CHAPTER 4
NORTH AMERICA
1. North America encompasses two of the world’s biggest states territorially.- Canada 2nd largest- United States 4th in size
2. Realm is marked by clearly defined physiographic regions.
3. Both Canada and the U.S. are federal states.
4. Canada’s adapted from British parliamentary system divided into 10 provinces and 2 territories.
5. The United States separates it’s executive and legislative branches of government consisting of 50 states, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and several island territories under U.S. jurisdiction in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean.
6. Canada and the U.S. are plural societies although ethnicity is increasingly important, Canada’s pluralism is most strongly expressed in regional, bilingualism – In the U.S. major divisions occur along racial/ethnic lines.
7. Despite internal social cleavages and regional economic inequalities, the realm is unified by the prevalence of European culture norms.
8. By world standards this is a rich realm where high incomes and high rates of consumption prevail.
9. North America possesses a highly diversified resource base, but non-renewable raw materials are consumed prodigiously and domestic energy prospects remain uncertain.
10. North America’s population, not large by international standards, is the most highly urbanized and mobile among the world’s geographic realms.
11. North America is home to the world’s manufacturing complexes. The realm’s industrialization generated its unparalleled urban growth, but a new post-industrial society and economy are rapidly maturing in both countries.
12. Agriculture in North America is overwhelmingly commercial, mechanized, and specialized normally producing a huge annual surplus for sale in overseas markets. Only 3 percent of the work force is employed in Agriculture.
13. North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) links the economies of the U.S., Canada and Mexico together dismantling international barriers to trade and investment flow among the 3 countries.
[The text of the above was written by Scott Girhard, San Antonio College from his online course GEOG 1301 World Geography. Used with permission.]
North America is characterized by clear well-defined divisions into physically homogenous regions called physiographic provinces. Each region is marked by a certain degree of uniformity in relief, climate, vegetation, soils and other environmental conditions resulting in a sameness that comes readily to mind. North south alignment of the continents mountain backbone (Rocky Mountains), Alaska to New Mexico and into Mexico. Appalachian, Highlands is a much lower and older mountain chain from Alabamato the Atlantic Maritime Province. Vast interior plains extends from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. The Great Canadian Shield is the geologic core area containing North America’s oldest rocks. The interior lowlands covered largely by glacial debris laid down by meltwater and wind during the late Cenozoic Glaciation. The Great Plains has an extensive sedimentary surface that slowly rises westward toward the Rocky Mountains.
West of the Rocky Mountains lies the Zone of Intermountain Basins and Plateaus; Colorado Plateau with its thick sediments and the Grand Canyon, lava covered Columbia Plateau in the north forming the watershed of the Columbia River and the Central Basin and Range (Great Basin) of Nevada and Utah containing several extinct lakes from the glacial period as well as the surviving great Salt Lake. For example the Pacific Mountains and Valleys, the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Cascade Mountains British Columbia and Alaskan Coastal Ranges include San Joaquin, Sacramento Valley, Puget Lowlands and the Oregon’s Willamette Valley.
In general temperature varies by latitude, the farther poleward one goes the colder the average temperature. Local land and water heating differentials distort this broad pattern. Because land surfaces heat and cool far more rapidly than water bodies, yearly temperature ranges are much larger where continentally is greatest. The dryness of most of the western U.S. is a result of this relationship between climate and physiography. Despite the prevailing wind direction from west to east, moisture-laden air moving onshore from the Pacific is unable to penetrate the center of the continent because high mountains stand in the way. When eastward Pacific air reaches the foot of the Cascade Mountains and other North-South aligned ranges, it is forced to rise up the windward slope in order to surmount the topographic barrier. As the air rises toward the summit level, it steadily cools since cooler air is less able to hold moisture, it precipitates out as rain fall and snow fall. The mountains squeeze out the Pacific moisture. This latitudinal induced precipitation is called orographic rainfall (precipitation).
Robbed of its moisture content by the time it is pushed across the summit the eastward moving air now rushes down the leeward (downwind) slopes of the mountain barrier. As air warms, its capacity to hold moisture increases and the result is a warm dry wind that can blow strongly for hundreds of miles in kind. This widespread existence of semi arid environmental conditions is known as the rain shadow effect.
Air masses continue to move eastward across the Intermountain and Rocky Mountain provinces subjected to additional orographic uplift – East of the Rockies in the Great Plains farmers depend on moisture from the Gulf of Mexico from winds often undependable. Precipitation in Humid America is far more regular. The prevailing westerly winds pick up considerable moisture over the Interior lowlands distributing it throughout eastern North America. A large number of storms develop here on the highly active weather front between tropical Gulf air to the south and polar air to the north. Even if major storms do not materialize, local weather disturbances created by sharply contrasting temperature differences are always a danger. There are more tornadoes in the central U.S. each year than anywhere else on earth. In the winter, the northern half of this region receives large amounts of snow especially around the Great Lakes.
The broad environmental partitioning into Humid and Arid America is also reflected in the distribution of the realm’s soils and vegetation. For farming purposes there is usually sufficient soil moisture to support crops where annual precipitation exceeds 20 inches – where it is less (Great Plains) soils may still be fertile but irrigation is often necessary to achieve their full agricultural potential. Natural vegetation of areas receiving more than 20 inches of water annually is forest, drier climates give rise to a grassland cover.
Surface water patterns in North America are dominated by the two major drainage systems that lie between the Rockies and the Appalachians. For example the Five Great Lakes (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario) and the Ohio – Mississippi – Missouri Network. Both are products of the last episode of late Cenozoic glaciation and together they amount to nothing less than the best natural inland waterway system in the world. Colorado and Columbia Rivers are important as suppliers of drinking water. Rivers of the northeastern United States are known as fall line cities, cities located at the limit of tidewater navigation.
[The text of the above was written by Scott Girhard, San Antonio College from his online course GEOG 1301 World Geography. Used with permission.]
North Americans are the world’s most mobile people and have continually expanded westward overcoming the physical liabilities of North America with each new technological breakthrough. 18 percent of U.S. population change residence every year. Interregional shift is towards the south and west. The geographic center of population is west of the Mississippi and is likely to continue to move in that direction. A steady stream of immigrants have assimilated into the culture. People maximize their proximity to existing economic opportunities, showing little resistance to relocating as nation’s economic fortunes change favoring different places over time. This effects growth of cities. The population is moving from rural to urban. Black migration from south to north, up to the 1940’s is currently reversing. Migration is from north and east to south and west. International immigration is from Mexico, Asia and Central America. Affluent elderly retire in the sunbelt.
Spatial distribution of the U.S. population is rooted in the colonial era of the 17th and 18th centuries dominated by England and France. The French were located in the continental interior while the English were located along the Atlantic seaboard. The interior was closed to settlement due to hostilities between France and Britain. Former Seaboard colonies had become separate culture hearths – primary source areas and innovation centers. The New England Culture Hearth influenced southern and western margins of the Great Lakes westward to Oregon and Washington reflecting New England’s architecture and village patterns. The Middle Atlantic extended into the Ohio Valley and south into Tennessee while the Tidewater/Maryland/Virginia extend along the Atlantic Gulf Coast to Louisiana.
[The text of the above was written by Scott Girhard, San Antonio College from his online course GEOG 1301 World Geography. Used with permission.]
In the United States, the Industrial Revolution occurred almost a century later than in Europe but when it finally crossed the Atlantic in the 1870’s, it took hold so successfully and advanced so robustly that only 50 years later the U.S. surpassed Europe as the world’s strongest industrial power. Social and economic changes that Europe’s industrializing countries experienced were accelerated in the U.S. heightened by the arrival of nearly 25 million European immigrants who headed for jobs in the major manufacturing centers between 1870 and 1914.
The impact of industrial urbanization occurred simultaneously at two levels of spatial generalization. Macroscale – A system of new cities rapidly emerged. Specializing in the collection processings and distribution of raw materials and manufactured goods linked together by an efficient web of long-distance and local railroad lines. Microscale – Individual cities prospered in their new role as manufacturing centers generating a new internal structure that still forms the geographic framework of most of the central cities of America’s large metropolitan centers.
[The text of the above was written by Scott Girhard, San Antonio College from his online course GEOG 1301 World Geography. Used with permission.]
Economic geography is mainly concerned with the locational analysis of productive activities. The North American realm is a good example of the spatial economy, which is divided into five sectors; primary,secondary, tertiary, quaternary and quinary. Primary is the extractive sector of the economy in which workers and the environment came into client contact – mining, agriculture. Secondary activity is when raw materials are transformed into finished industrial products – manufacturing sector. Tertiary is part of the post-industrial phase which includes transportation, communication and utility services. These developed originally in the period when manufacturing was dominant and the geographical distribution of transportation facilities still closely parallels the spatial patterns of primary and secondary industry. Modern industries require well-developed transport systems and every industrial district is served by a network of such facilities. Quaternary are services required by producers, such as; trade, banking, wholesale, insurance, advertising, real estate, legal services and retail. Quinary centers on various consumer or household related services, such as; education, administration, recreation/tourism and health/medicine. Post industrial society is organized around computerized knowledge and information including research, publishing, consulting and forecasting. Quinary industries depend on a highly skilled intelligent, creative and imaginative labor force often focused geographically in the old industrial core. Distribution of information-generating Quinary activity also coalese around major universities and research centers. They are San Francisco Bay (Stanford, CA), Boston (Harvard, MIT) and the Research Triangle of North Carolina (Duke, North Carolina, Wake Forest). These are highly focused, occupying relatively little area and contributing to and heightening uneven development spatially.
[The text of the above was written by Scott Girhard, San Antonio College from his online course GEOG 1301 World Geography. Used with permission.]
Resource use is deposited in three zones; Canadian Shield, Iron Ore, Gold, Nickel, and Copper; Appalachian Highlands, Iron Ore and Coal; Western Mountain Ranges, Coal, Copper, Lead, Zinc, Molybdenum, Uranium, Silver and Gold. The realm’s most strategically important resources are its coal, petroleum and natural gas fossil fuels are named for their formation by the geological compression and transformation of plant and small animal organisms. Coal-Western coal reserves low Sulfur Coal while the Appalachian reserves high Sulfur Coal. The mid-continent has coalfields from Illinois to Kentucky. Oil is located in the following areas: Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast, West Texas-Oklahoma-Eastern Kansas, and Alaska North Shore. The distribution of gas fields are similar to oil fields.
Agriculture
This remains an important element in America’s human geography because of its extensive economic activity. Vast expanses of North American landscapes are dominated by vast fields of grain. Also herds of livestock are sustained by pastures and fodder crops because the region can afford the luxury of feeding animals from its farm lands, with demands of red meat in its diet. The increasing application of high technology mechanization to farming has steadily increased both the volume and value of total agriculture production accompanied by a sharp reduction in the number of people actively engaged in agriculture. Only 1.9% of U.S. population still live on farms.
[The text of the above was written by Scott Girhard, San Antonio College from his online course GEOG 1301 World Geography. Used with permission.]
Urbanization
The internal structure of the American metropolis reflected the same mixture of forces that shaped the national urban system. As an industrial city it represented a departure from its European parentage. European Cities are centers of political and military power, are densely populated, have mass transit, have high urban and energy costs and state controls rent, land and energy prices. U.S. Cities are economic producers, primary profit-making centers, increasingly decentralized, have some public transportation, mostly private autos, have freeway systems and have relatively low land prices and energy prices. The arrival of the automobile after W.W.I turned America from compact cities to widely dispersed cities of the post W.W.II highway era.
Eras of Intraurban Structural Evolution
[The text of the above was written by Scott Girhard, San Antonio College from his online course GEOG 1301 World Geography. Used with permission.]
Microscale Urbanization
Some features of microscale urbanization include the following. Completion of intraurban expressway system destroys region wide centrality of central city central business district (CBD). Industrial and commercial employers relocate as previous advantages of CBD decline. By the 1970’s suburbs replaced CBD as centers of employment. The development of multiple purpose activity nodes commenced usually near freeway interchanges. These activity nodes then coalesced into suburban downtowns, resulting in a multicentered metropolis consisting of a traditional CBD plus a set of, co-equal suburban downtowns with each activity center serving a discrete and self-sufficient surrounding area. The position of the U.S. central city within this new multinodal metropolis is eroding. No longer the dominant metropolitan wide center for goals and services, the CBD increasingly serves the less affluent residents of the innermost realm and those working downtown. As inner-city manufacturing employment declined, many cities adapted by shifting toward the growing service industry. Beginning in the 1970’s a trend opposite of suburbanization was observed as people began to return to the central city. This is known as gentrification which describe the movement of middle and upper class in to deteriorated areas of the central city. This usually begins in an inner-city residence with gentrifiers moving into an area that had been run down and more affordable than suburban housing. Infusion of new capital into the housing market usually, results in higher property values which in turn often displaces residents who cannot afford to stay in the area.
Some impacts of suburbanziation are as more jobs and people move to the suburbs the central city loses its former prestige and economic dominance. A common pattern is random development or checkerboard development where housing tracts " jump" over parcels of farmland resulting in a mixture of open lands with built up areas. This pattern results because developers buy cheaper land farther away from built up areas. As a result of this sprawl higher costsare incurred because of increased use of automobiles. Public transportation is often inefficient or non-existent. Valuable agriculture land is also lost to suburbanization.
There is more air pollution, more energy consumed for fuel and more time spent commuting. Cities often tie the number of buildings permits to availability of existing services and development often focusesing on filling up empty parcels near existing suburbanization (called in-filling). A new type of city has also emerged within sprawling metropolitan areas called simply an “edge city”.
Edge City
An edge city has around five million square feet or more of leasable office space, the workplace of the Information Age (more than downtown Memphis). It has approximately 600,000 square feet or more of leaseable retail space, the size of a major mall. It has more jobs than bedrooms. When the workday starts, people head to this place not away from it. It is perceived by the population as one place-a regional end destination for mixed use that “has it all”. Edge cities were nothing like the “city”they are now as recently as 30 years ago. This incarnation is brand new. It has very low unemployment rates (generally below 5 percent).
Many Americans now live in this type of world, it is where they live, work, play, worship and study. What differentiates an edge city from the suburbs is that it is a place of work, of productive economic activity and therefore an end destination. The conventional work commute from the suburbs to the inner city has been replaced by community patterns that completely encircle the central city. Edge cities contain all the functions of old downtowns, but are more spread out, less dense, with clusters along major freeways. The interstate highway system made possible an effective trucking system to transport goods enabling new industries to locate outside the old downtown. Computer technology allows people to work anywhere and often at home while corporate headquarters move into these lower taxed cities. Real estate speculation fuels development, but they are also prone to "boom" and "bust" cycles. These spreading urban centers continue to consume more and more land.
[The text of the above was written by Scott Girhard, San Antonio College from his online course GEOG 1301 World Geography. Used with permission.]
Environmental Consequences of Urbanization
Urbanization results in many environmental problems that result in high costs to people who live in them. North America is a good example of these consequenses of urbanization. Some of them include:
Geologic-Topography influences direction of development. Usually development takes place first on level lands and then spread to hillier areas increasing building costs. Increased building costs in hazardous areas often occupied by high income people landfilled, steep slopes, earthquake zones, and flood plains.Climatic-Cities are often warmer than surrounding area due to an abundance of concrete roads, buildings, etc., and the generation of heat from buildings, industry and automobiles. This mass of warmer air over the city is known as a heat island. There is a great amount of pollution over a city from industry, exhaust and autos results in more rainfall downwind of city as particulate emissions serve as condensation nuclei.
Hydrologic-Urbanization alters runoff patterns in a way that increases the frequency and magnitude of flooding (known as "flashy discharge"). Impervious cover forces water into gutters and storm sewers, where runoff is concentrated and immediate.
Some of the negative impacts of urbanization can be overcome by simple remedies such as planting of trees and other vegetation. Urban Vegetation reduces the amount of heat by absorbing heat and solar radiation and reduces the intensity of urban runoff by trapping water by their roots. It also provides shade and serves to break up the constant appearance of the so-called "concrete jungle". Reducing this appearance was behind the Urban Planning movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when zoning was used to create open spaces and parks. Urban vegetation however can serve as a nuisance for people who suffer from allergies (can anyone say Cedar Fever?).
[The text of the above was written by Scott Girhard, San Antonio College from his online course GEOG 1301 World Geography. Used with permission.]
Master Planned Communities
Many newer residential developments on the suburban fringe are planned and built as complete neighborhoods by a private development company. These are called Master Planned Communities and include architecturally compatible housing units, recreational facilities and security measures (gated/guarded entrances and/or private patrol officers). These communities exploit various land-use restrictions and zoning regulations in order to maintain their value and they usually do when compared with other communities. They contain different neighborhoods catering to particular life-styles; from entry level housing to million-dollar estates. There is extensive use of shrubbery that may be water conserving and native to region. Master Planned communities are most commonly found in the sunbelt states of California, Arizona, Texas and Florida, and are also found in previously discussed edge cities. The community of Stone Oak (near Loop 1604 and U.S. 281) is a good example of a Master Planned Community.
[The text of the above was written by Scott Girhard, San Antonio College from his online course GEOG 1301 World Geography. Used with permission.]
Canada
Canada is a federal state similar to the United States, but is organized into ten different provinces and two federal territories. The ten provinces range in size from Prince Edward Island (same size as Delaware) to Quebec (twice the size of Texas). In terms of population, Ontario (10.9 million) and Quebec (7.4 million) are the leaders with British Columbia third at 3.8 million. The three Prairie Provinces ( Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan) have 5 million and the four Atlantic Provinces (Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) have 2.8 million people. The northern territories (Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nanuvut) contain less than 100,000 people. Canada's population of 30 million is slightly larger than 10 percent of the United States population. Spatially most Canadians reside within 325 kilometers (200 miles) of the United States.
Compared to European expansion in the United States, penetration of the Canadian interior lagged several decades behind. Canadian unification occurred in part due to fear that the United States might expand toward the north. Expansion to the west was delayed by the harsh environment and difficult physical barriers (such as the Rocky Mountains).
ppModern Canada's evolution is also rooted inthe bicultural division between French and English speakers in the eastern half of the country. Itwas the French not the English who settled and colonized Canada beginning in the 1500's. New France during the seventeenth Century encompassed the St. Lawrence Basin, Great Lakes Region and the Mississippi Valley. Eventually Canada was ceded to the British after several wars between th French and the British ended with Britain victorious. By the time the Britishtook control, considerable French cultural imprints (Roman Catholicism, Ferch law and land-tenure systems had been established. With the loss of the American colonies, many British settlers migrated north into Canada exacerbating tensions between French and English speakers.
In order to prevent additional conflict, the British Parliament divided Quebec into two provinces; Upper and Lower Canada (respectively Ontario and Quebec). Ontario would become English- speaking and Quebec would become Frech-speaking. After several unsuccessful attempts at dividing the region, the British North American Act of 1867 established the Canadian Federation (upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia later to be joined by the other provinces and territories). Ontario and Quebec were once again separated with French civil code left intact and French language recognized by Parliament and the courts in Quebec.
[The text of the above was written by Scott Girhard, San Antonio College from his online course GEOG 1301 World Geography. Used with permission.]
Cultural/Political Geography
ppThe historic cleavage between Canada's French and English-speakers has resurfaced to dominate the country's cultural geography. In the past thirty years, a separatist political movement has arisen in the province of Quebec. In 1995, a referendom on Quebec's sovereignty was held and the Francophone-dominated electorate almost approved independence, falling just short of 50 percent. Efforts are underway to hold a new referendum and by the beginnings of the 21st century, it is possible that the Canada of the past one hundred years may cease to exist. Other provinces (Alberta and British Columbia) have threatened to secede if more concessions are made to Quebec. Finally, the Quebec separatist movement has influenced Canada's over 1.3 million native peoples whose assertions have resulted in the creation of Nunavut. The Cree Nation also wants their rights protected by the Federal government against the provinces. Administration of the Cree was assigned to Quebec's government in 1912, a responsibility that may be invalidated by a move towards independence. The territory of the Cree includes productive facilities of the James Bay Hydroelectric Project, a massive scheme of dikes, dams and artificial lakes that has transformed much of Quebec and generates electric power within and outside of the province. Much of this territory could revert to the Cree Nation complicating the political and economic geography of Canada.
[The text of the above was written by Scott Girhard, San Antonio College from his online course GEOG 1301 World Geography. Used with permission.]
Questions for Review
1. Compare and contrast the physical geography of North America with Europe and Russia indicating similar and different climatic regimes (consult pages 16-17 of deBlij and Muller in order to answer this question). Explain why the orientation of the Rocky Mountains results in more climatic extremes than other regions of the world. What is a rainshadow? What is continentality? Where is the boundary between Humid and Arid America? Where are the major hydrographic (water resources) regions of North America?
2. What is a core area? Where is it in the U.S.A.? Where are the three major culture hearths?
3. Discuss the five epochs of metropolitan evolution as described by John Borchet. The four eras of intraurban structural evolution based on transportation. Where are the major conurbations in North America? What is a suburban downtown, ghettoes and gentrification?
4. Discuss the salient features of an edge city and a masterplanned communities-are there any masterplanned communities in San Antonio?
5. Define primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary and quinary economic activities.
6. Where are the major energy resources located in North America?
7. What is the Postindustrial Revolution? What are five features of a post industrial society?
8. Explain why Quebec wnts to secede from Canada.
9. (This question is to be posted to Listserv) Discuss the goals of NAFTA and tell me whether you think it has been benificial to the U.S.A. or not-find and post one web site that backs up your argument. Be sure to read the NAFTA link at the beginning of this chapter.