首页
登录
职称英语
The earth is witnessing an urban revolution, as people worldwide crowd into
The earth is witnessing an urban revolution, as people worldwide crowd into
游客
2025-04-05
17
管理
问题
The earth is witnessing an urban revolution, as people worldwide crowd into towns and cities. In 1800 only five percent of the world’s population were urban dwellers; now the proportion has risen to more than forty-five percent, and by the year 2010 more people will live in towns and cities than in the countryside. Humanity will, for the first time, have become a predominantly urban species.
Though the world is getting more crowded by the day, absolute numbers of population are less important than where people concentrate and whether these areas can cope with them. Even densities, however, tell us nothing about the quality of the infrastructure—roads, housing and job creation, for example—or the availability of crucial services.
The main question, then, is not how many people there are in a given area, but how well their needs can be met. Density figures have to be set beside measurements of wealth and employment, the quality of housing and the availability of education, medical care, clean water, sanitation and other vital services. The urban revolution is taking place mainly in the Third World, where it is hardest to accommodate.
Between 1950 and 1985 the number of city dwellers grew more than twice as fast in the Third World as in industrialized countries. During this period, the urban population of the developed world increased from 477 million to 838 million, less than double; but it quadrupled in developing countries, from 286 million to 1. 14 billion. Africa’s urban population is racing along at five percent a year on average, doubling city numbers every fourteen years. By the turn of the century, three in every four Latin Americans will live in urban areas, as will two in every five Asians and one in every three Africans. Developing countries will have to increase their urban facilities by two thirds by then, if they are to maintain even their present inadequate levels of services and housing.
In 1940 only one out of every hundred of the world’s people lived in a really big city, one with a population of over a million. By 1980 this proportion had already risen to one in ten. Two of the world’s biggest cities, Mexico and Sao Paulo, are already bursting at the seams—and their populations are doubling in less than twenty years.
About a third of the people of the Third World’s cities now live in desperately overcrowded slums and squatter settlements. Many are unemployed, uneducated, undernourished and chronically sick. Tens of millions of new people arrive every year, flocking in from the countryside in what is the greatest mass migration in history.
Pushed out of the countryside by rural poverty and drawn to the cities in the hope of a better life, they find no houses waiting for them, no water supplies, no sewerage, no schools. They throw up makeshift hovels, built of whatever they can find: sticks, fronds, cardboard, tar-paper, straw, petrol tins and, if they are lucky, corrugated iron They have to take the land none else wants; land that is too wet, too dry, too steep or too polluted for normal habitation.
Yet all over the world the inhabitants of these apparently hopeless slums show extraordinary enterprise in improving their lives. While many settlements remain stuck in apathy, many others are gradually improved through the vigour and co-operation of their people, who turn flimsy shacks into solid buildings, build school, lay out streets and put in electricity and water supplies.
Governments can help by giving the squatters the right to the land that they have usually occupied illegally, giving them the incentive to improve their homes and neighborhoods. The most important way to ameliorate the effects of the Third World’s exploding cities, however, is to slow down the migration. This involves correcting the bias most governments show towards cities and towns and against the countryside. With few sources of hard currency, though, many governments in developing countries continue to concentrate their limited development efforts in cities and towns, rather than rural areas, where many of the most destitute live. As a result, food production falls as the countryside slides ever deeper into depression.
Since the process of urbanization concentrates people, the demand for basic necessities, like food, energy, drinking water and shelter, is also increased, which can exact a heavy toll on the surrounding countryside. High-quality agricultural land is shrinking in many regions, taken out of production because of over-use and mismanagement. Creeping urbanization could aggravate this situation, further constricting economic development.
The most effective way of tackling poverty, and of stemming urbanization, is to reverse national priorities in many countries, concentrating more resources in rural areas where most poor people still live. This would boost food production and help to build national economies more securely.
Ultimately, though, the choice of priorities comes down to a question of power. The people of the countryside are powerless beside those of the towns; the destitute of the countryside may starve in their scattered millions, whereas the poor concentrated in urban slums pose a constant threat of disorder. In all but a few developing countries the bias towards the cities will therefore continue, as will the migrations that are swelling their numbers beyond control. [br] A third of the people in Third World cities______.
选项
A、live in Mexico and Sao Paulo
B、are undernourished and ill
C、live in inadequate housing
D、arrived last year
答案
C
解析
本题的四个选项中,只有C项为正确答案。这可从文中第六段的第句话“About a third of the people of the Third World’s cities now live in desperately overcrowded slums and squatter settlements.”推知。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/4027545.html
相关试题推荐
Asordinarypeople,scientistsarebynomeansmorehonestor______thanotherpe
Asianeconomiccrisishasonlya______effectonthelivesofChinesepeople.A、di
Concernedpeoplewantto______theriskofdevelopingcancer.A、takeB、decreaseC、
Shypeoplenever______setouttoattractattentionofotherpeople.A、willinglyB
Disabledpeoplearenowabletocareformanyoftheirownneeds,______educatio
Thereisahighjobmobilityamongyoungpeopleastheywill______workonedaya
Marriedpeoplelive"happilyeverafter"infairytales,buttheydosoless
Marriedpeoplelive"happilyeverafter"infairytales,buttheydosoless
Marriedpeoplelive"happilyeverafter"infairytales,buttheydosoless
Mostpeoplewhotravellongdistancecomplainofjetlag.Jetlagmakesbusine
随机试题
Comparativelythetelephonechargesarelowerifyoumakeacall______.[br]Wh
下列哪项例证了内部控制的固有局限性?()A.会计主管同时操作和记录现金存款
所检验的水泥凡细度、初凝时间、不溶物和烧失量任一项不符合标准规定,均判为不合格品
下列不属于基金客户服务特点的是()。A.持续性 B.规范性 C.永久
股票具有()等特征。 ①收益性 ②风险性 ③流动性 ④永久性?A:①②
异丙肾上腺素在临床常用于治疗哮喘,治疗过程中给患者带来最多的副作用是A:心动过速
基础心理学是研究()。 (A)正常成人心理现象的心理学基础学科 (B
(二) 中国邮政面对电子商务的蓬勃发展以及信息技术挑战,启动了电子邮件工程,邮
代理付款行接到收款人或持票人交来的银行本票和进账单,按规定审查无误后办理兑付,会
有四个互斥方案,寿命期均为10年,基准收益率为8%,(P/A,8%,10)
最新回复
(
0
)