972 presidential election between George McGovern and Richard Nixon . Upon their arrival, the activists planned to present to the federal government a Twenty Points Position Paper. Largely the brainchild of Hank Adams, the document outlined the group's goals, including a demand for the government to revive the treaty-making process with American Indian nations, the creation of a treaty commission to review violations and supply compensation, and called upon the federal government to conduct Indian policy in the framework of treaty relations.

In the postwar decades both Native Americans and politicians became dissatisfied with the colonial-type relationship between Indians and the federal government. Growing white guilt on the Left and the desire of the Right to end what they perceived as the collectivist and socialistic nature of reservations intersected to begin dismantling the reservation system. The Burea of Indian Affair's relocation program and federal government's termination policy both worked to deconstruct the reservations and relocate American Indians to urban centers with the intent of improving their economic standing and integrate them into "mainstream" society. Between 1930 and 1970, nearly 118,000 Indians left the reservations for major relocation centers. Today NA are full citizens of the USA who are proud to be Americans. However, they are equally proud of their own cultural heritage and though it’s difficult in the modern world. They are trying to protect it. About 60% of Indians in the USA live in large cities and rural areas scattered throughout the country. There is the Indian population in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Minneapolis, Albuquerque, and Chicago. Nearly 40% of NA live in reservations. There are 200 of them.