1.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
2.
Maryland
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The states largest city is Baltimore, and its capital is Annapolis. Among its occasional nicknames are Old Line State, the Free State, the state is named after Henrietta Maria of France, the wife of Charles I of England. George Calvert was the first Lord of Baltimore and the first English proprietor of the colonial grant. Maryland was the state to ratify the United States Constitution. Maryland is one of the smallest U. S. states in terms of area, as well as one of the most densely populated, Maryland has an area of 12,406.68 square miles and is comparable in overall area with Belgium. It is the 42nd largest and 9th smallest state and is closest in size to the state of Hawaii, the next largest state, its neighbor West Virginia, is almost twice the size of Maryland. Maryland possesses a variety of topography within its borders, contributing to its nickname America in Miniature. The mid-portion of this border is interrupted by Washington, D. C. which sits on land that was part of Montgomery and Prince Georges counties and including the town of Georgetown. This land was ceded to the United States Federal Government in 1790 to form the District of Columbia, the Chesapeake Bay nearly bisects the state and the counties east of the bay are known collectively as the Eastern Shore. Close to the town of Hancock, in western Maryland, about two-thirds of the way across the state. This geographical curiosity makes Maryland the narrowest state, bordered by the Mason–Dixon line to the north, portions of Maryland are included in various official and unofficial geographic regions. Much of the Baltimore–Washington corridor lies just south of the Piedmont in the Coastal Plain, earthquakes in Maryland are infrequent and small due to the states distance from seismic/earthquake zones. The M5.8 Virginia earthquake in 2011 was felt moderately throughout Maryland, buildings in the state are not well-designed for earthquakes and can suffer damage easily. The lack of any glacial history accounts for the scarcity of Marylands natural lakes, laurel Oxbow Lake is an over one-hundred-year-old 55-acre natural lake two miles north of Maryland City and adjacent to Russett. Chews Lake is a natural lake two miles south-southeast of Upper Marlboro. There are numerous lakes, the largest of them being the Deep Creek Lake. Maryland has shale formations containing natural gas, where fracking is theoretically possible, as is typical of states on the East Coast, Marylands plant life is abundant and healthy. Middle Atlantic coastal forests, typical of the southeastern Atlantic coastal plain, grow around Chesapeake Bay, moving west, a mixture of Northeastern coastal forests and Southeastern mixed forests cover the central part of the state
3.
ZIP Code
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ZIP Codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, was chosen to suggest that the travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly. The basic format consists of five numerical digits, an extended ZIP+4 code, introduced in 1983, includes the five digits of the ZIP Code, a hyphen, and four additional digits that determine a more specific location within a given ZIP Code. The term ZIP Code was originally registered as a servicemark by the U. S. Postal Service, USPS style for ZIP is all caps and the c in code is also capitalized, although style sheets for some publications use sentence case or lowercase. The early history and context of postal codes began with postal district/zone numbers, the United States Post Office Department implemented postal zones for numerous large cities in 1943. For example, Mr. John Smith 3256 Epiphenomenal Avenue Minneapolis 16, by the early 1960s a more organized system was needed, and on July 1,1963, non-mandatory five-digit ZIP Codes were introduced nationwide. Three months later, on October 1,1963, the U. S, an earlier list in June had proposed capitalized abbreviations ranging from two to five letters. The abbreviations have remained unchanged, with one exception, according to the historian of the U. S. Robert Moon, an employee of the post office, is considered the father of the ZIP Code, he submitted his proposal in 1944 while working as a postal inspector. The post office gives credit to Moon only for the first three digits of the ZIP Code, which describe the sectional center facility or sec center, an SCF is a central mail processing facility with those three digits. The SCF sorts mail to all post offices with those first three digits in their ZIP Codes, the mail is sorted according to the final two digits of the ZIP Code and sent to the corresponding post offices in the early morning. Sectional centers do not deliver mail and are not open to the public, Mail picked up at post offices is sent to their own SCF in the afternoon, where the mail is sorted overnight. The United States Post Office used a character, which it called Mr. ZIP. He was often depicted with a such as USE ZIP CODE in the selvage of panes of stamps or on labels contained in, or the covers of. In 1983, the U. S. Postal Service introduced an expanded ZIP Code system that it called ZIP+4, often called plus-four codes, add-on codes, or add ons. But initial attempts to promote use of the new format met with public resistance. For Post Office Boxes, the rule is that each box has its own ZIP+4 code. However, there is no rule, so the ZIP+4 Code must be looked up individually for each box. It is common to use add-on code 9998 for mail addressed to the postmaster,9999 for general delivery, for a unique ZIP Code, the add-on code is typically 0001
4.
Neighbourhood
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A neighbourhood, or neighborhood, is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural area. Neighbourhoods are often social communities with considerable face-to-face interaction among members, the Old English word for neighbourhood was neahdæl. ”Most of the earliest cities around the world as excavated by archaeologists have evidence for the presence of social neighbourhoods. Historical documents shed light on life in numerous historical preindustrial or nonwestern cities. Neighbourhoods are typically generated by social interaction among people living near one another, in this sense they are local social units larger than households not directly under the control of city or state officials. In addition to social neighbourhoods, most ancient and historical cities also had administrative districts used by officials for taxation, record-keeping, administrative districts are typically larger than neighbourhoods and their boundaries may cut across neighbourhood divisions. In some cases, however, administrative districts coincided with neighbourhoods, for example, in the T’ang period Chinese capital city Chang’an, neighbourhoods were districts and there were state officials who carefully controlled life and activity at the neighbourhood level. Neighbourhoods in preindustrial cities often had some degree of social specialisation or differentiation, ethnic neighbourhoods were important in many past cities and remain common in cities today. One factor contributing to neighbourhood distinctiveness and social cohesion in past cities was the role of rural to urban migration and this was a continual process in preindustrial cities, and migrants tended to move in with relatives and acquaintances from their rural past. Neighbourhoods have been the site of delivery or service interventions in part as efforts to provide local, quality services. Alfred Kahn, as early as the mid-1970s, described the experience, theory and fads of neighbourhood service delivery over the decade, including discussion of income transfers. Neighbourhoods, as an aspect of community, also are the site of services for youth, including children with disabilities. While the term neighbourhood organisation is not as common in 2015, community and economic development activists have pressured for reinvestment in local communities and neighbourhoods. Community and Economic Development may be understood in different ways, and may involve faith-based groups, urban sociology even has a subset termed neighbourhood sociology which supports the study of local communities and the diversity of urban neighbourhoods. Neighbourhoods are also used in studies from postal codes and health disparities. Neighbourhoods are convenient, and always accessible, since you are already in your neighbourhood when you walk out your door, successful neighbourhood action frequently requires little specialised technical skill, and often little or no money. Action may call for an investment of time, but material costs are often low, with neighbourhood action, compared to activity on larger scales, results are more likely to be visible and quickly forthcoming. The streets are cleaner, the crosswalk is painted, the trees are planted, visible and swift results are indicators of success, and since success is reinforcing, the probability of subsequent neighbourhood action is increased. The social support that a neighbourhood may provide can serve as a buffer against various forms of adversity
5.
U.S. Route 40 in Maryland
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U. S. Route 40 in the U. S. state of Maryland runs from western Maryland to Cecil County in the states northeastern corner. With a total length of over 200 miles, it is the longest numbered highway in Maryland. Almost half of the overlaps with Interstate 68 or Interstate 70, while the old alignment is generally known as U. S. Route 40 Alternate, U. S. Route 40 Scenic. West of Baltimore, the portions where it does not overlap an Interstate highway are mostly two-lane roads, the portion east of Baltimore is a four-lane divided highway, known as the Pulaski Highway. From Cumberland west to Pennsylvania, US40 is the successor to the historic National Road, east of Cumberland, towards Baltimore, US40 follows several former turnpikes, most notably the Cumberland Turnpike and Baltimore and Frederick-town Turnpike. The route from Baltimore northeast to the Delaware state line follows another historic corridor towards Philadelphia, including the old Baltimore, U. S. Route 40 enters Maryland from Pennsylvania in far western Marylands Garrett County, carrying the name National Pike. It passes through farmland on this side of the state. U. S. Route 40 shares the roadway with U. S. Route 219 until it joins I-68 traveling eastward towards Cumberland, U. S. 40/I-68 passes into Allegany County just west of Frostburg. The highway traverses historic Cumberland Narrows mountain gap to the county seat, the previous alignments of US40, carrying the name National Pike, are either U. S. Also several significant histories and guide books have been published throughout the 20th Century to describe its features, hazards, at the Sideling Hill Creek Bridge, I-68/US40 passes into Washington County, just west of Bellegrove, Maryland. The I-68/US40 roadway later passes through a 340-foot massive deep cut in Sideling Hill. Just to the east of the cut is the site of the former Sideling Hill Exhibit Center, US40 then defaults onto Interstate 70 at Exit 1 of the latter route, coming down from the northwest at the large truck stop plazas at Breezewood, Pennsylvania. U. S. Route 522 is also carried by I-70, heading southeast out of Hagerstown, US40 diverges into two separate routes, US40 and US40 Alt. US40 parallels Interstate 70, its longtime, cross-country travel partner, lee held back oncoming Union armies under General George B. McClellan just prior to the horrific Battle of Antietam in September 1862. US40 enters Frederick County in Myersville, Maryland, the road passes through South Mountain, and goes underneath I-70 with no access. US40 continues traveling in a direction, running through the towns of Myersville. In Frederick, US40 uses Patrick Street, before merging back onto the US15 north-south expressway for a short distance and it leaves US15 and rejoins I-70 on the southern and eastern outskirts of Frederick. Old MD144 on the 19th Centurys Old National Road once again takes over along the old 1920s era alignment of US40, i-70/US40 runs shortly through Carroll County in Mount Airy, Maryland, interchanging with Maryland Route 27
6.
African-American neighborhood
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African-American neighborhoods or black neighborhoods are types of ethnic enclaves found in many cities in the United States. Generally, an African American neighborhood is one where the majority of the people who live there are African American, some of the earliest African-American neighborhoods were in New York City along with early communities located in Virginia. In 1830, there were 14,000 free Negroes living in New York City, the formation of black neighborhoods are closely linked to the history of segregation in the United States, either through formal laws or as a product of social norms. Despite the formal laws and segregation, black neighborhoods have played an important role in the development of African-American culture, the Great Migration was the movement of more than one million African Americans out of rural Southern United States from 1914 to 1940. Most African Americans who participated in the moved to large industrial cities such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington. Baltimore, Minneapolis, Seattle, Detroit, Boston, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Oakland, Los Angeles, hence, the Migration played an important role in the formation and expansion of African-American neighborhoods in these cities. Populations increased very rapidly with the addition of African-American migrants and new European immigrants, newer groups competed even for the oldest and most rundown houses because the poorly constructed houses were what they could afford. African Americans competed for work and housing with first or second generation immigrants in many major cities, ethnic groups created territories which they defended against change. More established populations with more capital moved away to newer housing that was being developed on the outskirts of the cities, the migrants also discovered that the open discrimination of the South was only more subtly manifested in the North. In 1917, the Supreme Court declared municipal resident segregation ordinances unconstitutional, in response, some white groups resorted to the restrictive covenant, a formal deed restriction binding property owners in a given neighborhood not to sell to blacks. Whites who broke these agreements could be sued by damaged neighbors, not until 1948 did the Supreme Court strike down restrictive covenants. The National Housing Act of 1934 contributed to limiting the availability of loans to urban areas, in cities such as Chicago the influx of African-American migrants and other immigrants resulted in racial violence, which flared in several cities during 1919. This significant event and the subsequent struggle of African-American migrants to adapt to Northern cities was the subject of James Lawrences Migration Series and this series, exhibited in 1941, was responsible for bringing Lawrence to the public eye as one of the most important African-American artists of the time. From 1940-1970, another five people left the South for Northern and Western cities. Violence was the outcome of some of the pressure of this migration, the most common use of the term refers to mortgage discrimination. Data on house prices and attitudes toward integration suggest that in the mid-20th century and this meant that ethnic minorities could secure mortgage loans only in certain areas, and it resulted in a large increase in the residential racial segregation and urban decay in the United States. Urban renewal, the redevelopment of areas within cities, including white flight, has also been a factor in the growth patterns of African-American neighborhoods. The process began a phase in the late 1940s and continues in some places to the present day
