首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
The earth is witnessing an urban revolution, as people worldwide crowd into towns and cities. In 1800 only five percent of the w
The earth is witnessing an urban revolution, as people worldwide crowd into towns and cities. In 1800 only five percent of the w
admin
2017-03-25
42
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.
Governments give______.
选项
A、incentives to improve the slums
B、land to squatters
C、preference to urban areas
D、hard currency to cities and towns
答案
C
解析
本题的四个选项中,只有C项为正确答案。这可从文中的“This involves correcting the bias most governments show towards cities and towns and against the countryside.”推知,即正是政府对城市政策的倾斜才导致了城市人口的激增。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/9cGO777K
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
Jamesisquite______withthecustomsandlanguagesofthepeopleinthatpartofthecountry.
Throughouthistorynewtechnologieshaverevolutionizedwarfare,sometimesabruptly,sometimesonlygradually:thinkofgunpowde
Throughouthistorynewtechnologieshaverevolutionizedwarfare,sometimesabruptly,sometimesonlygradually:thinkofgunpowde
InChicago,acomputerizedsystemhasbeendevelopedthatcontrolstrafficinthecity’ssevenonexpresswaysnow,oneman—a
Peoplewholiveinsmalltownsoftenseemmorefriendlythanthoselivingin______populatedareas.
Culturalnormssocompletelysurroundpeople,sopermeatethoughtandaction,thatweneverrecognizetheassumptionsonwhicht
TheFrencheducationsystemisverydifferentfromtheEnglishoneinitsaims,itsorganizationanditsresults.TheFrenchchi
Earlysignsof______seenintheherbalmedicinestudyareextremelyencouragingandbaseduponthesedata,wearenowplanning
Hurricanesareviolentstormsthatcausemillionsofdollarsinpropertydamageandtakemanylives.Theycanbeextremelydange
随机试题
某市卷烟厂为增值税一般纳税人,主要生产A牌卷烟及雪茄烟,2020年9月发生如下业务:(1)从烟农手中购进烟叶,支付买价110万元并按规定支付了10%的价外补贴,将其运往甲企业委托加工烟丝;向甲企业支付加工费,取得增值税专用发票,注明加工费10万元、增值税
上颌骨的四突不包括
A、硝酸银试剂B、三苯四氮唑盐试剂C、苯胺-邻苯二甲酸试剂D、3,5-二羟基甲苯-盐酸试剂E、过碘酸加联苯胺使还原糖显棕黑色的显色剂是()。
(2012年)根据营业税规定,下列各项业务中.免征或不征营业税的有()。
在制定运输价格时,政府指导价体现了统一性与灵活性相结合的原则,允许经营在规定范围和幅度内调价。()
如图所示,轻质弹簧竖直固定在水平地面上,一质量为m的小球在外力F的作用下静止于图示位置,弹簧处于压缩状态。现撤去外力F,小球最终可以离开弹簧而上升一定的高度,则小球从静止开始到离开弹簧的过程中(不计空气阻力)()。
老师对小张说:“你只有学好这一章节,才有可能学好这学期的其他内容。”根据老师的话,下列不可能发生的是()。
习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想是党和人民实践经验和集体智慧的结晶,其主要创立者是习近平。习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想的核心要义是()
Detailedknowledgeofeachofthejetstreamsoftheearth’shemispheres-itslocation,altitudeandstrength-iscritical
Directions:Forthispart,youareallowed30minutestowriteanessaybycommentingon"Onefalsestepwillmakeagreatdiffe
最新回复
(
0
)