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
44
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.
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
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/Wd1O777K
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
Certainlynocreatureintheseaisodderthanthecommonseacucumber.Alllivingcreatures,especiallyhumanbeings,havethei
Themostwidespreadfallacyofallisthatcoldsarecausedbycold.Theyareactuallycausedbyvirusespassingonfromperson
Asresearcherslearnmoreabouthowchildren’sintelligencedevelops,theyareincreasinglysurprisedbythepowerofparents.T
SomepeoplewouldliketodoshoppingonSundayssincetheyexpectto______wonderfulbargainsinthemarket.
Placingahumanbeingbehindthewheelofanautomobileoftenhasthesamecuriouseffectascuttingcertainfibresinthebrain
Researchershavestudiedthepoorasindividuals,asfamiliesandhouseholds,asmembersofpoorcommunities,neighborhoodsand
21.Everytimeyoutrytoansweraquestionthataskswhy,youengageintheprocessofcausalanalysis--youattempttodetermine
Probablyoneofthemostrevolutionaryinnovationsinscienceduringthiscenturywastherecognitionofthedualityofmatter;【
Thousandsofpeopleturnedoutintothestreetsto____againstthelocalauthorities’decisiontobuildahighwayacrossthefiel
随机试题
消化性溃疡的发病机制是什么?
当事人在合同订立过程中有()情形,给对方造成损失的,应当承担缔约责任。
非居民企业取得股息、利息、租金、特许权使用费和财产转让所得,其所得跟境内机构场所并没有实际联系的,按()的税率征收企业所得税。
某地区钢材厂内外勾结,盗窃钢材,屡禁不止,该地方政府采取公审公判的方式,情况得到改观。有网友质疑这种做法,该区工作人员称情况特殊,请你评价此事。
2013年1月1日,赵与钱口头约定,赵承租钱的一套别墅,租期为五年,租金一次付清,交付租金后即可入住。洽谈时,钱告诉赵屋顶有漏水现象。为了尽快与女友孙结婚共同生活,赵对此未置可否,付清租金后与孙入住并办理了结婚登记。入住后不久别墅屋顶果然漏水,赵
下列产品或劳务应计入当年GDP的是()。
“任何神话都是用想象和借助想象以征服自然力,支配自然力,把自然力加以形象化;因而,随着这些自然力之实际上被支配,神话也就消失了。”这段话的作者是()。(中传2011年研)
“多情自古伤离别”的下句是:_______。
[*]
Thedoctorshaveabandonedthehopetorescuetheoldman.
最新回复
(
0
)