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A people on the move

New arrivals in America usually want to settle down to work and home as quickly as possible, but they may move again sooner or later. American life has always had its elements of change, of movement, some restlessness, and this is still so now. In some states only one house in 5 has people living in it who have been there for more than 5 years. Some leave their homes because changing economic conditions have put them out of work; others go to better jobs, or move because they have been promoted. The open friendliness of the suburbs, with their frequent departures and arrivals, gives the newcomer scope for feeling at home quickly, and many people belong to associations through which they can soon enter the social life of a new community, to say nothing of the churches.

The idea of moving is so thoroughly accepted that people tend to remain relatively unattached to a place where they happen to be at a particular time.

Movement within the USA has always been mainly towards the West. In the early days there were empty areas to the west of the fully settled parts of the country, and pioneers could go to these areas to make new homes in places which had never been developed.

By 1900 people had occupied most of the land worth cultivating.

The greatest migration of recent times has been to California (1950 1965). New and sophisticated industries growing in and around Los Angeles attracted a stream of new residents, highly-skilled and well-qualified. More recently the movement from the East to California has declined, as the earlier growth has brought notorious disadvantages, like smog and endless busy roads through built-up areas; but the new influx of immigrants from Mexico has kept the population growing fast.

It is not only to California that Americans have been moving from the North, but to other parts of the South ans West as well, particularly those parts which have coasts or mountains. In some cases mineral resources encourage growth, in others low taxes, weak trade unions, or cheap Hispanic immigrant workers. Texas has all these advantages (but no scenery), the desert states of the Southwest have them all.

One thing that makes people move in affluent modern times is the desire for better climate, more attractive scenery, more agreeable living. Americans working in Detroit or Indianapolis dream of retirement to Florida or California, where they will escape the cold winter of the North. Some areas such as that round Tampa Bay in southwestern Florida have specially adapted themselves as centres for retirement with all kinds of facilities for helping the elderly to move in comfortably and without anxiety and for keeping them happy in their new homes.

But it is not only the elderly who like the thought of warmer climates. Many new industries which do not need to be close to their markets have been built up in the South and West, partly with the idea that well-qualified northern workers, already satisfied by their high living standard, will think that better surroundings and warmer winters will make their living standard still higher.


Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1046


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