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
The earth is witnessing an urban revolution, as people worldwide crowd into towns and cities. In 1800 only five percent of the
admin
2013-01-29
49
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 no one 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 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 tildes 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 many 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.
Many Third World city dwellers ______.
选项
A、start their own business enterprises
B、create their own infrastructure and services
C、sleep in the streets
D、form people’s co-operatives
答案
B
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/Pd1O777K
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
Scienceisadominantthemeinourculture.Sinceittouchesalmosteveryfacetofourlife,educatedPeopleneedatleastsome
Thereareanumberofformatsforreportingresearch,suchasarticlestoappearinjournals,reportsaddressedtofundingagenc
Theinternetisgoodatshame.1)Therearecountlesswebsiteswherepeoplecanpostnastycomplaintsaboutex-loversandrudec
Anumberofarticleshavebeenpublishedbypsychologistsinfavoroftheirprocessionbeingpermittedtoprescribepsychotropic
SomepeoplewouldliketodoshoppingonSundayssincetheyexpectto______wonderfulbargainsinthemarket.
TheEnglisharefamousforexchanging______remarksontheweather.
Researchershavestudiedthepoorasindividuals,asfamiliesandhouseholds,asmembersofpoorcommunities,neighborhoodsand
Jack_____tothemanagerforthemistakeshehadmade.
Hehascourageallright,butinmattersrequiringjudgment,hehasoftenbeenfoundsadly______.
We’re______bymosquitoesuphereinthenorthinsummer.
随机试题
谈判的实质是()
细菌性肝脓肿和阿米巴性肝脓肿的区别是
男性,40岁,农民。突然畏寒发热4天伴头痛,全身肌肉痛,以腓肠肌痛为著,于8月中旬来诊。按“感冒”治疗,未见好转,3天后皮肤出现淤斑、淤点、巩膜黄染入院。体检:体温39.4℃,巩膜黄染,腹股沟淋巴结肿大,肝肋下2cm,腓肠肌有明显压痛。化验:WBC25.2
工业固体废物的产生量与城市的()等有关系。
现金流量图是一种反映经济系统资金运动状态的图式,下列选项中,运用现金流量图不能表示现金流量的要素是()。
流动资产指可以在( )的一个营业周期内变现或耗用的资产。
非公开募集基金应当向合格投资者募集,合格投资者累计不得超过()人。
(2015年节选)甲股份有限公司(以下简称“甲公司”)20×4年发生了以下交易或事项:7月1日,甲公司以子公司全部股权换入丙公司30%的股权,对丙公司实施重大影响。投资前,甲公司与丙公司不具有任何关联方关系。原对子公司投资的账面价值为3200万元,公允价值
关于庐山的说法,正确的是()。
3~4岁儿童的心理特征是什么?
最新回复
(
0
)