34.The population of the usa. Immigration patterns and ethnic composition. Native Americans.

The current U.S.A. population is over 311 million people (311,800,000 in mid-2011) so the United States has the world's third largest population (following China and India). The United States is a diverse country, racially and ethnically. Six races are officially recognized: White, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, and people of two or more races; a race called "Some other race" is also used in the census and other surveys, but is not official.^[ The United States Census Bureau also classifies Americans as "Hispanic or Latino" and "Not Hispanic or Latino", which identifies Hispanic and Latino Americans as a racially diverse ethnicity that composes the largest minority group in the nation.

The first American immigrants, beginning more than 20,000 years ago, were intercontinental wanderers: hunters and their families following animal herds from Asia to North America, across a land bridge where the Bering Strait is today. When Spain's Christopher Columbus "discovered" the New World in 1492, about 1.5 million Native Americans lived in what is now the continental United States, although estimates of the number vary greatly. Mistaking the place where he landed -- San Salvador in the Bahamas -- for the Indies, Columbus called the Native Americans "Indians." During the next 200 years, people from several European countries followed Columbus across the Atlantic Ocean to explore America and set up trading posts and colonies. Native Americans suffered greatly from the influx of Europeans. The territorial wars, along with Old World diseases to which Indians had no built-up immunity, sent their population plummeting, to a low of 350,000 in 1920. Some tribes disappeared altogether. Nonetheless, Native Americans have proved to be resilient. Today they number about two million (0.8 percent of the total U.S. population). Only about one-third of Native Americans still live on reservations.

The steady stream of people coming to United States shores has had a profound effect on the American character. Immigrants also enrich American communities by bringing aspects of their native cultures with them. Many black Americans now celebrate both Christmas and Kwanzaa, a festival drawn from African rituals. Hispanic Americans celebrate their traditions with street fairs and other festivities on Cinco de Mayo (May 5). Ethnic restaurants and neighborhoods abound in many U.S. cities. President John F. Kennedy, himself the grandson of Irish immigrants, summed up this blend of the old and the new when he called the United States "a society of immigrants, each of whom had begun life anew, on an equal footing.

35.Main trends in us economy: urbanization, industrialization, mass production, environmental impact.

The United States has a broader base of large cities than any other region, and that explains their greater economic clout.Today, the metropolitan areas of New York and Los Angeles are the world’s second and sixth largest, respectively, by GDP. The Industrial Revolution spanned the industrialization of society with its three major aspects: the division of labor, specialization, and mechanization. Each of these three factors helped to create the modern industrial society with the vision of mass production and the assembly line. The Industrial Revolution transplanted from England to the Untied States caused what was, by the 1850s, known as the "American system of manufacturing" 

Later on, the assembly line was introduced. It illustrates the fundamental principles of mechanization: standardization, continuity, constraint, and the reduction of work to simple labor. Taken together, these principles form the core of industrial culture in the mid 20th century in the United States. Also, these fundamental principles form the basis of the "American production system," which until recently, was the undisputed leader in global manufacturing.In an assembly line, workers attach the same parts day after day long a conveyor belt knowing that all of the parts taken together will complete the entire product. Technological changes in manufacturing practices, such as mass production and the assembly line, increased the scale of production of goods by standardizing productive operations. This created a large class of machine operators in American factories who, overall, had lower skills than the craft production workers that were displaced.

The start of mass production, originally called "Fordism" led to the use of mass production in other automobile companies with manufacturers of consumer durable goods soon following. Mass production was viewed by industrialists as industry on a scientific basis while social critics decried its dehumanizing effects on the workforce. The assembly line, and its derivatives, are still a significant force in the manufacturing world of today. Now called traditional manufacturing, the system of melding worker to the machine is used to build almost all durable goods. And, the development of hierarchy and planning, which are maximized by this system, are still common in American production.

An environmental impact assessment is an assessment of the possible positive or negative impact that a proposed project may have on the environment, together consisting of the natural, social and economic aspects.The purpose of the assessment is to ensure that decision makers consider the ensuing environmental impacts when deciding whether to proceed with a project. The International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) defines an environmental impact assessment as "the process of identifying, predicting, evaluating and mitigating the biophysical, social, and other relevant effects of development proposals prior to major decisions being taken and commitments made."