Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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Why is British Columbia unique within Canada? What physical processes have made this province so rugged and produced such remarkable variation in climate and vegetation? Why did non-Natives come to British Columbia, and what impact did they have on First Nations? Why did so many Asian immigrants come to this province and then leave for other parts of Canada? How were resources developed in the past and how are those resources developed today? Geography of British Columbia discusses these and many other aspects of the growth of this distinctive province.

Brett McGillivray focuses first on the combination of physical processes that produced a spectacular variety of mountains, rivers, lakes, islands, fjords, forests, and minerals, explaining the forces that created the province and the natural hazards that can reshape it. A concise examination of B.C. historical geography follows, covering First Nations ways of life, colonization, Asian immigration, and the sad history of institutionalized racism.

The second half of the book contains a detailed description of the economic geography of the province, with chapters on forestry, the salmon fishery, metal mining, energy supply and demand, agriculture, water, and the tourism industry. It addresses the present-day issues of urbanization, economic development, and resource management, providing a thorough background to these topics and suggesting what the future might hold.

This up-to-date and comprehensive exploration of the rich historical geography and development of British Columbia will be welcomed by teachers, students, scholars, and everyone with an interest in the province. ... Read more

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This book is an adventure story that pulls in the reader.Four kids and a TV talk show host are stuck in a runaway hot air balloon and as they travel around the state, readers try to figure out where they are based on the geographical features glimpsed from above and clues from the characters' conversations.Students get one point for every correct answer.Excellent for a classroom game, school-wide competition or individual reading.This is a great geography skill-builder + encourages research, map reading and more.Free teacher's guide gives specific suggestions and instructions on how to get max educational value from this book.Put this title high on your list! ... Read more

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Drivers in the nation's capital face a host of hazards: high-speed traffic circles, presidential motorcades, jaywalking tourists, and bewildering signs that send unsuspecting motorists from the Lincoln Memorial into suburban Virginia in less than two minutes. And parking? Don't bet on it unless you're in the fast lane of the Capital Beltway during rush hour.

Little wonder, then, that so many residents and visitors rely on the Washington Metro, the 106-mile rapid transit system that serves the District of Columbia and its inner suburbs. In the first comprehensive history of the Metro, Zachary M. Schrag tells the story of the Great Society Subway from its earliest rumblings to the present day, from Arlington to College Park, Eisenhower to Marion Barry.

Unlike the pre--World War II rail systems of New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, the Metro was built at a time when most American families already owned cars, and when most American cities had dedicated themselves to freeways, not subways. Why did the nation's capital take a different path? What were the consequences of that decision?

Using extensive archival research as well as oral history, Schrag argues that the Metro can be understood only in the political context from which it was born: the Great Society liberalism of the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. The Metro emerged from a period when Americans believed in public investments suited to the grandeur and dignity of the world's richest nation. The Metro was built not merely to move commuters, but in the words of Lyndon Johnson, to create "a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community."

Schrag scrutinizes the project from its earliest days, including general planning, routes, station architecture, funding decisions, land-use impacts, and the behavior of Metro riders. The story of the Great Society Subway sheds light on the development of metropolitan Washington, postwar urban policy, and the promises and limits of rail transit in American cities.

Customer Reviews (7)

Good Delivery, quick and well packaged.
This was a present for my dad. It doesn't have a lot of pictures, but I think it will be a wonderful book. Very informative.

An Interesting But Laborious Read
As evidenced by the numerous references, the author has been quite thorough in his research. However, the amount of detail bogs down the story, and it is quite easy to lose the greater picture. It would have served the story better to footnote most of the names and organizations. Of special note, however, are the drawings and photos from the period.

Overall, this book is a good complement to others regarding the history of the Washington D.C. metropolitan area, such as "The Pentagon: A History", "Grand Avenues: The Story of the French Visionary Who Designed Washington D.C.", and especially, "Freedom Rising:Washington in the Civil War."

In addition to the main subject, the book touches on themes addressed in other books regarding urban development, such as the "City Beautiful" movement that was popularized after the Chicago World Expo of the 1890's, "urban planning", immiment domain, "smart growth", and the boundaries between public and private interests in influencing the development of a metropolitan area. Other books that touch on these themes include Janet Jacobs' seminal work "The Death and Life of Great American Cities", as well as "Edge City, Life on the New Frontier", which devotes a large section to the evolution of the Tysons Corner area, and even "The Levittowners", a 1961 work which takes a sociological view of families migrating to Levittown, PA, a small surburban enclave of Philadelphia that was a developed by one of the nation's largest builders at the time, akin to today's Toll Brothers, perhaps.

Lastly, if you would like to explore the idea of completely planned communities, such as Greenbelt, MD, which was a product of the New Deal era, consider reading works dating back to the Utopian movement of the late 1800s, such as Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward", and the ideas of Robert Owen, who created an experimental enclave in Scotland, and attempted to establish one in the U.S. as well.

In the end, as I read these diverse works it helped me shape my own ideas regarding the public/private balance over land use and development. It's an interesting journey that enhanced my understanding of the issues, but yet I still feel overwhelmed by magnitude of the issue. Perhaps we will indeed evolve to the types of cities imagined by Isaac Asimov in his "Foundation Series" of books.

dc metro
...if you are a dc metro foamer...or just interested...this is the book for you. Meaty with information on planning and execution...nicely, but not lavishly illustrated, you'll have to getyour photo jolly's from another source. Great book, though!

Too much detail.
This is a timely book about Washington D.C.'s Metro, given the current controversy about its management, efficiency and reliability.This book answers many of the questions a typical rider of the Metro would ask.However, the writer provides far too much detail about all of the decisions that went into the zoning, planning and building of the Metro.It is very easy to get distracted and lost in each chapter.

A readable, yet involved, study
I moved to DC in 1981 and watched the colorful branches progress from hash marks to solids.There are quirks in the system; this book answered many of my questions.Particularly interesting are the failed attempts in the 1960's to carve expressways throughout the district and later, the design evolution of the glorious system to replace the road plan. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Focus on Geography, published by American Geographical Society on March 22, 2004. The length of the article is 2770 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Central Washington's emerging Hispanic landscape.
Author: Scott Brady
Publication: Focus on Geography (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 22, 2004
Publisher: American Geographical Society
Volume: 47Issue: 4Page: 15(6)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

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Describes the geography, history, government, people, and places of Washington, D.C. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An Remarkable History of Eastern Washington
I came upon this book by mere chance when I was in attending Eastern Washington University in the late 1980's.The library was closing out several books and I was able to get the hardbound edition for $1.00.Since I grew up in eastern Washington and my family homesteaded there during the late 1880's, it was of particular interest to me.

Twenty years later, I finally got around to reading it and was amazed at the detail that the author went to describe how the area was formed, to the era of the fur trade, missionaries, cattlemen, and finally farmers. The majority of the book focuses on the 1800's, but does touch base on developments at the turn of the last century.It's a fascinating history about the hows and whys people came out to the area, with many interesting stories and facts.Though EWU got rid of it, it's one that will remain in my collection. ... Read more