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when many people live together in a community. And the place itself becomes much more productive, because collective creativity grows exponentially. As Nobel Prizewinning economist Robert Lucas explained it: “What can people be paying Manhattan or downtown Chicago rents for, if not to be around other people?”
Americans live in cities from economic necessity and a desire to enjoy the social and cultural advantages cities offer. On the other hand, they yearn to own a separate piece of land, to be closer to nature and to be free of the limitations imposed by living too close to others and. In the multinational American society, members of many ethnic groups find themselves living very close to one another and trying to tolerate and accept one another’s different ways of living. Besides, the increased cost of services, forces of price, crimes and congestion, in general, ups and downs of the national economy, begin pushing people away from the center. But it has nothing to do with “de-centralization of work” as many have argued. The huge economic advantages of clustering still guide the process, which is why second cities emerge near big cities or in the corridors between them, not in the middle of nowhere.
The biggest Mega in economic terms is the original, the Boston-to-Washington (BosWash) corridor. In 1961 it was home to about 32 million people; today its population has risen to 55 million, more than 17% of all Americans. The region generates $2,5 trillion in economic activity, making it the world’s fourth largest economy, bigger than
France or the United Kingdom. Next in the line is Chi-Pitts, the great Midwestern Mega running from Chicago to Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburg, with population 45 million, with $2,3 trillion in economic activity. Three of the power centers of the US economy even stretch beyond American borders: So-Cal runs from Los Angeles to San Diego across Mexican border to Tijuana; Tor-Buff-Chester sprawls from Toronto to Buffalo, Rochester, Ottawa and Montreal (20.1million people); and Cascadia from Portland, Oregon, to Vancouver. The southern Chatlanta cuts across Atlanta to Charlotte and Raleigh, 19.6 million; So-Flo (Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville) with 13.7 million people. The maps make it clear that the global economy takes shape around perhaps 20 great Megas – half in the US. The New Megas are real engines of innovation, worldclass scientific and economic activity and growth.
Chapter 3 The Founding of America
All wonderful innovations in their way had advanced the cause of man. But nothing yet accomplished would rival in importance the discovery, colonization and eventual democratization of the New World. America was a new world for the European settlers, but it was the ancestral home of thousands of tribal people. Their presence affected the
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nature of colonial life as Europeans carved out settlements in the midst of tribal lands. The civilization which developed in North America was no simple extension of European culture but a unique and different way of life.
Yes, America would become what de Tocqueville described as the “total package.” America’s journey from undiscovered frontier to independent nation to transcendently perfect beacon of freedom was long, complex, and fascinating. But to fully understand this journey you only have to memorize a few dates.
1492 In fourteen hundred ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue…
… and discovered America. It was history’s most glorious mistake. A young merchant from the Italian city-state of Genoa became convinced he could obtain access to the wealth of spices, silks and gold in Asia by heading west across the “Sea of Darkness’- the Atlantic. The King of Portugal refused to pay for the voyage. In 1485, Columbus went to Spain for help and got it – on August 3, 1492, three ships left Spain. In a remarkable feat of courage and seamanship, Columbus led 88 sailors across the Atlantic, trying to find a short sea rout to the Indies (a group of islands off the coast of China and India) by sailing west from Spain. Six weeks later, his men landed in what is now the Bahamas. As an expression of his gratitude to God for protecting them through their dangerous trip, Columbus named the island San Salvador (Holy Savior), and, of course, claimed it for Spain. Thinking he had landed in the Indies, Columbus called the people he met “los Indios (“Indians”). The name “Indian” remains in the English language. Columbus sailed on expecting to reach China. He explored Cuba, thinking it to be Japan, than Haiti and some other islands which are now known as the West Indies. On his third voyage, in 1498, Columbus touched the northern coast of South America; in 1504, on his fourth voyage, he touched the mainland of North America, when he tried to discover the way to India.
The lands discovered by Columbus did not bring gold, silks or spices. The expeditions were considered to be a failure at last. Ironically, the land discovered by Columbus never bore his name. The continents we call North and South America are named after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer who made four voyages to the “New World” some time after Columbus but without ever once seeing North America. A German mapmaker, M. Waldseemuller, drawing maps based on Vespucci’s reports, thought that he had discovered the whole continent and put his name on the map. When Waldseemuller learned his error, he took the name off, but by then it got stuck.
In 1792, New York City honored Columbus and dedicated a monument to his memory. Soon after that, the city of Washington was officially named the District of Columbia
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and became the capital of the United States. In 1892, a statue of Columbus was raised at the beginning of Columbus Avenue in New York City, and at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago viewers saw replicas of the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria - the boats Columbus sailed to the New World .
Columbus was foremost a navigational genius On the other hand, as many scholars have since pointed out, his motives were primarily financial and personalized – he was seeking new lands for Spain and riches and glory for himself. However, his achievements were key in the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern age. Christopher Columbus became the first explorer to alert Europe to the vast lands that could be found by sailing west. This single act of courage and skill, thought foolish or suicidal by many at the time, set in motion global population shifts and advances in human knowledge that profoundly changed history. Columbus’s voyage had an enormous impact - the immigration of thousands of refugees, pilgrims, missionaries, conquerors, opportunists, and people like our own ancestors who wanted a better life for themselves and their children. As a result of his succeeding journeys, Europeans encountered not only a new world, but also crops that radically altered their diets: potatoes, tomatoes, corn, chocolate, peppers, beans, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, squash, peanuts, pine-apples, blue-berries, and sunflowers. At the same time, he and those who followed him brought to the New World wheat, barley, onions, lettuce, citrus fruit, horses dogs cats, beef, cattle pigs, and chickens. Colonization by the English, French, Spanish and Dutch eventually led to the American Revolution and the founding of the American republic.
Unfortunately, tragedy also accompanied these events as Old World diseases accompanied the immigrants - diseases for which the New World had no natural immunity: smallpox, measles, cholera, and whooping cough. There was also greed, cruelty, and racism. Columbus’s discovery also began a clash of cultures that proved disastrous for the aboriginal peoples of the Americas. European colonization was not an unalloyed triumph. While Columbus is often venerated in our history books, he is no hero to most tribal peoples. For them his voyages resulted in sometimes unintended, but nonetheless real, catastrophe, genocide, forced relocation and the destruction of their traditional ways of life. The story of the Native Americansor American Indianis unique and tragic because the conflict between the Indians and whites is that of traditional peoples throughout the world who have come in contact with expanding European societies and succeeded in retaining their identity and culture de-spite the onslaught of modern civilization. The survival of the American
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Indians over the past five centuries is remarkable in itself. If Christopher Columbus had not been born in Italy, Americans might not have a Columbus Day.
Out of pride for their native son, the Italian population of New York City organized the first celebration of the discovery of America on October 12, 1866.. In 1869, when Italians of San Francisco celebrated October 12, they called it Columbus Day. In 1905, Colorado became the first state to observe a Columbus Day. Over the next few decades other states followed. Finally, in 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed every October 12 Columbus Day. Since 1971, the holiday has been celebrated on the second Monday of October to give Americans a three-day weekend.
Controversy still surrounds the “facts of the discovery of America. It is possible that Scandinavian Vikings as well as Irish missionaries reached the New World before Columbus did. Nonetheless, most Americans continue to honor Columbus as the discoverer of America, and Columbus Day remains a holiday dear to all of them.
PERIOD OF COLONIZATION. EARLY ENCOUNTERS
The scientists think that the people of Asia found the land bridge between Asia and North America 15,000 to 40,000 years ago. They passed through what is now Alaska and western Canada. American Indians, descendants of the first settlers, lived in or near all these regions. The North-west Indians lived near the forests of the Pacific Ocean; the California Indians settled between the Rocky Mountains and the California coast. Like their neighbors, they fished and hunted. The Plains Indians hunted in the central part of the continent. The Southwest Indians inhabited what is now Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico They were farmers and grew corn and beans. The Eastern Woodland Indians fished in the Atlantic Ocean and in the rivers, hunted in the forests, many of them built villages and became farmers.
From the very first, Europeans who explored North America were looking for riches. Every trip was a journey into unknown. From the sagas of a Scandinavian Viking called Leif Ericsson we know about the trip to the North American shores (Newfoundland) in 1001. He called the land Vinland because he found there grapes, wheat and trees. He even built a settlement there.
In the late 1400’s Spain began searching for a fast and safe water route to the East.
Spanish were the first white men to reach in 1513 the land on the coast of beautiful flowers which caused them to call it Florida (Flowery). They wandered for years between the Mississippi and California . The search for gold led them and others to explore the southern part of what is now the USA territory – Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. They explored the region now known as Arizona,
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New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. These travels gave the Europeans some idea of the great size, the geography, and the people of the New World. In the 1580s, some Spanish priests began building missions in New Mexico and in California. The wandering Indians were brought to live in villages around the missions. Santa Barbara, California, was one of such missions where the Indians were forced to labor in their fields, mines and houses. The Spanish treated the Indians so cruelly that the native population was dying off rapidly. But there was one more reason for that - diseases, to which the Indians had no immunity. Almost 90% of the Native American population perished during the 16th century.
Spain today owns no land in North or South America, but the Spanish language is widely spoken in Americas. Many geographical names still tell the story of Spain in America, as, for instance, El Paso (the pass), Rio Grande (great river), San Antonio (St. Anthony), Colorado (red). We should not forget that the Spanish founded the two oldest cities in US: St. Augustine, Florida (1565), and Santa Fe, New Mexico (1598).
The French and the Dutch came to the New World in search of profit. The French explorers found the St. Lawrence River and explored it as far as present-day Montreal, Canada. In early 1600s, they explored what is now eastern Canada and Northern New York State; besides, they set up a settlement at Quebec. In 1682, when traveling down to the mouth of the Mississippi, they discovered the surrounding area which they called Louisiana and claimed it for France. The Dutch explored the Atlantic shore, the Hudson, and set the first Dutch colonies – New Nether-lands and New Amsterdam. Some came to the New World to farm, but many were planning to grow rich by buying furs from the Indians.
The news of the discoveries made by the Spanish made a great stir in England. The country also wanted to have a share in the trade across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1497, John Cabot and his men became the first Europeans to reach the North American land (Canada). It looked very much like Scotland. Afterwards it was named Nova Scotia, or New Scotland and claimed for England. The land was thought to be a part of Asia. Two voyages brought nothing but the great disappointment.
Since plantation owners in the New World needed more slaves, they bought them from some European sailors who made money on slave trade and kidnapping Negroes in Africa. That was a very profitable business, and many English seamen became slave traders or pirates. In the mid 1500s, England began to compete with Spain for the right to settle its own colonies in the New World. It needed more territories to accommodate a great number of poor people who couldn’t find work in England and were dying from hunger. That was a serious social problem. People said it was necessary to take them