Living in the Middle East vs. The United States of America
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Comparison and Overview |
First of all, just walking down the street people can notice a difference by looking at the buildings. Buildings here in the U.S. have more straight lines that are parallel and perpendicular. The buildings there look different, but they are still aesthetically pleasing. The land is also very different and foreign to the U.S. citizens. There aren’t big maple trees like the ones you would see in the northern U.S., but there is sand, and a lot of it . Some things in the Middle East look different than they do in the U.S. Since in the northern part of the U.S. has a lot of wood, we then use wood for our houses. In the Middle East they use concrete for their houses instead because they don’t have wood there, and that would make it more expensive there. As a result of the different materials used, of course they will look different than one another. The houses also look a little different, because the walls are about 3-4 meters high, which helps with keeping the sandstorms damage lower than it could have been. The style that they have in the Middle East is kind of like a jumble of all styles. Most interiors of houses include a wide variety of colors, because that is the style that most Middle Easterners appreciate and enjoy.
Another difference between the two countries is that the unemployment rate in the U.S. is 5.5% and in the Middle East it is 27.2%. That is a giant difference. Over one-fourth of the population is unemployed. That can have a huge impact on the economy. Not just the economy in the Middle East, but all of the economies around the world. The U.S. relies on some of the countries in the Middle East to produce goods for us. They may not be able to provide those goods to us, because of the lack of employment there. Since their Unemployment rate is high that means that the results of crime and terrorism are much higher than they would normally be if the unemployment rate were to be lower. Being unemployed doesn't just hurt the person that's unemployed but it also hurts the economy, society and the country itself. The main problem though is that people don't realize how bad the unemployment rate is and how long the rate can last. The technology that they have in the Middle East is pretty similar to the technology that we have in the U.S., if not the same exact technology. They use the same computers, cell phones, television sets, and many more things that we do. The things that we do with the technology is also the same. Technology wise in the U.S. and in the Middle East there is not much of a difference. Although in some countries there is a huge difference in the number of Internet users there are. That is due to the lack of access that they have in their country. Over 90% of Qatar's population uses the internet, but not all of the Middle East is like that. Iraq shockingly only has just above 10% of their population using the internet. And that is a huge number difference when they are in the same region as each other. The Middle East definitely doesn’t have the same services that we have here in the U.S.. They don’t get any snow there so of course they don’t have to pay for somebody to come and shovel their sidewalk or plow their road. Parts of the Middle East seem like a completely different planet even though they are just across the world. They have used up so much of their groundwater that almost all of it is gone, so they will soon turn to importing all of their food and goods. Along with that Saudi Arabia doesn’t have any rivers, which makes it really hard to get water that they need in order to survive. Goods are usually imported by boats, so with having no rivers, and having such a large country it is going to be very difficult to distribute the goods to the places that need them. They could use planes, trains, or semi-trucks, but getting all of those supplies throughout a whole country is going to be very difficult and expensive. Places in the U.S. like Minnesota for an example get a lot of their goods by the barges that come through the Great Lakes. They then get their goods transported either by train or by semi-trucks. It is kind of similar to how Saudi Arabia might be getting there imported goods soon. Minnesota has a lot of things that aren’t the same as they are in the Middle East. If somebody were to be in Nevada or Arizona things may seem a little more similar to the Middle East. For an example, a lot of Minnesota farmers have rectangular or straight edged fields, but in the Middle East they have circular fields. That is a brilliant thing for them to do in the Middle East, because when they use an automated sprinkler they can just pivot it, instead of having to relocate the whole thing, like we do here in Minnesota. By these many examples it is shown that there are a lot of differences between the U.S. and the Middle East, and not just the climate or weather. People in the U.S. lead a very different lifestyle than the people in other areas of the world, especially people in the Middle East. Even though they live things differently we shouldn’t judge or criticize them for that. |