Cultural Pluralism is a pluralistic culture that exists in a society in which two or more population groups, each practicing its own culture, live adjacent to one another without mixing, inside a single state.
For example, cultural pluralism exists in the USA. Although English is the common official language in United States, and language or ethnic divisions are not a problem, yet, there exists subtle divisions between peoples of European descent (more than 75% of population) and those of African origin (12% of population). The civil rights movement weakened the racial segregation in the public domain. However, whites rarely share their living space with blacks.
Thus, subtle segregation seems to be prevalent. Additionally, deprivation is also widespread. There are notable spatial concentrations of poverty inside the innerring slums of central cities and on rural reservations where Native Americans or
Inuit reside. b.
Physiographic Province
Physiographic province is a province or a region within which there prevails substantial natural-landscape homogeneity, expressed by a certain degree of uniformity in surface relief, climate, vegetation, soils, and other environmental conditions.
In USA, there are clear, well-defined physiographic provinces. There is a scenic sameness around. For example, the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains, and the
Appalachian Highlands, are classic examples of physiographic provinces in USA. c.
Rain Shadow Effect
Rain shadow effect is the relative dryness in areas downwind of mountain ranges caused by orographic precipitation, wherein moist air masses are forced to deposit most of their water content as they cross the highlands.
For example, in USA, the Rain shadow effect occurs on the Pacific coast.
Coming from the sea, driven by prevailing winds, the Pacific airmasses carry their moisture onshore, but soon collide with the Sierra Nevada – Cascades wall.
This forces the airmasses to rise and cool as they crest these mountain ranges.
Such cooling is accompanied by major condensation and precipitation. Thus, by the time these airmasses descend and warm along the eastern slopes to begin their journey across the continent’s interior, they have already dumped much of their moisture. Thus the mountains produce a downwind “shadow” of dryness.
This is reinforced whenever eastward-moving air surmounts other ranges farther inland, especially the massive hulk of Rockies.
1.
Clearly explain each of the following. Give examples as appropriate.
a.
Cultural Pluralism d.
Sunbelt

Sunbelt is the popular name given to the southern tier of the United States. It is anchored by the mega-States of California, Texas, and Florida. Its warmer climate, superior recreational opportunities, and many other amenities have been attracting large numbers of relocating people and activities since the 1960s.
Broader definitions of the Sunbelt also include much of the western U.S., particularly Colorado and the coastal Pacific Northwest.
Americans are known to be hyper-mobile. Internal migrations continue to redistribute the U.S. populace everyday, with a significant chunk of population drifting persistently towards the South and West (the so-called Sunbelt). e.
Ghetto
Ghetto is an intra-urban region of a particular ethnic character. It is often an inner-city poverty zone, such as the black ghetto in U.S. central cities. The residents of these Ghettos are involuntarily segregated from other income and racial groups.
The U.S. policy to clamp down foreign immigration in 1920s resulted in a decline of available foreign labor for the manufacturing belt. Factory managers began to recruit unemployed African American population of the rural south. This African
American movement from south to northeastern manufacturing belt had an immediate impact on the social geography of the industrial cities. The whites were unwilling to share their living space with the racially different newcomers.
This resulted in the involuntary segregation of these newest migrants of those times. Social aspects pushed them in to geographically separate, all-black areas. As early as 1950s, these areas expanded and spread in the inner-cities.
They derived the name ghettos. The expansion of ghettos in inner-cities pushed the departure of many white central-city communities and reinforced the trend toward a racially divided urban society. f.
Urban Realms Model
The Urban Realms Model is a spatial generalization of the modern-day large
American city. It is a widely dispersed, multi-centered metropolis consisting of increasingly independent zones or realms. Each of these independent zones or realms is focused on its own suburban downtown distinctly, in terms of economic, social and political significance, and strength. However, the shrunken central realm is focused on the central business district (CBD).
Los Angeles, in U.S.A. is one such example of an Urban Realms Model. g.
Mosaic Culture
Mosaic Culture is the emerging cultural-geographic framework of the United
States. It is dominated by the fragmentation of specialized social groups into homogeneous communities of interest. These fragmentations are marked by income, race, ethnicity, age, occupational status, and lifestyle. The result is an

increasingly heterogeneous socio-spatial complex. Such a complex resembles an intricate mosaic composed of countless uniform, although separate tiles.
The cultural geography of America is evolving all the time. The success these modern-day residential communities reflects an obvious satisfaction on part of most of Americans. However, such Balkanization, fuelled by people who choose to interact only with others exactly like themselves, threatens the survival of important democratic values that have prevailed throughout the evolution of U.S. society. h.
Economics of Scale
Economies of scale is defined as the savings that accrue from large-scale production wherein the unit cost of manufacturing decreases as the level of operation enlarges. This is achieved by individual companies implementing mechanized assembly lines, specializing their workforces, and purchasing raw materials in massive quantities. For example, Supermarkets operate on this principle and hence are able to charge lower prices than small grocery stores. i.
Post-Industrialism
Post-Industrialism is defined as the general social structures of societies that are perceived to have moved beyond the modern industrial period.
Emerging economy, in the United States and a handful of other highly advanced countries, as traditional industry is increasingly eclipsed by a higher-technology productive complex dominated by services, information-related, and managerial activities. j.
Technopole
Technopole is a planned techno-industrial complex that innovates, promotes, and manufactures the hardware and software products of the postindustrial informational economy. A technopole is symbolized by a low-density cluster of low-rise buildings laid out as a campus. For example, the Silicon Valley in
California is a technopole. From Silicon Valley, technopoles have spread in all directions – from San Diego to Boston, from North Carolina to Seattle. k.
Ecumene
Ecumene is the habitable zones of the Earth’s surface where permanent human settlements have arisen.
For example, in Canada, only 1/8 th of Canada can be classified as ecumene. It is dominated by a discontinuous strip of population clusters lining the southern border.

l.
Pacific Rim
Pacific Rim is the term used to define a far-flung group of countries and parts of countries (extending clockwise on the map from New Zealand to Chile) that face the Pacific Ocean; demonstrate relatively high levels of economic development in the form of capital flows, raw-materials movements, and trade linkages generating urbanization, industrialization, and labor migration; and whose imports and exports move mainly across Pacific waters. It is a functional region that has transformed human landscapes from Sydney to Santiago within the 20,000 mile
(32,000 kms) corridor that girdles the globe’s largest body of water.
The foci of the Pacific Rim countries are Japan, coastal China, South Korea,
Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore. The map of the periphery of Pacific Rim has been evolving for the past 25 years. It includes East and Southeast Asia,
United States and Canada, Australia and Chile.
2.
Using the map in Figure 3-2 (p. 153), describe the types of landscape you would encounter if you traveled from east to west along the 40º parallel latitude.
Traveling east to west along the 40 degrees parallel latitude, the types of landscape encountered would be as follows, in the following sequence:
Gulf-Atlantic Coastal Plain, Piedmont, Appalachian Highlands, Interior Lowlands,
Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, Intermontane Basins and Plateaus, and Pacific
Mountains and Valleys.
Starting from the eastern sea-board the Gulf-Atlantic Coastal Plain, Piedmont,
Appalachian Highlands, Interior Lowlands around Ohio River, Great Plains between Platte River and Arkansas River, Rocky Mountains, Intermontane
Basins and Plateaus around Colorado River, and Pacific Mountains and Valleys.
3.
In your words, briefly summarize major population shifts described on pages 156-158.
The major population shifts in North America is a constantly changing picture over the last four centuries. The speed of this change accelerated with transportation breakthroughs encouraging the North American people to move in the direction westward to the Pacific. It was a swift expansion reflecting the hyper-mobility of the Americans. Migration is redistributing population in the
United States even today, more so toward the South and West (the so-called
Sunbelt).

There are various forces responsible for this distribution of Americans and their activities. Since its inception, the United States has attracted a steady influx of immigrants who were rapidly assimilated into the societal mainstream. People sorted themselves out to move close to zones of economic opportunities.
Americans are unable to resist the temptation to relocate to new and evolving economically profitable geographic zones. During the last one hundred years, there have been several major migrations affecting USA as follows:
1) the ongoing westward shift, and now, additionally, the Southerly shift, i.e. the Sunbelt deflection.
2) The rapid growth of the metropolitan areas. This was triggered initially by the Industrial Revolution of late nineteenth century. Since 1960s, this has been channelized from central cities to the suburban ring.
3) The movement of African Americans from the rural south to the urban north. This has become a strong return flow phenomenon particularly among the middle class African Americans since the 1970s.
4) The influx of international immigrants from outside USA. Prior to 1960s, these were mostly Europeans. However, in recent times, the new wave of immigrants is dominated by Middle Americans and East Asians. This wave is heading toward the zone adjacent to the southern border and the urban areas of the U.S. Pacific coast.
4.
What are some of the major push-and-pull factors in migration? Give examples.
Migration is defined as a change in residential location that is intended to become permanent.
Some of the pushy factors that tempted the initial wave of European colonialists to leave their home and travel across the seas to migrate to America were religious freedom, and freedom from poverty and famine, while the pulling factors were the hope for a better life in a new frontier with reportedly unlimited opportunities where one might acquire a piece of land and some livestock.
Studies of the migration decision of humans have shown that migration flows vary in size depending on the following factors:
1) The perceived degree of difference between one’s home, or source of origin, and the destination.
2) The effectiveness of the information flow. This depends on the news about the new destination that the migrants send back home to those who stayed behind waiting to decide whether to join them or not.

3) The distance factor between the source and the destination. The closer the new place of destination to the intending migrant’s original home, the more the number of migrants attracted.
Migration studies conducted by the British social scientist Ernst George
Ravenstein more than a hundred years ago reveal that many of his conclusions remain valid even today. According to him, every migration stream from the source to destination produces a counter-stream of returning migrants who cannot adjust, are unsuccessful, or are otherwise persuaded to go back home.
However, the pulling factors of USA continue to attract immigrants from far and wide, significantly shaping the human-geographic complexion of this country.
Presently, 1/3 rd of the country’s annual population growth is sustained by immigrants.
5.
Please describe (as briefly as possible) the changing structure of the U.S. metropolis.
The changing structure of the U.S. metropolis was shaped by the same mixture of forces that had shaped the U.S. national urban system. Transportation technology, especially the evolving Railroad technology played a key role.
Electric street cars replaced horse drawn trolleys by late nineteenth century.
Post World War I, the mass introduction of the automobile converted America’s lifestyle from compact cities on to widely dispersed metropolises by the time
World War II ended. By 1970s, the introduction of new intra-urban expressway network equalized location costs throughout the metropolis. Suburban areas changed overnight from ordinary residential areas to an outer city full of amenities and a symbol of business prestige. This diminished the charm and status of CBDs in large cities that were reduced to serving the less affluent strata of the society.
John Adams classified intra-urban structural evolution into four stages. Stage I, prior to 1988, was the Walking-Horse-car Era. It gave rise to a compact pedestrian city with everything within a 30-minute walk. Stage II, the Electric
Streetcar Era from 1888 -1920 gave rise to higher speed Electric Streetcars that considerably expanded the 30-minute travel distance and urbanized areas along new outlying trolley corridors. In old core city, the CBD, industrial, and residential areas evolved into their modern form, as a result of these Electric Streetcars.
Stage III marked the onset of the Recreational Automobile Era (1920 -1945).
Cars and highways improved the accessibility of the outer metropolitan ring creating a wave of mass suburbanization and further extending the urban frontier. It was a period of economic boom for the dominant center city.
However, there was sharp residential segregation based on racism, ethnicity and income. 1945 brought the onset of Stage IV, the Freeway Era. During this era,

the full impact of automobiles turned the metropolis inside-out as expressways pushed suburban development more than 30 miles (50 kms) from CBD.
On the social side, the evolving U.S. metropolis has given rise to a residential mosaic of ever-more specialized groups. Electric streetcars and mass transit enabled the city population to group itself into ethnic neighborhoods. The curtailing of foreign immigration in 1920s opened the doors for the large African
American population unemployed in rural South. They started to move to the opportune northeastern Manufacturing Belt giving birth to inner city areas called ghettos. This influx caused social upheaval. The whites began to move towards more affluent suburban areas around the metropolis called the outer city. New freeway interchanges serving the local economies made the outer city independent and loosened its ties with central city. Multipurpose activity nodes thrived around large shopping centers giving birth to industrial parks, office campuses and high-rise apartments, hotels, restaurants, sports stadiums, and entertainment facilities. New suburban downtowns, a modern version of CBD, flourished with the local population latching on to new opportunities of work places, shopping centers, leisure activities, etc, of a lucrative urban environment.
James Vance attributed the term ‘urban realms’ to the new outer cities of the modern multi-centered metropolis. It consisted of olden CBD and modern suburban downtowns, each maintaining a separate, distinct economic, social, and political significance and strength, and serving a discrete and self-sufficient surrounding area. Los Angeles fitted this model of urban realm of James Vance.
As time flied, the central city eroded and lost its dominance as a metropolitan center for goods and services. The present day CBD serves the less affluent residents of the innermost realm working downtown. Decline of manufacturing sector gave birth to service sector and large cities adapted themselves to this change reviving the downtown areas a bit. However, the original charm of the central city areas has been lost. Additionally, residential reinvestment is pushing lower-income residents from their beloved ghettos sparking emotional conflicts.
6.
Briefly describe the major ethnic minorities in the U.S. and Canada in terms of size and distribution.
In present times, the whites of European background are losing out in population numbers in the increasingly diverse U.S. ethnic tapestry. People of non-
European origin now comprise nearly 30% of the population. As per demographers predictions, this will rise to 50% by 2050. In 2000, African
Americans and Hispanic Americans both claimed to be the single largest minority group at just over 12% each, of the U.S. total population. The Hispanic
Americans are likely to overtake the African Americans in this leading minority population explosion race by 2003.

Spatially, the four largest ethnic minorities are distributed as follows in the U.S.:
African Americans are regionally concentrated in the South. This region has a history of slavery and plantation economy. However, with onset of industrialization, the blacks have also moved in large numbers in the central cities of the Manufacturing Belt and West Coast.
Hispanics are also huddled together in regional clusters. 60% of these reside in
California, Texas, New Mexico, and South Florida. However, population geographers predict that this rapidly expanding minority group will disperse across the country, moreso in the West and along the eastern seaboard.
Asian Americans are the most agglomerated of the leading ethnic minorities.
They exist in clusters in urbanized areas along the Pacific coast.
Native Americans are found in the West, largely occupying tribal lands on reservations ceded by the federal government. However, many Native
Americans also live in communities widely scattered across the nation.
In Canada, bilingualism is more of a dominant factor than ethnicity or racism.
The French were the first European colonizers of present-day Canada, beginning in 1530s. Britain took over New France in 1763. The American Revolutionary
War for Independence drove thousands of English refugees northward. This caused problems between English and French in the then British North America.
About 2/3rds of Canadians live in provinces of Quebec and Ontario. Most of the population are ethnically British or French, although other countries are well represented. Indigenous peoples are a majority in the north. Ontario is the ethnically most varied city.
The ethnic composition of Canadian people is diverse. The two largest groups, those of British and French origin, comprised respectively about 35 and 25 percent of the population at the 1996 census. The majority of French Canadians live in Québec, where they make up about 80 percent of the population.
Significant numbers also live in Ontario and New Brunswick. The remaining
French Canadians are thinly scattered through the rest of Canada, but there are a few concentrations, such as the Saint Boniface district of Winnipeg, which is home to some 45,000 French speakers.
While French Canadians form a cultural group, based on their language, history, and religion, British Canadians do not. The four nationalities of the British Isles —
English, Scots, Welsh, and Irish
—all had different histories, belonged to various religions, and developed different attitudes. While an economic elite of white
Anglo-Saxon Protestants, mostly of English and Scots background, has dominated the business and industry of every province, even Québec, they are a minority of British Canadians.

About 20 percent of Canadians trace their ancestry to other European countries; the most prominent of these are Germany, Italy, Ukraine, and the Netherlands.
Another 8 to 10 percent are of Asian origin, particularly from Hong Kong, India,
China, and Taiwan. The remainder of the population is a combination of various ethnic origins, such as American, Latin American, and African.
Many of these groups have settled in uneven geographic patterns. For example,
Canadian immigration policy focused on Europeans during the early 20th century, a time of vigorous western settlement; as a result, the proportion of
European Canadians in the Prairie provinces is especially high. More recently,
Asian immigration has coincided with the growth of the largest metropolitan centers
—Toronto, Montréal, and Vancouver—and thus Chinese Canadians and
Indo-Canadians are most visible there. See also Ethnic Groups in Canada.
7.
What and where are North America’s main mineral resources? Pay special attention to energy resources. How does the U.S. location of fuels/iron ore compare with those of Russia?
North America’s main mineral resources are found in three zones: the Canadian
Shield north of the Great Lakes, the Appalachian Highlands, and scattered areas throughout the mountain ranges of the wild West.
The Canadian Shield is loaded with minerals such as, iron ore, nickel, gold, uranium, and copper.
The Appalachian Highlands zone is loaded with minerals such as, bituminous coal, anthracite coal, and iron ore.
The scattered mountain ranges of the wild West zone is loaded with minerals such as, coal, copper, lead, zinc, molybdenum, uranium, silver, and gold.
North America’s energy resources consist of abundant and far-flung deposits of petroleum (oil), natural gas, and coal supplies. The coal supplies are called fossil fuels since they are formed by the geologic compression and transformation of plants and tiny animal organisms that were alive hundreds of millions of years ago.
The leading oil-production areas of USA are located along and offshore from the
Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast; in the Mid-continent district, extending through western Texas-Oklahomaeastern Kansas; and along Alaska’s central North
Slope that faces the Arctic Ocean.

Canada’s major oilfields lie in a wide crescent that curve southeastward from northern Alberta to southern Manitoba and beneath the waters around
Newfoundland in the extreme east.
The distribution of natural gas deposits generally resembles the geography of oilfields because petroleum and energy gas are typically found in similar geologic formations, i.e. on the floors of ancient seas.
The North American realm’s coal reserves rank among the greatest on this planet, and the U.S. portion alone contains at least a 400-year supply. The main producing coalfields are found in the Appalachian Region / northeastern
Pennsylvania, the northern U.S. Great Plains / southern Alberta, and southern
Illinois / western Kentucky regions.
The U.S. location of fuels / iron ore compares with those of Russia in the following ways:
The iron ore deposits of United States are located in the Appalachian Highlands, mainly in central Alabama.
The iron ore deposits of Russia are located as follows: 1) in and near the Ural
Mountains in the Urals Region, 2) in and near the Kuzetsk Basin (Kuzbas) in the
Eastern Frontier region, and 3) in the Siberian region.
The leading oil-production areas of the United States are located along and offshore from the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast; in the Mid-continent district, extending through western Texas-Oklahomaeastern Kansas; and along Alaska’s central North Slope facing the Arctic Ocean. The distribution of natural gas deposits generally resembles the geography of oilfields because petroleum and natural gas are typically found in similar geologic formations (the floors of ancient shallow seas).
The major area of petroleum and natural gas of Russia is located in the Volga-
Urals Region. A belt of major oilfields extends from near Vogograd in southwest to Perm on the Ural’s flank in the northeast. Additionally, recent discoveries have proved that even more extensive oil and natural gas fields lie beyond the Urals.
However, due to their location and size, the Volga Region’s fossil-fuel reserves remain important.
8.
Briefly characterize each of the nine regions of the North American realm.
The nine regions of the North American realm can be characterized as follows:
1) The North American Core

The North American Core region contains the largest cities and the federal capitals of U.S.A. and Canada, and is home to 1/3 rd of the national populations of both these countries. Leading financial markets, corporate headquarters, media centers, cultural facilities, research complexes, busiest airports, and inter-city expressways are located in this region.
Although productivity and obsolescence problems in the twentieth century have reduced the historical competitive advantage of this region in the manufacturing sector when compared to the modern industrial boom in southern and western
U.S.A.; still the Midwest portion of the Manufacturing Belt succeeded to upgrade its high-tech sector and has become competitive in the international marketplace.
The boom of the automobile industry since 1980s with the key-role of Toyota, is one example. Toyota’s investment made the less-developed southwestern border zone of this region an axis of self-sufficient, state-of-the-art auto-making complex. Post-industrial development has also spawned a number of new growth centers in the Core. The major metropolitan complexes of the northeastern Megalopolis are a scene of quaternary and quinary economic activity. Boston region is full of high-tech businesses. New York City is a national leader in finance and advertising, and broadcast and print media thrive here as well. Washington, D.C. has contributed most to the post-industrialization of this region. The information-producing and managerial sectors are thriving, and the U.S. federal government extending its ties to the private sector has resulted in a collection of enormous complex of office, research, high-tech, lobbying, and consulting firms. Since mid-1990s, innumerable telecommunications and internet companies have contributed to the development along the outer-suburban expressway corridor between the Dulles International airport region and the Tysons Corner on the Beltway. Dulles has evolved as the country’s leading fiber-optic cable center due to the cluster of federal intelligence agencies and the corporate headquarters of America Online. The effect of this boom is spreading out from Dulles towards northern Virginia, making Washington metropolis the realm’s foremost technopole. This technopole is overtaking
Silicon Valley of California and Boston and becoming the
“technological capital” of the U.S.A.. The resulting economic boom is sending ripples throughout
Washington region. 350,000 federal government employees are outnumbered by the 500,000 employees of computer-service, telecom, internet, aerospace, and biotech companies mushrooming here.
2) The Maritime Northeast
Upper New England and neighboring Atlantic Provinces of easternmost Canada comprise the Maritime Northeast region. Economic and cultural similarity tie northern New England to Atlantic Canada. Strong maritime orientation, difficult environments, limited land resources, and fertile land areas are a common trait of both upper New England and Atlantic Canada.

Between the two, upper New England lags in economic growth. Fishing, forestry, and farming are key activities, in addition to recreation and tourism industries of recent times. Post1980, New England’s fluctuating economy has recovered with a diversified economic base of telecommunications, financial services, health care, and biotechnology. However, this recovery is limited only to Boston region.
Continuing outflow of highly skilled labor is raising concerns about the future.
Atlantic Canadian Provinces also suffered severe economic hardship in 1990s.
Over-fishing caused severe depletion of offshore stocks of flounder, haddock, and cod. Maritime fishing-boundary disputes caused tensions between Canada and U.S.A. and other nations. On the cheerful side, new opportunities are arising in peripheral provinces. Tourism got a boost in 1997 in the tiny Prince Edward
Island, with the opening of an 8-mile bridge across Northumberland Strait. This was the island’s first direct link to mainland since 1873, the date of its inception with Canadian federation. Newfoundland, Canada’s poorest province is experiencing an economic boom since 1990s due to discovery of major offshore oil deposits centered on Grand Banks, 200 miles east of its capital, St. John’s.
The prospects are so dazzling that Newfoundland’s economy is likely to parallel
Norway’s economy. However, Newfoundland is not the only lucky region in
Canada; additionally, Nova Scotia has also discovered that it is sitting on offshore gas deposits promising this state a similar economic bonanza as well.
3) French Canada
Also labeled Francophone Canada, this region constitutes the effectively settled, southern portion of Quebec, straddling the central and lower St. Lawrence Valley.
It is from here the St. Lawrence River crosses the Ontario-Quebec border just upstream from Montreal to its mouth in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. French Canada also hosts a chunk of French speakers called Acadians, residing just beyond
Quebec’s provincial boundary in neighboring New Brunswick.
The French have maintained a rural settlement landscape with their narrow rec tangular farms called ‘Long Lots’. These are laid out in sequence perpendicular to the St. Lawrence and other rivers and roads that parallel them, allowing each farm access to an adjacent route-way. The French have also retained the Old World charm of Qu ebec’s cities. The French have succeeded to make Quebec’s economy highly urbanized by the widespread industrialization that is supported by cheap hydroelectric energy generated at huge dams in northern Quebec. Yet, little of the region’s manufacturing could be classified as high-tech. Montreal is full of tertiary and postindustrial commercial activity.
Tourism and recreation also generate revenue for this French Canada.
However, economic uncertainty prevails with Quebec’s intentions to secede from
Canada. The end of English domination in 1980s created new laws that strengthened the French language and culture in Quebec. Gradually, young
French families loosened their ties to Roman Catholicism. This resulted in a

negative birth rate. The frantic Quebec government jumped in to offer cash incentives to French Canadians to produce kids on the house, and even lured
Francophone immigration from the former colonies of France around the world.
Anyone going French seemed to be welcome in Quebec.
The 250,000 French-speakers of Acadia in New Brunswick territory form the largest cluster of Francophones outside Quebec. Acadians are actively engaged in shunning these ideas of secession of French people from Canada, be it in
Quebec or in New Brunswick. Unlike Quebecers, Acadians have devoted their energies to cohabit with the Anglophone community setting an example and making Quebecers think twice, and for the time being Quebec is holding within the Canadian federation.
4) The Continental Interior
Continental Interior extends across the center position of both conterminous
United States and southern tier of Canada. Agriculture is the predominant feature of most of this region. Meat and grain production prevail for more than thousand miles from the Mississippi Valley going west towards the base of the
Rocky Mountains. Mixed-crop-and-livestock farming prevails in the eastern half of the Continental Interior due to its humid climate, while wheat raising is relegated to the fertile semiarid environment of central and western Great Plains on the dry side of the 100 th meridian longitude. These Great Plains also contain
Canada’s agricultural heartland north of the 49 th parallel latitude border.
Northerly latitude prevents droughts here but also results in shorter growing season.
Corn and wheat farming abound in this region. The Corn Belt is most heavily focused on Iowa and neighboring Illinois. Spring Wheat Belt is centered on North
Dakota encompassing northern Great Plains and the north-central Interior lowlands and is so named because crops are planted in spring and harvested in late summer or early autumn. The Winter Wheat Belt is centered on western
Kansas in the southern Great Plains and is so named because crops are planted in fall and harvested by late spring.
The Continental Interior is further subdivided into North and South. The North sub-region contains Upper Midwest, the northern Great Plains, and the cultivable parts of Canada’s three Prairie Provinces.
The economic activity of this region is markedly oriented towards farming.
Leading metropolises, such as, Kansas City, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Winnipeg,
Omaha, and Denver, process and market packed pork and beef. Additionally, they produce and export soybean, sunflower, and canola oil. Flour mills also abound in these metros. Aggressive storming of large-scale corporate farming threatens the traditional family farms. Since 1990s, big companies are taking

control of the entire production process of hog farming in the western Corn Belt.
Ultra-modern factory complexes guzzle up huge swaths of farmland and expel horrendous quantities of animal wastes polluting air and groundwater for miles and miles around. Decline of individual agricultural opportunities in the less intensively farmed Great Plains to the west is causing a mass exodus of young people. The elderly population left behind is struggling to survive this depopulation trend.
However, in the metropolitan areas of this region, non-farming sectors are developing as well. Minnesota exhibits stable economy, highly educated workforce, innovative products, and “north woods” amenities. In urban areas of the eastern Great Plains, such as, Nebraska in Omaha, telemarketing is a booming business making it the “toll-free capital” of U.S.A.. Credit-card, reservations, and catalog-order companies are concentrated here. Gateway
2000, the computer sales giant, is responsible for single-handedly putting North
Sioux City, South Dakota on the map. Sprint, the global telecommunications leader has its new headquarters southwest of Kansas City. Growth of northwestern territories in this region is spurred by the development of energy resources. Southern Alberta, in Canada, is attracting investments from all over
U.S.A. to expand its massive deposits of natural gas used for home heating and electrical power generation.
5) The South
The South extends from the lush Bluegrass Basin of northern Kentucky to the swampy bayous of Louisiana’s Gulf Coast, and also from the knobby hills of
West Virginia to the flat sandy islands off the southernmost extremity of peninsular Florida.
This region has undergone maximum change during the past fifty years.
Sculptured by the long and bitter aftermath of the ruinous American Civil War, the
South suffered deep economic and cultural isolation from the rest of the country.
However, 1970s brought a wave of growth and change that altered the Southern history. Propelling forces of the Sunbelt phenomena made people and activities stream into the urban South. Cities such as Atlanta, Charlotte, Miami, and
Tampa became booming metropolises overnight. Conurbations formed in southern and central Florida, the Carolina Piedmont, and the western Gulf Coast from Houston through New Orleans to Mobile, Alabama. On the rural side, agricultural development produced high-value commodities such as, soybeans, winter wheat, poultry, and wood products. On the social side, institutionalized racial segregation got uprooted over three decades ago. In spite of all this, juxtaposition of progress and backwardness is encountered frequently in the
Southern landscape reflecting a wide gap between the rich and the poor. This economic disparity has racial dimensions. Blacks are more poor than the whites.
Immigrant whites and blacks arriving from the North exhibit higher incomes than

Southern residents. Ethnically, Hispanics and Asians are intensifying their presence in the South. The number of resident retirees is increasing in Florida,
Georgia, Virginia, and Carolinas states of this Southern region. American South has become an important player in the national economy as well as in the international sector. 1990s lured active European and Japanese investors in this region, especially carmakers and their entire manufacturing complexes. Atlanta is full of nonstop air routes; New Orleans with its lucrative seaports is out to build the world’s high-tech longest linear port (24 / 38 kms long); while Memphis plans to make itself a global distribution center with the huge air-shipment facilities built recently by companies such as, Fedex and UPS.
6) The Southwest
The Southwest region comprises of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. It is a tricultural regional complex. Here, immigrating Anglo-Americans join a rapidly expanding Mexican-American population, in addition to the long-time resident
Hispanics with their Spanish roots, and the original Native Americans. A threepronged foundation holds recent rapid development in this region. They are as follows: 1) availability of massive amounts of electricity of power air conditioners through the long, brutally hot summers; 2) sufficient water to supply everything from swimming pools to irrigated crops enabling large number of people to reside comfortably in this dry inhospitable environment; 3) the automobile, enabling affluent new-comers to spread themselves out at much-desired low densities.
Out of these three items of development, electricity and automobile have been easily attained due to abundance of oil and natural gas in the eastern half of the
Southwest. However, the future of water supplies seems to be worrisome.
The new Central Arizona Project (CAP) Canal transporting tons of Colorado
River water across hundreds of miles of desert has enabled the constant growth of cities like Phoenix and Tucson in Arizona desert.
Texas leads the economic growth of this region. After the oil-induced recession of the 1980s, Texas ventured to diversify and restructure its economic activities.
Business information technology, health-care services, and high-tech manufacturing sector have created the world’s most productive postindustrial complex triangle cornered by Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, and San Antonio.
Austin, capital of Texas, has become a technopole, second in line to Silicon
Valley, leading in research and development and production of semiconductors and PCs. Another Telecom Corridor technopole has emerged just north of
Dallas forming the world’s largest concentration of telecommunications firms.
Employment is increasing spatially in the booming suburban freeway corridors, as well as in the metropolitan complexes of Austin, Houston, and San Antonio.
Here exists the DFW Metroplex, the leading Texas command post for international trade and NAFTA-spawned development. This DFW Metroplex is the northern anchor of a new transnational growth corridor extending more than

500 miles southward from Dallas through Austin and San Antonio to Monterrey
150 miles inside of Mexico.
Arizona in west Southwest is claimed to be the most technologically transformed desert environment on this planet. Vast urbanized landscape of Arizona focus on two metropolitan cities of Phoenix and Tucson. It is said, that during 1990s, metropolitan Phoenix was expanding in hectic frenzy into the surrounding desert at the rate of an acre per hour. Present growth rate ranges at the yearly rate of about 4 percent, much to the astonishment of everyone in this world. Typical of their booming frenzied success, Arizona’s conservative political and business leaders are unwilling to restrict such golden-egg development. However, the issue of retrievable water supplies
– Arizona’s lifeblood and key to its future – are being stretched to the extreme limits of tolerance. This issue will probably force these political and business leaders to think twice in their nonstop greed for development.
7) The Western Frontier
The Western Frontier is a swiftly growing, economically booming region.
Extending from East to West, this mountainous plateau region stretches between
(and includes) the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada-Cascades chain. Its longer northsouth axis reaches from northern Arizona’s Grand Canyon country to the edge of the sub-arctic snow-forest west of the Canadian Rockies. This region includes Utah, Nevada, Idaho, and western Colorado.
Maturing postindustrial national economy coupled with advances in communications and transportation technologies have eliminated interregional differences in terms of business costs, transforming this remote dry region with a sparse population into an opportune sector. Since choice of amenities at a given location have become the preference of employers and employees of today, proximity to the increasingly expensive and overcrowded Pacific coast has attracted over a million unhappy Californians to relocate into the Western Frontier since the late 1990s. The Western Frontier is as sunny as California, has wideopen spaces, spectacular scenery, reproductive jobs, and all the attractions of dreamy steamy California, but with the super-attraction of a lower cost of living.
Small wonder, disgruntled Californians are making a beeline for this Western
Frontier. All this is causing the population of Utah, Nevada, Idaho and Colorado to bulge since 1990s.
Economically, traditional resource-based industries, such as, mining, timber, and livestock grazing, have declined; while in-migrating and new indigenous companies have created thousands of high-tech manufacturing and specialservice jobs. Spatially, the development is focused on urban areas, causing a dispersed set of population clusters to expand simultaneously around large and middle size cities, high amenity zones, and interstate freeway corridors.

Las Vegas, of southernmost Nevada, is the hot-spot of fast growth. Its economic boom was triggered by the burgeoning recreation industry full of gleaming casinos, attracting 30 million tourists annually. Additionally, high-tech and professional service firms specializing in computers, finance, and health-care have also contributed to the Las Vegas economic boom. Business entrepreneurs flock in like feathers to Las Vegas creating new employment opportunities and sparking a local population explosion spearheaded by relocating Californians. Relatively cheap pieces of land, modest housing prices, low taxes, and the sunny climate further fueled this migration.
Denver and Salt Lake City, the region’s two largest metropolises are also experiencing accelerated growth around themselves. In these two cases, the leading amenity marketed by the employers in their job offers to lure potential newcomers is the attraction of the scenic Rocky Mountains soaring majestically above the urbanizing flatlands and foothills. Metropolitan Denver’s expansion is due to a new, diverse, globally oriented economic base dominated by telecommunications, computer software, and financial services. Salt Lake City is following Denver on a smaller scale with the budding technopole of Software
Valley, the 40-mile corridor linking Salt Lake City and Provo. This corridor contains yet another one of the world’s largest concentrations of information technology companies, built up around two universities, a highly educated workforce, and a postindustrial complex specializing in the production of wordprocessing and computer-simulation software.
90% of Western Frontier’s development is confined to its widely dispersed urban areas, but as expected, the rippling effects of this rapid growth have penetrated deep into the region’s vast rural zones as well.
This region experiences forest fires due to increasing population in and near
Forest zones. Cultural problems are caused by collision of lifestyles of recreation-seeking city dwellers invading a countryside with long-time, nonaffluent residents engaged in mining and agriculture. In the valleys of Colorado
Rockies, massive growth of ski resorts have spiraled land prices, forcing ranchers to sell and relocate their operations to remote areas. In small towns of northern Idaho and western Montana, social tensions are the result of local rightwing militias criss-crossing more liberal transplanted Californians. Additionally, everywhere in this region, the plans of developers are being rightfully and thankfully rebuffed by brave environmentalists.
8) The Northern Frontier
The Northern Frontier stretches pole-ward of roughly 52 degrees North latitude, and constitutes the northern half of the North American Realm, its biggest regional sub-division covering 90% of Canada and all of the U.S. State of Alaska.
After northern R ussia, this region is our planet’s second greatest expanse of

harsh cold environment inhabited by humans. Similar to Arctic landscape of
Eurasia, very few physical barriers exist in northern North America to ameliorate the masses of super-cold air that plunge directly southward from the ice-covered polar ocean, all throughout the long winters. These climatic factors have forced the Northern Frontier’s people to concentrate their activities in the milder, heavily forested southern half of the region.
The Northern Frontier is a classic frontier. Economic boom and bust cycles have controlled the rate of movement of its development pattern that extends as a line across parts of Canada’s near- and middle-northern periphery. Generally, this region is still sparsely populated with recent European settlements based on the extraction of newly discovered resources. However, First Nations and other indigenous peoples of this homeland, are involved in playing a growing role in the affairs of the Northern Frontier and will have a big say in shaping its future.
The Canadian Shield, covering the eastern half of the Northern Frontier, is one of the world’s richest storehouses of mineral resources. Mining complexes extract high-demand metallic ores, such as, nickel, uranium, copper, gold, silver, lead, and zinc. Originally located along the southern margins, the Shield’s production zones have steadily advanced northward since 1980s with the expansion of road and rail networks. Yukon and Northwest Territories have yielded rich bountiful deposits of gold and diamond in mining. On the eastern edge of the Shield, near
Voisey’s Bay on the central Labrador coast of Newfoundland, the largest discovered body of high-grade nickel ores is going into full scale production.
Additionally, the Northern Frontier has an abundance of fossil fuels, hydroelectric power, timber, and fisheries. There are substantial oil and gas reserves concentrated in a wide zone east of the Canadian Rockies between Yukon and
U.S. border. The Athabasca Tar Sands of northeastern Alberta is said to contain more crude oil than all of Saudi Arabia. However, they are deposited as a tar-like substance called bitumen in near-surface sand formations. Technological breakthrough enables this energy supply to be extracted ever more profitably.
By 2010, the Tar Sands is likely to become Canada’s dominant oil-producing zone.
Far flung activities of mining, oil and gas-fields, pulp mills, and hydropower stations have linked hundreds of settlements and thousands of miles of interconnecting transport and communication facilities. These commercial activities constitute just one component of the dual economy of this region, the other component being the native economy. Native economy is defined as “the economy that evolved from a subsistence hunting economy to one in which wage employment, transfer payments, and trapping provide cash income while hunting provides country food”. The native economy adheres to the traditional values of the indigeneous peoples (First Nations) and is tied to the commercial economy as a source of wages. It is a heavily land-based economy. Recently, First
Nations becoming more assertive and are filing legal actions to recover lands that Europeans took from them in the past without negotiating treaties. Courts

and federal government have turned sympathetic to them creating Nunavut in
1999.
This Northern Frontier region also contains the largest U.S. State of Alaska.
Alaska earns a sizeable chunk of income from oil production on its northeastern
Arctic slope. Additionally its south-central coast around Anchorage, enables it to act as a strategic midpoint location on the Pacific Rim air route between the
“Lower 48” U.S. States and East Asia. Heavy refueling, provision replenishments, and passenger and cargo transit make this location beneficial to the U.S. economy. These advantages have resulted in a growth spurt of more than 100% since 1970. Today, Alaska’s population is over 650,000 people comprising 30% of the Northern Frontier’s population huddled on less than onesixth of its bitter cold land area. Although metallic minerals have long drawn migrants northward, Alaska’s recent boom was due to the opening of its vast oilfields on the North Slope. It has been one of the Northern he misphere’s leading energy sources since the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline started operations way back in 1977. However, supplies have dwindled at the main field at Prudhoe Bay. This is forcing producers to turn to the huge additional reserves of the Arctic slope, but strong opposition from nature preservationist groups has slowed their plans. The Bush administration wants to begin drilling in the east that contains the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In 1999, the feds had partially opened the west containing the National Petroleum Reserve
– Alaska, to oil leasing by drillers. These drillers are pushing their claims that their newly gained sensitivity coupled with the latest technologies will supposedly minimize the impact of production on the fragile ecosystems of this tundra region. Yet another major project facing a similar nature battle is the proposal to construct a naturalgas pipeline to parallel the oil pipeline ( huge supplies of liquified gas are considered a by-product of oil drilling ).
9) The Pacific Hinge
The Pacific Hinge encompasses the Pacific coastlands of the conterminous
United States and southwesternmost Canada. This region has been a powerful lure to migrants. The strip of land between the Sierra Nevada-Cascade mountain wall and the sea receives adequate moisture, and possesses a hospitable environment with delightful weather south of San Francisco. It contains highly productive farmlands in California’s Central Valley, and scenic beauty of the Big
Sur coast, Wash ington State’s Olympic Mountains, and the spectacular waters surrounding San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and Vancouver. Post World War
II era saw this region’s population and economic graph rise immensely.
Everyday, the evolving economic geography of the West Coast of U.S.A. provides growing opportunities spreading across the distant shores encircling the
Pacific Basin. Hence, this region is called the Pacific Hinge, the term “hinge” indicating an interface between North America and the booming, still-emerging
Pacific Rim.

Fifty years of unrelenting growth have taken their toll. In California, 35 million humans are concentrated in the teeming conurbation that extends south from
San Francisco through San Jose, the San Joaquin Valley, the Los Angeles
Basin, and the southwestern coast into San Diego at the Mexican border.
Environmental hazards, such as, inland droughts, coastal flooding, mudslides, and brushfires, bedevil this entire corridor. However, the worst environmental hazard of this region is earthquake. The ominous San Andreas Fault is claimed by geologists to be a potential axis of disaster on a massive scale. To add to the chaos, humans have contributed with their own abuses of California’s fragile habitat, overusing water supplies that are imported from hundreds of miles away via vast aqueduct systems. Also, the chronic air pollution of Los Angeles is well known with its smoggy skyline.
In spite of all these situations, Californians are known to be this realm’s most productive economic machines. Recovering from national recession and the end of Cold War, this region made a turnaround by the end of 1990s. This was made possible by Southern California successfully diversifying its economy into new growth sectors, such as, the entertainment industry, foreign trade, and the nation’s largest single metropolitan manufacturing complex with products ranging from high-tech medical equipment to the low-tech factories of an escalating immigrant-staffed garment industry.
The northern portion of the Pacific Hinge encompasses Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. Northern California is focussed on the San Francisco Bay
Area. Since 1990s, an unprecedented period of economic expansion led by
Silicon Valley, a technopole, has immensely benefited the community of Palo
Alto, situated at the largest switching point on the internet handling more than half of its global traffic. Palo Alto offers unparalleled access to cyberspace with its state of the art fiber optic cable networks. It is supposed to become the hub of the so-called New Economy.
The Pacific Northwest extends northward from Oregon’s Willamette Valley trough the Cowlitz-Puget Sound lowland of western Washington State into the adjoining coastal zone of British Columbia beyond the Canadian border. Pacific
Northwest’s economic boom is due to the pioneering production of computer technology, with its technopole centered on suburban Seattle’s Redmond, headquarters of the Microsoft Corporation. Primary activities of timber and fishing still survive in Pacific Northwest, but its impetus for industrialization came with the massive Columbia River dam projects during the 1930s and 1950s, that generated cheap hydroelectricity attracting aluminum and aircraft manufacturers.
Boeing compan y has a huge complex outside Seattle, being the area’s leading employer. However, the recent influx of affluent newcomers with their technobrains has fueled the explosive growth of software and internet companies.
North of the Canadian border, the Paci fic Hinge’s northernmost subregion hosts
British Columbia and Vancouver. Vancouver is presently the most Asianized metropolis in North America. It lies closer to East Asia proper on the air and sea

routes than any of the other American cities to the south of Vancouver. Hence,
Vancouver got a head start in forging trade and investment connections to the western Pacific Rim due to its large and growing Asian population. Ethnic
Chinese constitute 20% of Vancouver’s metropolitan population, with the total
Asian component exceeding 35%. Amidst the emerging east-west hybrid culture, tensions arose when wealthy Hong Kong Chinese Asians took over neighborhoods and replaced traditional homes with much larger houses, surrounding them with walls and fences and cut away most of the trees. The growing belief that these wealthy Hong Kong Chinese Asians are not going to assimilate in the local culture, and will instead avoid the use of English language, and live, shop, and transact business exclusively within their own ringed communities, is making the local people frantic with worry at such newcomers.
This Pacific Hinge region has international linkages that is contributing to the economic boom of this realm. Asianized British Columbia exports 40% of its goods to the countries of the Pacific Rim. The rest of Vancouver-Seattle-
Portland corridor is following suit with high-tech industries leading the way.
Foreign-trade sector has tripled in California since 1990, 15% of its jobs being export related. Metropolitan Los Angeles has become the financial, manufacturing and trading capital of the eastern Pacific Rim, and also its transport hub. As a result of all this, Northern and Southern California are thriving economically.
9.
What are the major differences and similarities between Canada and the
United States?
Major differences between Canada and the United States are as follows:
Canada’s plural society is most strongly expressed in regional bilingualism, and not so much in ethnic or racial lines. In USA, major divisions occur along racial lines.
Canada’s population has evolved more slowly than that of USA.
Although both countries are federal states, Canada’s federalism is organized differently than USA. Canada is divided administratively into 10 provinces and three territories. USA separates its executive and legislative branches of government, and it consists of 50 states, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and a number of island territories under U.S. jurisdiction in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
Canada’s most moderate climates correspond to the coldest climates of the
United States.

Due to extreme cold climatic regions across Canadian territory, only 1/8 th of
Canada can be classified as ecumene – the inhabitable zone of permanent settlement. However, most of USA is inhabitable.
Major similarities between Canada and the United States are as follows:
Canada and USA are both federal states.
Canada and USA are both plural societies.
Populations of both Canada and USA are highly urbanized and mobile.
Populations of both Canada and USA are largely propelled by a continuing wave of immigration.
Both countries are rich in minerals and oil and natural gas deposits.
Both countries are rich with high income and high consumption rates.
The two countries heavily depend on each other for supplies of critical raw materials. Both are members of NAFTA.
Both countries have high-speed network of highways, commercial air routes, and cutting-edge telecommunications networks.
Both countries exhibit signs of postindustrialism.
10.
Briefly describe NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and what its significance is for North America.
NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) was born in 1994 to formalize interactions between the economies of Canada, U.S.A., and Mexico. To achieve its goals by the maturity date of 2009, NAFTA requires the member countries to concentrate producing those goods and services that give each country a comparative advantage in research and development, technological skills, managerial know-how, etc. This movement of workers towards more productive industries is altering the geography of employment, a common process in globalization.
NAFTA’s significance for North America is reflected in its economic alliance that has forged the world’s largest trading bloc with a U.S.$8-trillion-plus marked of
413 million consumers that surpasses the EU’s 377 million. By the time it nears its completion in 2009, NAFTA will use a number of steps to integrate its constituent economies. Thousands of individual tariffs, quotas, and import

licenses have been or are scheduled to be changed eliminating most trade barriers for agricultural and manufactured goods as also for tertiary and quaternary services. Restrictions have been eased on investment capital flow across international borders and liberalization of foreign ownership of productive facilities are being encouraged.
NAFTA inventors are enthusiastic about its maturity goals by 2009. Unimpeded exports will flow freely across borders booming business investment, while intensified competition will put consumers in the driver’s seat with wide choices at bargain prices.