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  3. Mass transportation revised the social and economic fabric of the American city in three fundamental ways. It catalyzed physical

Mass transportation revised the social and economic fabric of the American city in three fundamental ways. It catalyzed physical

admin2010-07-19  81
问题    Mass transportation revised the social and economic fabric of the American city in three fundamental ways. It catalyzed physical expansion, it sorted out people and land uses, and it accelerated the inherent instability of urban life. By opening vast areas of unoccupied land for residential expansion, the omnibuses, horse railways, commuter trains, and electric trolleys pulled settled regions outward two to four times more distant from city centers than they were in the premodern era. In 1850, for example, the borders of Boston lay scarcely two miles from the old business district; by the turn of the century the radius extended ten miles. Now those who could afford it could live far removed from the old city center and still commute there for work, shopping, and entertainment. The new accessibility of land around the periphery of almost every major city sparked an explosion of real estate development and fueled what we now know as urban sprawl. Between 1890 and 1920, for example, some 250,000 new residential lots were recorded within the borders of Chicago, most of them located in outlying areas. Over the same period, another 550,000 were plotted outside the city limits but within the metropolitan area. Anxious to take advantage of the possibilities of commuting, real estate developers added 800,000 potential building sites to the Chicago region in just thirty years—lots that could have housed five to six million people.
   Of course, many were never occupied; there was always a huge surplus of subdivided, but vacant, land around Chicago and other cities. These excesses underscore a feature of residential expansion related to the growth of mass transportation: urban sprawl was essentially unplanned. It was carried out by thousands of small investors who paid little heed to coordinated land use or to future land users. Those who purchased and prepared land for residential purposes, particularly land near or Outside city borders where transit lines and middle-class inhabitants were anticipated, did so to create demand as much as to respond to it. Chicago is a prime example of this process. Real estate subdivision there proceeded much faster than population growth.
Why does the author mention both Boston and Chicago?
选项 A、To demonstrate positive and negative effects of growth.
B、To exemplify cities with and without mass transportation.
C、To show mass transportation changed many cities.
D、To contrast their rate of growth.
答案C
解析 说明公共交通改变了许多城市。第一段第四句“举例说，1850年，波士顿市界离老的商业地区几乎不到2英里，到了这世纪末，其半径扩至10英里。现在供得起的人们可以住得很远，远离老的城市中心，仍然来回去那里上班，购物和娱乐”。第七句，“举例说，在1890至1920年期间，据记载，芝加哥市界内有约250,000个新的住宅楼区，其中大多数设在郊区。经过同样这段时期，市区外，但仍在芝加哥大都市地区内，又计划建造了550,000个住宅楼区。”
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