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  3. Driving along South Street, where the Los Angeles sprawl meets sprawling Ora

Driving along South Street, where the Los Angeles sprawl meets sprawling Ora

游客2023-12-05  22
问题     Driving along South Street, where the Los Angeles sprawl meets sprawling Orange County, you enter and leave Cerritos three times. Although the city is confusingly shaped, it is easy to tell where it begins. Overhead power cables abruptly disappear and run underground. The grass, watered by innumerable sprinklers, is a brighter shade of green. Indeed, a blind man could tell where the boundary lies. Crossing into Artesia there is a bump, followed by a series of clumsily patched potholes; a few hundred yards later you re-enter Cerritos and the road is smooth again.
    Cerritos cannot boast a glorious history, old money or natural beauty. Fifty years ago it was a flat area of farmland known as Dairy Valley. These days, "it’s a terribly unremarkable place on the way to Disneyland," says Tom Irish, a property developer. Yet this small suburban city of some 55,000 people has become remarkable thanks to superb management and geographical good fortune. It reveals much about why America’s suburbs are so appealing, and how they are changing.
    Like an increasing number of suburbs, Cerritos is both a bedroom community and an economic engine. It began to prosper in the early 1970s when it encouraged car dealers to cluster near the motorway that clips its western edge. Fully 27 outfits now trade there, making it the largest such centre in a car-obsessed state. Cerritos also has a shopping mall and a "town center", otherwise known as an office park. As a result, it has far more jobs than working residents. Last year the city collected $483 in sales taxes per person — more than the glitzy city of Santa Monica. And it has leased, not sold, its land, so a future stream of money is guaranteed.
    What goes on inside the offices seems less important to locals than what they look like. The city has municipal codes to rival those of notoriously staid Irvine, a planned city in Orange County: don’t even think about installing a rotating, blinking or oscillating sign. Sculptures adorn car dealers’ forecourts. Cerritos’s busy library is covered with titanium; its Wal-Mart is clad in granite. It has an opulent performing arts centre that will host some 140 impeccably populist acts this year.
    Building work is underway on the local jail, known for good reason as the "sheriff’s hotel". Although Cerritos has a contract with Los Angeles’s county sheriff for its policing, it pays for the building and the officers. They have some of the easiest jobs in California. So far this year 53 serious assaults have been recorded, a bit less than one per cop. The city is so peaceful, says Daryl Evans, the police captain, that gang members from nearby cities occasionally meet there to play basketball, knowing they will not be attacked by rivals.
    Of course, many American cities have built parks, performing-arts centres and fancy libraries while struggling financially. The key to Cerritos’s success may be the timing of its investments. Cities such as Cleveland and Baltimore poured money into museums and other grand projects in the vain hope that they would lure businesses and young, creative folk. Cerritos began by building pipelines and roads, then moved on to business parks, policing and schools (including California’s best high school). Only when it was rolling in money did it break out the titanium.
    Local officials attribute the city’s success to fiscal discipline and the ability to follow a long-term plan. That, in turn, is the result of its political culture. Cerritos has a tradition of powerful, long-serving city managers, to whom local politicians frequently defer. As Laura Lee, the mayor, explains, "There are many things we, as elected officials, do not understand." Voters, it seems, like this arrangement greatly. In a 2002 poll, an astonishing 96% of residents said they were satisfied with the provision of public services.
    Such single-mindedness is particularly striking given the city’s diversity. In 1980 whites comprised more than half of the population. These days Asians do. Striving immigrants are cause and consequence of the city’s excellent schools: in Cerritos High School, pupils who speak inadequate English score better in mathematics tests than those who speak English fluently. Yet the newcomers have not formed ghettos. The last census showed that whites and Asians were more intermixed in Cerritos than in all but 16 other American cities. Whites were even more mixed-up with blacks and Hispanics.
    These days Cerritos faces strong competition. Its car mall has inspired imitators; as a result, the value of sales has flattened while the number of vehicles sold seems to be falling. As the city ages, public services will come under increasing strain. Drastic decline is unlikely, but the city may be overtaken — though it is almost certain that the places doing the overtaking will be bland, car-oriented and suburban. [br] Which of the following does NOT serve as an example to show local people’s concern of Cerritos’s landscape?
选项 A、The local jail known as the "sheriff’s hotel".
B、Grass watered by innumerable sprinklers.
C、The library covered with titanium.
D、The Wal-Mart clad in granite.
答案 A
解析 事实细节题。第五段首句提到将当地的监狱称为“郡长的旅馆”是合情合理的，接着讲述原因，从该段可知当地治安良好，郡长工作十分轻松悠闲，所以称其监狱为“郡长的旅馆”，这和当地人对风景的关注无关，故答案为[A]。首段提到Cerrito的草坪在无数个花园洒水器的浇灌下绿意盎然，可见其对市容的重视，故排除[B]。第四段首句说当地人似乎认为办公楼的表面比里面发生的事更重要，后来又提到办公楼涂着钛、图书馆包着花岗岩，足见当地人对市容的重视，故排除[C]、[D]。
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