Yearbook 2008 Guatemala. Politically, the year in Guatemala was dominated by a spy scandal, which was quickly dubbed “Guategate” by the media. In early September, it was revealed that eavesdropping equipment was found in both President Álvaro Colom’s office and home, as well as in Vice President Rafael Espada’s office. The suspicions fell on the…
Category: North America
Manhattan (New York) – Global City
New York City, the largest city in the United States, has become something of an icon for modernity, multiculturalism and, more generally, for big city life in the course of the 20th century. In the metropolis at the mouth of the Hudson River, which is rich in bays, all conceivable nationalities, ethnicities and religions are represented by a stream of immigrants that has lasted for centuries. In addition to the descendants of European settlers, millions of Afro-Americans, Hispancs and Asians live here, many of them in their own neighborhoods. The city, which is divided into five districts, has several universities and other educational institutions, internationally renowned museums and important theaters such as the Metropolitan Opera. Despite severe financial crises, for example in 2008/2009, To this day, New York is the undisputed economic center of the United States and the world. A general difference between New York and many major European cities is the chessboard-like floor plan of the streets, which shows the city as not having grown historically, but as planned.
THE CENTER OF NEW YORK
Manhattan is the central part of New York. It is only three kilometers from the United Nations building on the East River across the island to the banks of the Hudson River; Broadway, on the other hand, is a good 25 kilometers long. There is hardly any other place in the world where so many people live and work in such a small space. Every day, commuters from the suburbs and the surrounding districts, the “boroughs”, more than double the number of people in Manhattan – from around 1.6 million to more than 3 million – which corresponds to a population density of around 27,000 and corresponds to a daily population density of almost 51,000 people per square kilometer. This makes Manhattan the most densely populated place in the United States. Its subway network is over 350 kilometers long, has more than 450 stations and transports 1.7 billion passengers a year; this puts it in seventh place worldwide. In addition, 20 railroad lines run from the main railway stations at Grand Central Station and Pennsylvania Station to the suburbs of the three states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, to which they transport several 100,000 passengers every day.
CITY ARCHITECTURE AND SKYSCRAPERS
The construction of skyscrapers and the sometimes gigantic bridge structures were favored by the rocky, glacial subsoil on which New York stands. From a structural point of view, steel girder structures and elevators were the decisive inventions that made the construction of high-rise buildings possible in the late 19th century. The Woolworth Building, built on Broadway in 1913, was the tallest building in the world with its 241 meters until 1930. Also on Broadway, the Equitable Building followed in 1915, which for the first time took up an entire vertical block and thus provoked a storm of protest. As a result, the “Zoning Laws” were created, according to which – except in the riverside regions – high-rise buildings could only be built upwards so that more light could get into the streets. For more information about the continent of North America, please check physicscat.com.
Grenada 2008
Yearbook 2008 Grenada. Attorney Tillman Thomas became Grenada ‘s new prime minister after the July parliamentary elections, when his Liberal Party National Democratic Congress (NDC) defeated the bourgeois New National Party (NNP), which has been in office for 13 years. NDC received just over 51 percent of the vote, while NNP took home just under…
Greenland 2008
Yearbook 2008 Greenland. At the beginning of the year, Danish politicians demanded an investigation into data that the US CIA used Greenland as a stopover and gas station for illegal prison transport. When the government’s inquiry into the issue was presented during the autumn, Denmark’s Foreign Minister Per Stig Møller claimed that there was no…
El Salvador 2008
Yearbook 2008 El Salvador. Ahead of the presidential election in early 2009, El Salvador’s bleak past became an issue again in the fall. The presidential candidate for the Left Opposition Alliance FMLN (Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional), Mauricio Funes, is believed to want to tear down the amnesty that still protects militants who…
Dominican Republic 2008
Yearbook 2008 Dominican Republic. The incumbent President Leonel Fernández won the first round of presidential elections on May 16 with 54 percent of the vote, which meant that a second round of voting was not needed, and Fernández could be sworn in for a second term on August 16. His opponent in the election, Miguel…
Dominica 2008
Yearbook 2008 Dominica. Dominica was granted a loan in February of the equivalent of just over US $ 3 million by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to alleviate the effects of the damage that occurred when a hurricane pulled over the island in August 2007. The total cost of the damage was estimated at about…
Cuba 2008
Yearbook 2008 Cuba. Raúl Castro became officially permanent president on February 24 when the National Assembly gathered to elect members of the Cabinet. The other members also represented the old guard, or los históricos de la revolución as they are called in Cuba, such as 77-year-old José Ramón Machado Ventura, a veteran who fought with…
Costa Rica 2008
Yearbook 2008 Costa Rica. Security Minister Fernando Berrocal was forced to resign on March 30 after claiming that the Colombian left-wing guerrilla FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) since 2000 has formed intimate ties with certain political sectors in Costa Rica. The allegation caused a great stir among Costa Rica’s political parties, and Berrocal’s departure…
Canada 2008
Yearbook 2008 Canada. During a ceremony in Parliament on June 11, Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized for the Canadian authorities forcing some 150,000 indigenous children to attend Christian boarding schools. He described the treatment of the children as “a sad chapter” in the country’s history when he spoke to hundreds of former pupils in boarding…
Belize 2008
Yearbook 2008 Belize. The main opposition party United Democratic Party (UDP) won a landslide victory in the general elections to Parliament on February 7 with 57 percent of the votes cast. The People’s United Party (PUP) government gained only 41 percent and must leave the post after ten years in power, mainly due to dissatisfaction…