“Globalization” refers to the homogenizing impact on local culture and economics caused by increased interaction between geographically distinct regions. As a movement it has been going on for hundreds, if not thousands of years, but the movement has really accelerated since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Despite the massive impact of globalization in the twentieth century, its momentum was slowed by all of these answer choices, as they all divided the world into different ideological camps, preventing the exchange of products, culture, and ideas.

During the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century the industrial center of the United States was the Midwest. Factories in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and Pennsylvania accounted for a disproportionate share of American industrial power. When, in the 1970s, American companies began to move their manufacturing centers abroad, the economy of the Midwest suffered dramatically. Unemployment rose very quickly and people began to migrate away from the region in search of work and a sustainable living situation. This has led the region to be called the “Rust Belt,” based on the rusting heavy machinery lying around throughout the Midwest. Cities like Detroit, Flint, Akron, and Toledo have felt this transition particularly extremely.

In the 1970s and 1980s most of the developed world transitioned from a primarily industrial economy to a service-based economy. This had many benefits for the people of the developed world, such as higher wages and safer working conditions, but also brought with it many difficulties. The demand for unspecialized and factory-based labor declined rapidly and dramatically, as those jobs were transitioned overseas. Many workers were too old, or too deprived of any higher education, to transition smoothly into a new working environment, and unemployment and social unrest were rife throughout the developed world as a result.

During the past half-century much of the developed world has experienced a process known as deindustrialization -factories and manufacturing centers have closed down in the United States of America, Western Europe, and Japan and those jobs have been outsourced to the developing world. This has led to the rise of “service-based economies” in the developed world. A “service-based economy” is an economy in which most of the workers are involved in providing services such as research, marketing, telecommunications, innovation, teaching, and so on.

The Core-Periphery Model is used by geographers to describe the division of the world into three segments. The “core,” places like most of Europe and North America, where standards of living are high and most of the world’s products are consumed; the “semi-periphery,” where most manufacturing centers are and where standards of living are extremely variable; and the “periphery,” where most raw resources are harvested and people are extremely poor.

In the poorest parts of the world the vast majority of the population is engaged in primary economic activities like farming, fishing, hunting, and mining. Although there might be some elements of secondary and tertiary economic activities in these countries, the bulk of secondary economic activities are undertaken by countries in the semi-developed world - like Mexico, China, Brazil, and regions of India.

In wealthy countries as much as three-quarters (in a few cases close to a hundred percent) of the population is engaged in tertiary and quaternary economic activities. Due to the nature of the global economy the wealthiest countries can rely on the poorest countries to provide the bulk of their primary economic activities and the semi-developed countries to provide the bulk of their secondary economic activities.

Countries in the “semi-periphery” are countries that have a standard of living lower than those in the “core,” but much higher than those in the “periphery.” They are almost exclusively centers of manufacturing and exporting. Of these countries, only Vietnam does not qualify as a country in the “semi-periphery.” It is considered to be in the “periphery” due to its low standard of living.

The “back-wash effect” refers to a phenomenon that has been observed on numerous occasions during the process of deindustrialization. It states that as one region of a state flourishes economically it does not necessarily improve the economy of another region, but instead, conversely, diminishes the significance and strength of another region. A classic example of this that is mentioned often is the “Rust Belt” experience of the Midwest.

The “fast world,” as distinct from the “slow world,” is defined by high-level telecommunication and transportation technology. Although the other answer choices might be generally true of the differences between “fast world” countries and “slow world” countries they are not as close to the exact definition as the correct answer.