Metropolitan areas have at least one city or urban area with a population of 50,000 or more, and include the entire county in which the city is located. Adjacent counties may be considered part of the area, depending on their population density and the number of workers who commute to jobs in the central county. The term greater applied to a city refers to a metropolitan area, such as Greater Paris. In England, clusters of small cities around a large city are called metropolitan counties.

 

In developed countries, most people live in metropolitan areas. In the United States, about 80 percent of the people live in the nation's 268 metropolitan statistical areas. In Canada, about 60 percent of the people reside in 25 metropolitan areas.

 

The development of suburbs

As cities grow, people move beyond official city boundaries, creating suburbs. This process of suburbanization has been going on since the late 1800's. Several factors contributed to the development of metropolitan areas. Originally, large numbers of people came from rural areas to

central cities in search of employment. This population shift produced overcrowded cities, causing other people to move to outlying areas. The use of automobiles, together with the improvement of roads and highways, increased tremendously following the end of World War II in 1945. As a result, more and more people have settled in communities outside of central cities since the late 1940's.

 

By 1970, more people in U.S. metropolitan areas lived in suburbs than in central cities. But by the early 1980's, the rate of suburban growth had decreased for a number of reasons. For example, many people moved to the suburbs to avoid such problems of big cities as crime, housing shortages, and racial conflicts. However, as the suburbs grew larger, they developed the same problems.

 

Urban revitalization programs drew some people back to central cities.

People who live in the suburbs of a central city have traditionally considered the city as their workplace because of its commercial and industrial activities. Suburbanites also use the city's cultural, professional, and recreational facilities and services. Since the 1950's, however, many businesses and industries have moved to the suburbs.

 

Today, many suburbanites who once commuted to and from work in the city work, shop, and enjoy various recreational activities in the suburbs.

 

DAY CARE

 

Day care is a service in which children or dependent adults are cared for while the person who normally cares for them cannot do so. In the United States and Canada, women have traditionally cared for their children and for other dependent relatives. But in recent years, more and more

women have begun working outside the home. The number of families with only one parent has also increased. Because of these changes, many families no longer have an adult at home during the day, and the demand for day care has risen.

 

Types of day care for children. Many working parents enroll their children in a day-care center. This is a non-home site where a group of children receive adult care and supervision. Day-care centers are sometimes called child-care centers. Parents may also place their children in a family day-care home.

 

In family day care, an adult cares for a small group of children in his or her own home. Usually, this adult is a mother with her own children. Some parents obtain day care by hiring a sitter or nanny. This is a person who comes to, or lives in, the family home. Other parents rely on relatives to care for their children during the day.

 

Day care for school-age children - Some working parents who have school-age children can be home when the children go to school and when they come home. But many parents are unable to do so, and their children may need day care before and after school.

Before- and after- school day-care programs may be located in the school the child attends. Such day care may also occur in a day-care center, a family day-care home, or the home of a relative or neighbor. In many areas, day care for school-age children is hard to find or expensive. For this reason, numerous children care for themselves before or after school.

 

Government support of day care - Most day-care programs in the United States and Canada are run by individuals or nongovernment organizations. In the United States, only a few programs are fully funded by state governments or federal agencies. In Canada, many programs are partly or fully funded by the provinces.

 

Employer-supported day care - In both countries, many employers offer benefits to help working parents care for their children and other dependents. The most common benefits include part-time working hours, flexible schedules, and unpaid leave. Some employers have day-care centers at the workplace. Others help working parents find and pay for day care outside the workplace.

 

In the United States, companies with 50 or more employees are required by law to offer at least 12 weeks of unpaid leave to employees with a sick family member, a newborn infant, or a recently adopted child. In Canada, federal law allows mothers a 15-week, partially paid maternity leave and a 2-week unpaid leave. In addition, either the mother or the father may take an additional 10 weeks of partially paid leave.

 

Choosing a day-care provider for children - Experts recommend that parents select a day-care provider that is licensed or regulated by the state or province--if the state or province requires licensing or regulation. Many states and provinces do not regulate or license all types of day-care providers. Experts also recommend that the caregivers have special training in childcare and that there be enough of them to provide each child with individual attention.

 

 

HOBBY

 

Hobby can be any type of activity that people do during their leisure time. Most people take up a hobby for relaxation, pleasure, or friendships, or to develop new interests. A hobby can also lead to additional income.

 

People of almost any age can enjoy hobbies. A hobby offers a way to relax after periods of hard work. Hobbies offer broadened areas of interest and ways to pass the time pleasantly. Hobbies can be important in helping patients recover from physical or mental illness because they provide distractions from the patients' problems. For people who are ill or bedridden, hobbies offer fascinating ways to pass the time. Hobbies can also be an important form of occupational therapy.

 

In the past, hobbies were largely limited to the wealthy. The average person was too busy earning a living to find time to pursue a hobby. People today generally have more leisure time because of higher incomes and improvements in working conditions. In addition, most people also live longer and retire from their jobs at an earlier age. To fill their free time, they often develop interests in hobbies.

 

Kinds of hobbies

Almost any kind of leisure activity can become a hobby. Most hobbies fall into one of four general categories, which may overlap. They are (1) the arts, (2) collecting, (3) handicrafts, and (4) games and sports.

The arts provide outlets for hobbyists with a special interest in such art forms as dancing, drama, painting, graphic arts, and music. Each art form has many separate possibilities for a hobby. For example, music may include singing or playing an instrument. Painting offers the hobbyist a wide choice of materials, such as oil paints or water colors.

 

Collecting is probably the most widespread kind of hobby because almost anything can be collected. Stamps and coins are probably the most popular collected items. Hobbyists also collect such things as autographs, comic books, costumes, and baseball cards.

 

Handicrafts attract hobbyists who can work skillfully with their hands. Many hobbyists engage in needlework activities, notably crocheting, needlepoint, knitting, and sewing. Hobbyists use kits to make model airplanes, boats, and trains. Using woodworking tools, they can create carvings,

 

furniture, and bowls - Other handicrafts include ceramics, metalworking, jewelry making, weaving, batik, and leatherworking.

 

Games and sports are popular with many hobbyists who enjoy competition, physical activity, and healthful exercise. Thousands of hobbyists take part in sports, such as bowling, fishing, mountain climbing, skiing, and tennis. These sports give hobbyists the opportunity to display their individual skills and sportsmanship. Popular indoor games include bridge and other card games, backgammon, chess, and Monopoly.

 

Other hobbies - Electronics-related hobbies are becoming increasingly popular. Many hobbyists enjoy flying model airplanes by remote control or assembling and operating ham radios. Both young people and adults have taken up computers as a hobby, frequently assembling computers from kits. Some people raise pets as a hobby. For many people, gardening and photography are rewarding hobbies.

 

 

BUTTERFLY

 

A butterfly begins its life as a tiny egg, which hatches into a caterpillar. The caterpillar spends most of its time eating and growing. But its skin does not grow, and so the caterpillar sheds it and grows

a larger one. It repeats this process several times. After the caterpillar reaches its full size, it forms a protective shell. Inside the shell, an amazing change occurs--the wormlike caterpillar becomes a beautiful butterfly. The shell then breaks open, and the adult butterfly comes out. The insect expands its wings and soon flies off to find a mate and produce another generation of butterflies. Butterfly caterpillars have chewing mouthparts, which they use to eat leaves and other plant parts.

 

Some kinds of caterpillars are pests because they damage crops. One of the worst pests is the caterpillar of the cabbage butterfly. It feeds on cabbage, cauliflower, and related plants. Adult butterflies may have sucking mouthparts. The adults feed mainly on nectar and do no harm.

 

In fact, they help pollinate flowers. Many flowers must have pollen from other blossoms of the same kind of flower to produce fruit and seeds. When a butterfly stops at a flower to drink nectar, grains of pollen cling to its body. Some of the pollen grains rub off on the next blossom the butterfly visits.

 

Kinds of butterflies

Scientists group the thousands of species of butterflies into families, according to various physical features the insects have in common. The chief families include (1) skippers; (2) blues, coppers, and

hairstreaks; (3) brush-footed butterflies; (4) sulphurs and whites; (5) metalmarks; (6) satyrs and wood nymphs; (7) swallowtails; (8) milkweed butterflies; and (9) snout butterflies. Each of these families has species in North America.

 

The life cycle of butterflies

The life of an adult butterfly centers on reproduction. The reproductive cycle begins with courtship, in which the butterfly seeks a mate. If the courtship proves successful, mating occurs. Butterflies use both sight and smell in seeking mates. Either the male or the female may give signals, called cues, of a certain kind or in a particular order. If a butterfly presents the wrong cue, or a series of cues in

the wrong sequence, it will be rejected.

 

In courtship involving visual cues, a butterfly reveals certain color patterns on its wings in a precise order. Many visual cues involve the reflection of ultraviolet light rays from a butterfly's wing scales. The cues are invisible to the human eye, but butterflies see them clearly. The visual cues help the insects distinguish between males and females and between members of different species.

 

Usually, a butterfly that presents an appropriate scent will be immediately accepted as a mate. The scent comes from chemicals, called pheromones, that are released from special wing scales. A pheromone may attract a butterfly a great distance away. In most cases, the male butterfly dies soon after mating. The female goes off in search of a place to lay her eggs. She usually begins laying the eggs within a few hours after mating.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND

 

Supply and demand are economic forces that determine the amount of a product that is produced and its price. The supply of a product is the amount of it that businesses are willing and able to offer for sale at alternative prices. Generally, the higher the price is, the greater the amount supplied will be. Similarly, the demand for a product is the amount of it that users can and would like to buy at alternative prices. Demand also depends on the price, but in the opposite way. Usually, the quantity demanded is lower at high prices than at low ones. Because the amount that producers actually sell must be the same as the amount that users actually buy, the only price at which everyone can be satisfied is the one for which supply equals demand. This is called the equilibrium price.

 

The supply and demand diagram with the Supply and demand article in the print version of The World Book Encyclopedia shows how these economic forces operate. Using the market for onions as an example, the supply curve SS' shows the number of pounds produced each month at every possible market price. Higher prices encourage farmers to produce more onions, and low prices discourage production. Consumers' reactions are shown by the demand curve DD', which shows how many pounds of onions customers want to buy each month at every possible price. At low prices, they want many onions. At high prices, the customers use other vegetables.

 

Supply and demand curves cross at a certain price (20 cents a pound in the example). When this is the market price, suppliers will offer just the quantity that users wish to buy. At any higher price, farmers will produce more onions than consumers are willing to buy, and competition among farmers will force the price down. At prices lower than equilibrium, purchasers will demand more onions than are available, and the scarcity of onions will drive the price up.

 

 

CAPITALISM

 

Capitalism is an economic model that calls for control of the economy by individual households and privately owned businesses. It is one of two main economic models. The other is central planning, which calls for government control of the economy.

 

No purely capitalist or completely centrally planned economy has ever existed. The economic systems of all nations use some government control and some private choice. But economies that rely mostly on private decisions are usually described as capitalist. Such economies include those of the United States and Canada. The former Soviet Union and many nations of Eastern Europe once relied heavily on central planning. Such economies are sometimes called socialist or Communist.

 

Many other nations rely less on capitalism than the United States does but more than the Soviet Union did.

 

How capitalism differs from central planning

In basically capitalist systems, private decision-makers determine how resources will be used, what mix of goods and services will be produced, and how goods and services will be distributed among the members of society. Capitalism is frequently known as free enterprise or modified free enterprise because it permits people to engage in economic activities largely free from government control.

 

Other names sometimes applied to basically capitalist systems are free market systems, laissez faire systems, and entrepreneurial systems. In systems based on central planning, the government makes most major economic decisions. Government planners tell managers what to produce, whom to sell it to, and what price to charge. Centrally planned economies are often called command economies. The root of the word capitalism is capital. Capital has several meanings in economics and business.

 

In business, it refers to the money needed to hire workers, buy materials, and pay bills. In economics, capital includes buildings, equipment, machinery, roads, and other assets used to produce things. In basically capitalist systems, most land, factories, and other capital is privately owned. In systems based on central planning, the government owns most of the capital used in production.

 

Capitalism in its ideal form - The Scottish economist Adam Smith, in a landmark book called The Wealth of Nations (1776), laid out the basic argument for capitalism. Smith maintained that a government should not interfere with a nation's economy but instead should let individuals act as "free agents" who pursue their own self-interest.

 

Such free agents, he argued, would naturally act in ways that would bring about the greatest good for society "as if guided by an invisible hand."

Private choices. An example of how an ideal capitalist economy would work is an arrangement called perfect competition, also known as pure competition. In perfect competition, privately owned businesses, driven by a desire for profits, decide what goods or services to produce, how much to produce, and what methods to employ in production. These choices determine how much labor and capital a business will need. In other words, private firms "supply" goods and services and "demand" labor and capital.

 

 

INFLATION

 

Inflation is a continual increase in prices throughout a nation's economy. The rate of inflation is determined by changes in the price level, an average of all prices. If some prices rise and others fall,

the price level may not change. Therefore, inflation occurs only if most major prices go up. Inflation reduces the value--also called the purchasing power--of money.

 

During an inflationary period, a certain amount of money buys less than before. For example, a worker may get a salary increase of 10 percent. If prices remain stable, the worker can buy 10 percent more goods and services. But if prices also increase 10 percent, the worker's purchasing power has not changed. If prices rise more than 10 percent, the worker cannot buy as much as he or she previously could. Inflation has many causes. It may result if consumers demand more goods and services than businesses can produce. Inflation may also occur if employers grant wage increases that exceed gains in productivity. The employers pass most or all of the cost of the wage increase along to consumers by charging higher prices. A government can try to control inflation by increasing taxes, raising interest rates, decreasing the money supply, reducing government spending, and setting limits on wages and prices. But the government's task is difficult, chiefly because it may trigger a recession when it attempts to reduce inflation.

 

The opposite of inflation is deflation, a decrease in prices throughout a nation's economy. Deflation tends to occur during periods of economic depression but may also happen at other times. For a discussion of the economic conditions sometimes associated with deflation.

 

Kinds of inflation

Mild inflation occurs when the price level increases from 2 to 4 percent a year. If businesses can pass the increases along to consumers, the economy thrives. Jobs are plentiful, and unemployment falls. If wages rise faster than prices, workers have greater purchasing power. But mild inflation usually lasts only a short time. Employers seek larger profits during periods of economic growth, and

unions seek higher wages. As a result, prices rise even further--and inflation increases.

 

Moderate inflation results when the annual rate of inflation ranges from 5 to 9 percent. During a period of moderate inflation, prices increase more quickly than wages, and so purchasing power declines. Most people purchase more at such times because they would rather have goods and

services than money that is declining in value. This increased demand for goods and services causes prices to rise even further.

 

Severe inflation occurs when the annual rate of inflation is 10 percent or higher. This type of inflation is also called double-digit inflation. During a period of severe inflation, prices rise much faster than wages, and so purchasing power decreases rapidly.

 

When inflation is severe, debtors benefit at the expense of lenders. If prices increase during the period of a loan, the debtor repays the debt with dollars less valuable than those that were borrowed.In terms of purchasing power, the lender does not get back as much money as was lent.

 

 

 

INTEREST

 

Interest is the price paid to lenders for the use of their money. Interest is figured as a percentage of the amount of money borrowed. For example, a borrower who is charged 12 percent interest would pay $12 a year in interest for every $100 of the loan. Interest is based on the idea that lenders are entitled to a return on their investment. This pays them for giving up their right to use the money for a period of time or to make a profit in other ways.

 

Interest plays an essential part in commerce. Businesses, governments, and consumers borrow and lend money, and thus they pay and receive interest. Businesses borrow money to buy new machinery or to build new factories. They also raise money by selling bonds to the public. Investors who purchase the bonds are paid interest by the businesses that sold them. Businesses pay interest with higher earnings made possible by the borrowed money.

 

At times, one business invests in another and receives interest on its loan. Governments borrow to make up the difference between the money they spend and the funds they collect in taxes. A government receives interest on money it lends, such as on loans to people who want to establish a business. Consumers pay interest if they borrow to buy a home or an automobile. When people deposit money in a savings account, they are lending funds to a bank or a savings and loan association. Therefore, they receive interest.