Chapter Study Questions 1 & 2 Essay

1.What percentage of Texans live in urban areas (cities & suburbs)?   90% of the population now lives in crowed cities and suburbs. 2.Name the three cities in Texas that are three of the largest in US?   Houston, San Antonio and Dallas 3.What are the three diverse economic businesses in Texas? 4 Oil and gas producer now work alongside high-tech companies, telecommunications giants, and other important business sectors. 4.In what areas does Texas consistently rank at the bottom in state spending compared to other states? 4 Texas consistently ranks near the bottom of the states in spending on education, welfare, and healthcare for poor. 5.Is Texas a high-tax, high-business regulatory state or is it low-tax, low-regulatory?   Texas is low-tax and low-regulatory climate. 6.Are Texas well informed about government and elected officials? Do they trust government? 4 Texans are woefully ignorant of their state and local government and the public officials who make important decisions affecting their daily lives. 7.Does Texas have a regressive or progressive tax system and what do these mean?   Texas has a regressive tax system, which means a tax that imposes a disproportionately heavier burden on low-income people than on the more affluent. 8.What is meant by economic diversification and has Texas done this? 6 Economic diversification is the development of new and varied business activities. New business were encouraged to relocated to or expand in Texas after the oil and gas industry, which had been the base of the state’s economy, suffered a major recession in the 1980’s. 9.What is meant by ‘cowboy rugged individualism’ and how has this impacted Texans’ views of government as a solution to problems?   The cowboy rugged individualism, with strong connotations of self-help and independence, symbolizes a political culture in Texas that does not like to look to government as a solution to many of its problems. It is the kind of individualism that continues to be exploited by political candidates in campaign ads. 10. What impact did having a frontier have on Texans? On might argue that the â€Å"wide-open spaces† of the frontier shaped Texan’s  view of their autonomy, independence, and vulnerability. It has clearly shaped attitudes toward land and the legal right to use land as one sees fit. 11. What three combined groups now make up the majority of Texans and how does their historical experiences differ from that of Anglos? What celebration are part of their political culture?   African American, Hispanic, and Asian Americans. The white population have limited relevance to the relevance to the cultural and historical experiences of many African American and Hispanic Texans. For African American is Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday as state holiday in 1991. And for Hispanics is the Cinco de Mayo. 12.Just what does political culture mean and describe the individualistic subculture in terms of government size, assistance, politics, and primary goals? 9 Political culture a widely shared set of views, attitudes, beliefs and customs of a people as to how their government should be organized and run. Individualistic subculture holds that politics and government function as a marketplace. Government does not have to be concerned with creating a good or moral society but exists for strictly. Government should be limited, and its intervention in the private activities of its citizens should be kept to a minimum. The Government primary function is to ensure the stability of a society so that individuals can pursue their own interests. 13. Describe the moralistic subculture in terms of government size, assistance, politics, and primary goals? 9-10 Moralistic subculture is a view that government’s primary reasonability is to promote the public welfare and should actively use its authority and power to improve the social and economic well-being of its citizens. The Moralistic subculture regards politics as one of the great activities of a man in his search for the good society. 14.Describe the traditionalistic subculture in terms of government size, assistance, politics, and primary goals? 10 a view that political power should e concentrated in the hands of a few elite citizens who belong to established families or influential social groups. Public policy basically serves the interests of this small group. The traditionalistic subculture  holds the view that there is a hierarchical arrangement to the political order. This hierarchy serves to limit the power and influence of general public, while allocating authority to few individuals who comprise self-perpetuating elites. 15. In what states or colonies did you originally find these three subcultures and what two best describe Texas? 16. How big is the Native American population in Texas and of the three remaining groups, do they have the right to have casinos? 11 Alabama-Coushatta, Tigua and Kickappo are the three small Native American groups that live on reservations in Texas. And the Native American population is less than one-half of 1 percent of the States total population. They have been denied the right to run casinos on their reservation. Even thought, their leader consider casinos a major potential source of revenue, jobs and economic development for their people, but recent efforts to change state law have been unsuccessful. 17. Were there ever a great many Hispanics in Texas prior to 1830 and what was it down to by 1887? How much had this increased by 1930, 1990, and 2012? 12 Prior 1830 the Hispanic population were a small minority of the population. By 1887 the Hispanic population had declined to approximately 4 percent of state’s population. In 1930 it was 12 percent and was concentrated in the border counties from Brownsville to el Paso. By 1990s, it had reached 25 percent, spurred by immigration from Mexico and other Latin American countries. By 2012 the Hispanics comprised 37.6 percent of the state’s population. 18.What two ethnic or racial groups are growing the fastest in Texas and by 2030-what group will be the largest? How have Hispanics done in terms of elected officials compared to other states?12 The two ethnic will be Asian and Hispanics. However the Hispanics are likely to exceed 50 percent of the state’s total. 19. Compare the %s of Anglos, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians found in Texas in 1860 and those found in 2010? Chart 13 In 1860 it was a percent of 63.2% of Anglo. The 30.3 % are African American and 6.5% were Hispanic. However in 2010, 45.3% were Anglo, 11.5% were African American, 37.6% were Hispanic and 5.6% were other. 20.Where do African Americans tend to live in Texas?   African American settled in large numbers in the urban areas of Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and Austin. 21. In 2010, how many Texans were there and what was the growth rate of the state compared to the national growth rate and where did people move from and to in the US? 16 According to the 2010 census, the state’s population was 25,145,561, an increase of approximately 4.3 million people in ten years. This growth rate of 20.6 percent was significantly higher than the national growth rate of growth rate of 9.7 percent.