Chapter 21

Chapter 21

 The reason why the United States have a less developed railroad than that of Europe and Japan is because of the automobile innovation.  The automobile was built for the consumer and capitalism.  Railroads and automobiles were used to bring outside areas int mainstream America.  The reason why automobiles are more far advanced in the United States is because it took faster than the railroad.  Automobiles were eventually affordable to middle class Americans.    

One can assume that there are more a lot of people in Japan and Europe and not as much roadways as the United States and  with that being said transportation is limited. Not everyone in other countries can afford cars like how we can in the United States.  So in other countries like Europe and Japan people rely on the public transportation system of trains. 

I'd like to think I'm an optimist.  I think of it as if one person today educates themselves and helps educate another person and so on and so forth then that's progress. Slow progress but progress nonetheless and that will eventually help our ecosystem.  There are a ton of people making their own self sustaining gardens and houses and it's just a matter of time before others catch on.  I speak for myself when I say that I was naive and uneducated about these certain things that would help better our ecosystem that is so easy. I did have to take upon myself to become educated in things like hydroponics, and still learning about that, and going green and trying to build a self sustaining garden.  With that information and knowledge I'm trying to in turn teach my children about these things that will hopefully carry over from one generation to the next. And then hopefully my children can teach their friends who might teach their parents.  It's a never ending learning cycle, it just has to start from someone. So yes, I am an optimist and we can correct our bad habits and make good long lasting forever changes. 

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

It started with the first communities, they were constantly on the move because their food would run out. But then the first communities learned how to store their food, learning horticulture. With horticulture the land was able to support more people and with this other communities developed and became more diverse.  The only thing about horticulture is that it took a lot of labor to produce.  

The communities refined irrigation and invented plowing and use of animals for transportation and farming.  These advances created surplus and freed the people from agriculture.  The communities grew into cities.  

Rome was a large urban area with an estimated 500,000+ people, but it decreased when wars and plagues took the land and the people.  After the wars food surplus increased.  Each urban area was specialized and created institutions: churches, shops, marketplaces, and city halls.  

With the Industrial Revolution cities grew rapidly and eventually changed Western Europe and the United States.  Cities grew into centers of commerce and production but they were still places of poverty and disease.  This led to poverty, lack of adequate living space, poor garbage disposal and sewage.  Riot started to break and workers went on strike.  

Then there were Developing World countries that gave colonial control too the local governments of the colonies they had created.  Then came the squatters, they would settle along railroads, highways and banks of streams.  Squatters helped solve the problems of housing shortage and had access to jobs and services in the city.   The solution to the squatters were to put them in housing outside the central city but have them work, relocating them.  

In the United States we had the Industrial Revolution and people moved to the cities because the number of jobs were increasing that were nonagricultural.  

Slums are described as a place that is overcrowded  and parts of a place that is marked by poverty and poor living conditions, which lead to disease, sickness, and health hazards.  Some of us look at a certain type of person and automatically assume they must live or have been raised in the slums or the ghettos.  When we see women who have large families or tons of kids and perhaps even some elderly and addicts; we see them and put them into category simply on what we see and what we relate to what we've seen else where. 

The ghetto is described as an area where people are forced to live segregated.  A ghetto area traps minorities and puts into controls an area in which they live, to not populate the cities.  The ghetto is known for its violence, drug, young unwed mothers, and other social and economic problems.  There is a higher number of high school dropouts in ghetto areas.  A ghetto area can also be defined by a high crime rate and sadly to say but some even define it by the number of blacks or African Americans living in a certain area.   

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

If AIDS and cancer increased and decreased life expectancy I imagine it would change society in such a way where it could result in a good or bad way for the environment.  If the life expectancy for humans decreased there might be a chance for natural resources to recover from our over use. But there is also a downside to that, if there were such a drastic decrease in human life there might not be enough people to harvest or care for the natural resources and it might over grow and that might over populate the world.  A plus side to natural resources not being in short supply/high demand is that the cost would go down. There would be less starving people but more people with disease and cancer.  The people in society would have cleaner air to breathe if there were less humans polluting the air.  

The cost of almost any kind of insurance might sky rocket and most of our money might be used towards medical expenses if it is  cancer and/or AIDS that disable the human race. Birth rates might decrease or it might sky rocket as well, but the birth defects might be greater as well. There might be a higher population of children born with disabilities and AIDS and/or cancer.  This might eventually cause the collapse of human kind.