y-Bac Blanc, Lycée Richelieu – Février 2014
Geography – The USA and Globalization
NYC, a global city
Doc. 1 – Population by Race / Hispanic Origin, NYC, 1970-2011
Sources: US Census Bureau, 1970-2000 decennial censuses; 2011 American Community Survey-Summary File
Population Division – NYC Department of City Planning
Doc. 2 – NYC at a glance, taken from the website www.nycedc.com (New York City Economic Development Corporation)
Bac Blanc, Lycée Richelieu – Février 2014
Geography – The USA and Globalization
NYC, a global city
Doc. 1 – Document taken from the website of The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, www.panynj.gov
Doc. 2 – Tourism industry in NYC, CNN, January 2013
With Gotham1 welcoming a record 52 million visitors in 2012 (a 2.1 percent increase over 2011) the city solidified its
standing as the United States’ premiere city destination. According to a press release on the city government’s website,
tourism generated $55.3 billion in economic impact. Approximately 41 million domestic visitors and 11 million international
visitors hit the town last year. “The tourism industry is creating thousands of jobs for New Yorkers at all rungs 2 of the
economic ladder,” said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the press release. “We are well on our way to achieving
our new goal of 55 million visitors and $70 billion in economic impact by 2013. According to Robert Steel, deputy mayor
for economic development, tourism is the city’s fifth largest industry, employing 356,000 New Yorkers.
Doc. – BBC New York Correspondent Nick Bryant, introducing his blog, August 2013
No city could boast taller skyscrapers. Nowhere had street names, like Broadway and Wall Street, which doubled as
realms in their own right. No metropolis had such a large and charismatic personality.
Perhaps it is the familiarity of that cityscape which can make strangers feel so quickly at home. "One belongs to New York
instantly," the novelist Tom Wolfe has written, "one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years."
The home to more than eight million people speaking between them over 800 languages, New York has always been the
world's greatest experiment in multiculturalism.
New York, as well being as the foremost global city, is the pre-eminent American city - its financial, media and cultural
capital.
1
2
Gotham is one of the nicknames given to New York City.
A rung: un barreau
Bac Blanc, Lycée Richelieu – Février 2014
Geography – The USA and Globalization
NYC, a global city
Doc. 1 – “The Global Metropolis” summit, New York City, Skirball Center for the Performing Arts,
Washington Square, June 18th-19th, 2013
Doc. 2 – Article entitled « New Tech is now New York’s Second Largest Sector »,
excerpted from The Verge, September 2013
New York City’s economy has traditionally been dominated by finance, real estate, and media. But tech may be taking
hold as a staple3 of the private sector, according to a new report, "Building a Digital City: the Growth and Impact of New
York City’s Tech / Information Sector," (…). The study gives some clues as to how New York pulled off 4 what many other
cities are desperately attempting to do: invent a tech startup scene.
Rapid job growth has made the city’s tech and information industry the second-largest contributor to the private sector
economy by wages, according to the study. The tech sector is also booming in the outer boroughs of Brooklyn and
Queens, while the national tech industry is attracting Hispanic and black workers faster than white ones.
Tech is often billed as the solution to waning job growth in the US, and this study appears to confirm that. In 2009, New
York City’s Independent Budget Office forecast that the city’s economic recovery from the Great Recession would lag
behind the rest of the nation’s. Instead, New York pulled out of the recession faster than the rest of the country, in part
due to the growth in the tech sector, says economist Michael Mandel, who conducted the study. (…)
These new information and tech workers may also be more diverse than those the industry has traditionally attracted,
according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of Hispanic and Latino workers nationally working at computer or
math-related occupations has risen by 28 percent in the last two years, while the number of black workers rose 23
percent and the number of Asian workers rose 18 percent.”
3
4
A staple: produit, article de base.
To pull off: réaliser, mener à bien.
Bac Blanc, Lycée Richelieu – Février 2014
Geography – The USA and Globalization
NYC, a global city
Doc. 1 – Excerpt taken from BBC correspondent Nick Bryant in NYC, August 16, 2013
From its bridges to the airports, the infrastructure has fallen a long way behind the mega-cities of Asia. No longer can it
boast the planet's tallest skyscrapers - it does not even have a building in the global top three. Noticeably, one of the
biggest billboards on Times Squares is rented not by one of the US networks, but by China's Xinhua News agency.
Doc. 2 – The World’s 10 tallest completed buildings, 2011
This 2011 document does not take into account the NYC Freedom Tower, whose spire reaches 1,776 feet (541) while the
building itself is 417-meter high (picture on the right). The Freedom Tower was inaugurated on November 13, 2013
Doc. 3 – Excerpt taken from the website of the American TV channel CNBC
Google’s purchase of a Manhattan building, estimated to cost $2 billion, and the largest US real estate transaction this
year for a single building, is a vote of confidence in New York City.
The 15-story structure houses Google’s second-largest engineering presence outside of the company's headquarters in
Mountain View, Calif.
It covers a full city block and has nearly three million square feet—valued at about $600 per square foot. Google itself
occupies 500,000 square feet of the building, which accommodates some 2,000 employees.
The building is chock full5 of engineers and designers, along with lots of free food for Google employees. It features a
casual working atmosphere—something Google is known for—that encourages creativity and innovation.
5
Chock-full: plein à ras bord.
Bac Blanc, Lycée Richelieu – Février 2014
Geography – The USA and Globalization
NYC, a global city
Doc. 1 – Tourist map published by NYCTourist.com
Doc. 2 – NYC landscapes: Chinatown and East Harlem
(2007 and 2010 pictures)
Doc. 3 – BBC New York Correspondent Nick Bryant, introducing his blog, August 2013
No city could boast taller skyscrapers. Nowhere had street names, like Broadway and Wall Street, which doubled as
realms in their own right. No metropolis had such a large and charismatic personality.
Perhaps it is the familiarity of that cityscape which can make strangers feel so quickly at home. "One belongs to New York
instantly," the novelist Tom Wolfe has written, "one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years."
The home to more than eight million people speaking between them over 800 languages, New York has always been the
world's greatest experiment in multiculturalism.
New York, as well being as the foremost global city, is the pre-eminent American city - its financial, media and cultural
capital.
Bac Blanc, Lycée Richelieu – Février 2014
Geography – The USA and Globalization
Questioning the leadership of American TNCs
Doc. 1 – “Political food: challenging the imperialists is getting easier”,
The Economist, October 30th, 2004
Boycotts are a good weapon, but you need something to switch to. Ditching 6 French products for American ones (or vice
versa) is easy. But for Muslims, alternatives to infidel products are rare. There may be a gleam of hope, at least as far as
carbonated soft-drinks are concerned. Britain's Muslim grocery stores now stock a bewildering variety of Islamic
alternatives to those most American of products, Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
The most famous is Mecca Cola, invented by Tawfik Mathlouthi, a French-Tunisian businessman who also runs an Islamic radio station. It is aimed at those who resent7 "Coca-Colonisation," but who like the free and easy image Coke
conveys. "There's a strong love-hate relationship with America in the Muslim world", says John Band of Datamonitor, a
market research firm.
But truly committed subversive may prefer Qibla Cola, brewed by a firm in Derby8. Despite its name, which refers to the
direction of Mecca, the holy city that Muslims pray towards, it plays down its Islamic credentials in its official literature,
preferring to talk about charitable donations and opposition to "injustice and exploitation"9. But Zafer Iqbal, its boss, has
spoken out about the "unjust colonialist war" in Iraq (the company says that this is merely his personal opinion). Some of
its directors, a publicity-shy bunch, are sympathetic towards Hizb-ut-Tahrir, an Islamist organization that wants to
establish a worldwide caliphate.
Then there is Zamzam Cola, an Iranian drink named after a holy spring in Mecca. Despite being based in the world's only
Islamic theocracy, Zamzam is the most determinedly secular10 of the lot. Its promotional material talks boringly of market
share and production capacity, not sharia and the Great Satan.
Doc. 2 – Mecca Cola advertisement campaign, 2004
6
To ditch : to give up.
To resent (vt) : être indigné de…
8
Derby is located in England.
9
The company donates 10% of its profits to good causes around the World.
10
Secular : laïque.
7
Bac Blanc, Lycée Richelieu – Février 2014
Geography – The USA and Globalization
Challenging America’s leadership
Doc. 1 – The Economist, Oct. 9th 2004
In the minds of many Americans, globalisation is to blame for the weak labour market, as good American jobs are
“outsourced” to cheap workers in India and China. [...] China, especially, is now cast as the villain of trade. [...]
This popular picture bears little resemblance to economic fact. Only a fraction of the job losses in recent years can be
traced to outsourced jobs. The real reason for the slack employment figures is strikingly high growth in productivity. Nor
does China deserve blame for America’s trade deficit, which is caused by not enough saving at home rather than unfair
trade practices abroad.
Doc. 2 – Cartoon By Danziger for The New York Times, July 9th, 2005
Doc. 3 – A 2010 cartoon by the Swedish cartoonist Olle Johansson (known as Tecknar-Olle)
Bac Blanc, Lycée Richelieu – Février 2014
Geography – The USA and Globalization
Challenging America’s leadership
Doc. 1 – An article taken from the website of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (www.chicagofed.org), written in 2003
by William Testa, Jay Liao and Alexei Zelenev
U.S. trade with China has grown dramatically in recent years. The growth in imports, in particular, has raised some
challenges for domestic manufacturers competing against lower-cost Chinese production. At the same time, households
benefit from falling prices for imported goods, firms benefit from falling prices on intermediate components and parts, and
U.S.- domiciled multinationals benefit from selling to and investing in the burgeoning Chinese market. (…)
Economic reforms beginning in 1978 launched China onto a robust path of export-led industrial growth and urban
development. These reform efforts reached a milestone with China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in
2001. WTO membership promises greater attractiveness for China as a domicile for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) ,
along with access to the markets of other member countries. (…)
In addition, China has selectively encouraged FDI, especially in manufacturing. Many of these FDI operations produce
goods that serve the Chinese market, but many more are platforms to export goods back to their country of origin or to
other markets. (…)
From 1997 to 2002, trade volumes (combined exports and imports) between the U.S. and China increased at an average
annual pace of 12.5% (…). As a result, in 2002, China became our fourth largest trading partner after Canada, Mexico
and Japan.
Both exports and imports have grown rapidly, but China’s imports into the U.S. have easily outpaced U.S. exports to
China. Since 1989, the nominal dollar value of U.S. imports from China has multiplied more than eightfold, reaching $125
billion in 2002, allowing China to surpass Japan for the first time. (…).
Doc. 2 – A cartoon by Chapatte, International Herald Tribune, 2002
Bac Blanc, Lycée Richelieu – Février 2014
Geography – The USA and Globalization
Wal-Mart, an American TNC
Doc. 1 – Excerpts taken from the website of Walmart, www.corporate.walmart.com
Walmart helps people around the world save money and live better -- anytime and anywhere -- in retail stores, online and
through their mobile devices. Each week, more than 245 million customers and members visit our 11,000 stores under 69
banners in 27 countries and e-commerce websites in 10 countries. With fiscal year 2013 sales of approximately $466
billion, Walmart employs 2.2 million associates worldwide.
Find out how innovative thinking, leadership through service, and above all, our commitment to saving people money so
they can live better have made us the business we are today and are shaping the company we will be tomorrow.
(...)
Walmart international stores, just like those of the U.S., provide excellent customer service and convenience and they
offer working families the things they need at prices they can afford. At Walmart, we go to great lengths to ensure our
international stores reflect the local needs and wants of our customers, and we work hard to make sure our stores are
seen as vital partners in communities. This approach is the reason Walmart is being welcomed into country after country
around the globe, and it’s also why we have tremendous potential to continue our rapid growth internationally.
Doc. 2 – A 2005 sign launched by Reclaim Democracy, an association which seeks
to restore citizen authority over corporations
Doc. 3 – A cartoon by the American Cartoonist Clay Bennett, November 2013
Bac Blanc, Lycée Richelieu – Février 2014
Geography – The USA and Globalization
Challenging USA’s leadership
Doc. 1 – A 2009 cartoon taken from The Cagle Post, a website for political cartoonists
Doc. 2 – Cartoon by Jason Stout, The Austin Chronicle, June 22, 2007
Doc. 3 – Gabor Steingart, excerpt from “America’s middle class has become globalization’s loser”,
published in Der Spiegel (German magazine, international online version), October 24th, 2006
There are essentially three characteristics whose simultaneous development has served as the foundations of the United
States’ success until now. (…)
First, nowhere in the world can you find such a high concentration of optimism and daring. (…) Second, the United States
is radically global. Their language is dominant (…), their every day culture – from the T-shirt and rock’n’roll to e-mail – has
peacefully colonized half of the world. (…) Third, the United States is the only nation on earth that can do business
globally in its own currency. (…)
But there is a flip side to the coin11. First, (…) public, private and corporate debt far exceeds any previously known
dimensions. (…) Second, globalization is striking back. The US has promoted the worldwide exchange of commodities
like no other nation, and the result is that their local industry has begun to be eroded.
11
A flip side to the coin : le revers de la médaille.
Bac Blanc, Lycée Richelieu – Février 2014
Geography – The USA and Globalization
American TNCs – The example of Apple
Doc. 1 – Two pictures showing the opening of the new Apple Store in Shanghai, July 10th, 2010.
Left picture: Apple employees welcome customers outside the new Apple Store.
Right picture: customers queue outside the new Apple store, on July 10th, 2010.
Doc. 2 – An article from The New York Time, June 30th, 2011
In 2006 the iPod employed nearly twice as many people outside the United States as it did in the country where it was
invented – 13,920 in the United States, and 27,250 abroad. (…)
Even though most of the iPod jobs are outside the United States, the lion’s share 12 of the iPod salaries are in America.
Those 13,920 American workers earned nearly $750 million. By contrast, the 27,250 non-American Apple employees
took home less than $320 million.
Doc. 3 – Pictures taken in October 2011, outside Hong-Kong Apple Store.
Chinese students’ protests.
12
The lion’s share : the biggest part
Bac Blanc, Lycée Richelieu – Février 2014
Geography – The USA and Globalization
Challenging America’s leadership
Doc. 1 – New York Times, an article by Chris Buckley, May 16th, 2005
BEIJING — China responded angrily on Sunday to the new limits that the United States placed on its clothing exports
(…). The reactions followed the announcement on Friday by the U.S. Department of Commerce that it would impose new
quotas on Chinese-made garments. (…) The U.S. quotas (…) were a "betrayal of the fundamental spirit of trade
liberalization espoused by the WTO" and would "seriously damage the confidence of Chinese businesses and people in
the international trade environment since China joined WTO," Chong Quan, a spokesman for the Commerce Ministry in
China, said in response to Washington's decision, referring to the World Trade Organization.
(…) The U.S. commerce secretary, Carlos Gutierrez, announced quotas on Chinese-made cotton trousers, shirts and
underwear. He cited a rise of up to 1,500 percent in Chinese garment exports since early January, when the United
States and Europe abolished a system of quotas that limited imports.
This latest looming trade fight between Beijing and Washington comes at a brittle time in their economic relations. (…)
U.S. manufacturers and Bush administration officials complain that Beijing has kept its currency exchange rate low to
encourage exports of cheap Chinese goods, and U.S. textile makers claim that they have lost up to 16,000 domestic jobs
because of Chinese goods.
(Since January 1st), decades-old import quotas that had restricted flows of garment imports were abolished worldwide,
giving all WTO members unrestricted access to global markets. Since then, China's share of garment exports to the
United States and Europe has grown rapidly. (…)
The measures Washington announced Friday were "safeguard measures" that WTO rules allow for when a country's
domestic market is "disrupted" by an import surge.
Doc. 2 – A 2012 cartoon by the Slovak cartoonist Martin Sutovec, known as Shooty
Bac Blanc, Lycée Richelieu – Février 2014
Geography – The USA and Globalization
The USA and China
Doc. 1 – “Reluctant Partners: Global Crisis Makes US More Dependent on China than Ever”,
by Gabor Steingart and Wieland Wagner in Der Spiegel (international online version), November 11, 2009
When US President Barack Obama visits China this weekend, he will encounter a rival that sees the financial crisis as
more of an opportunity than a threat. America, on the other hand, has been fundamentally weakened by the global crunch
- and is more dependent on the goodwill of the rising superpower than ever.
Thirty years after the two major powers established diplomatic relations, the bilateral balance is now shifting in China's
favor. When Obama arrives in Beijing this week-end as part of his first Asian tour since taking office, the Chinese will
expect him to behave far more modestly than his predecessor. The president is unlikely to disappoint his hosts.
Judging by what his advisors have indicated in recent weeks, Obama will not inundate the Chinese with demands. The
vision of a nuclear weapons-free world will have to wait. The calls for binding climate protection goals will only be
mentioned quietly, if they are mentioned at all. (…) Rarely has the superpower been this mild-mannered.
Obama describes his foreign policy as a new age of cooperation. He is seeking to develop a relationship with a Chinese
leadership that he needs more than it needs him. About two-thirds of China's foreign currency reserves are denominated
in dollars. Any abrupt shift on the part of Beijing would threaten the stability of the US currency. Cheap imported Chinese
goods help push up the American standard of living and minimize the risks of inflation.
Doc. 2 – “Walmart China Factsheet”, taken from Walmart’s website, www.corporate.walmart.com
Walmart entered the Chinese market and opened its first Supercenter and Sam’s Club in Shenzhen in 1996. (…) As of
February 28, 2013, Walmart operated more than 390 units in over 150 cities in 21 provinces, autonomous regions and 4
municipalities, and had created approximately 100,000 job opportunities across China.
Walmart China firmly believes in local sourcing. We have established partnerships with nearly 20,000 suppliers in China.
Over 95% of the merchandise in our stores in China is sourced locally. In addition, Walmart is committed to local talent
development and diversity, especially the cultivation and full utilization of female staff and executives. 99.9% of Walmart
China associates are Chinese nationals. All our stores in China are managed by local Chinese. Furthermore, over 60
percent of Walmart China associates are female and about 40% of those are at management level. In 2009, the company
established the “Walmart China Women’s Leadership Development Commission” for driving women’s career
development.
Doc. 3 – A 2012 cartoon by the Slovak cartoonist Martin Sutovec, known as Shooty
Bac Blanc, Lycée Richelieu – Février 2014
Geography – The USA and Globalization
Could China challenge the American superpower?
Doc. 1 - “The Chinese century?”, by Michael Elliott, Time Magazine, January 22, 2007
“You may know all about the world coming to China – about the hordes of foreign business people setting up factories
and boutiques and showrooms in places like Shanghai and Shenzhen. But you probably know less about how China is
going out into the world. Through its foreign investments and appetite for raw materials, the world’s most populous
country has already transformed economies from Angola to Australia. Now China is turning that commercial might into
real political muscle, striding onto the global stage and acting like a nation that very much intends to become the world’s
next great power. In the past year, China has established itself as the key dealmaker in nuclear negotiations with North
Korea, allied itself with Russia in an attempt to shape the future of central Asia, launched a diplomatic offensive in Europe
and Latin American and contributed troops to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.
With the U.S. preoccupied with the threat of Islamic terrorism and struggling to extricate itself from a failing war in Iraq,
China seems ready to challenge – possible even undermine – some of Washington’s other foreign policy goals, from
halting the genocide in Darfur to toughening sanctions against Iran. China’s international role has won the attention of the
new Democratic majority in the U.S. Congress.
(…) The Chinese (…) believe that the 21st century is China’s century. That’s quite something to believe. Is it true? (…) will
it be true?”
Doc. 2 – A cartoon by David Horsey, 2005
Bac Blanc, Lycée Richelieu – Février 2014
Geography – The USA and Globalization
The US-Mexico border
Doc. 1 – Map of the US border fence project, voted in 2006 by President G.W. Bush
“This bill will help protect the American people. This bill will make our borders more secure. It is an important step toward
immigration reform” (G.W. Bush in October 2006)
Doc. 2 – A cartoon by the American cartoonist David Horsey, 2006
Doc. 3 – Death on the US-Mexican border: the killings America chooses to ignore, by Tim Walker,
The Independent (British newspaper), December 22, 2013
Since 2005, patrol agents and CBP officers have killed some 42 people along the US-Mexican border without facing any
public consequences – or any large-scale.
On 28 May 28 2010, 42-year-old Anastacio Hernandez Rojas was detained by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
agents while attempting to enter California from Mexico, at the San Ysidro border crossing near San Diego. Hernandez
Rojas had previously spent 25 years living as an undocumented immigrant north of the border, where he worked as a
swimming pool plasterer and fathered five American-born children.
That evening, he was in the process of being deported back into Mexico when he was handcuffed and hog-tied on the
tarmac close to the border, and surrounded by more than a dozen CBP agents and Border Patrol officers, who kicked and
beat him until several of his ribs were broken. As he pleaded for help, one officer reportedly (...) shocked him with a taser
gun at least five times. All told, the attack went on for almost half an hour. Hernandez Rojas was admitted to hospital,
where, three days later, he died of his injuries.
San Ysidro is the busiest border crossing on Earth, so there were numerous eyewitnesses to the incident, several of
whom recorded the violent scene on their phones. Their videos undermine the official report, which claimed that
Hernandez Rojas was hostile and combative. The San Diego medical examiner ruled his death a homicide, but the US
attorney decided that the CBP response had been “appropriate”. (...) The media has shown relatively little interest in the
case of Hernandez Rojas and others like him.
Bac Blanc, Lycée Richelieu – Février 2014
Geography – The USA and Globalization
The US-Mexico border
Doc. 1 – A cartoon by Mike Keefe, Denver Post, March 2009
Doc. 2 – An article excerpted from NBC News, by Mark Potter, correspondent, Nov. 25th, 2011
FALFURRIAS, Texas — While walking along a dirt road bordering his property, a South Texas farmer complained about
living in fear of Mexican traffickers smuggling drugs and illegal immigrants across his land. (…) "I'm a citizen of the United
States. This is supposedly sovereign soil, but right now it's anybody's who happens to be crossing here," he said. (…)
The farmer said a federal law enforcement agent told him to buy a bulletproof vest to use while working in his fields.
Whenever he goes out to survey his agricultural operations, he always tells his office where he is headed, and he has
purchased a high-powered rifle. (…)
The Obama administration and many local officials have said the U.S.-Mexican border is safer than ever and that reports
of violence on the American side are wildly exaggerated. But the farmer scoffed at that argument. "I walk this soil every
day and have since I was old enough to come out on my own," he said. "In this part of Texas, it is worse than it's ever
been." (…)
Among ranchers, farmers and law enforcement agents working at the ground level, however, there is considerable
agreement that large-scale drug smuggling from Mexico into the United States has been increasing in recent years and
that the traffickers are becoming more aggressive. For the farmer (…), it creates a painful dilemma. "I can't pick up and
move this farm; we're tied to the land," he said. "This is the front door to our country. Help us stop it here."
Doc. 3 – A cartoon by Chris Britt, The State Journal-Register, March 27, 2009