Aristotle wrote that men come together in cities to live, but stay in them to live the good life. It was the Greeks who invented

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问题     Aristotle wrote that men come together in cities to live, but stay in them to live the good life. It was the Greeks who invented the idea of the city, and urbanity continues as a thriving tradition. But in the first decade of the 21st century, urban life is changing. "Cities are now junctions in the flows of people, information, finance and freight," says Nigel Harris, a professor of development planning. "They’re less and less places where people live and work. "
    The enlargement of the European Union in December in 2002 has given residents of up to 13 new member nations freedom of movement within its borders. At the same time, an additional 13. 5 million immigrants a year will be needed in the EU just to keep a stable ratio between workers and pensioners over the next half century. All this mobility will make Europe’s cities nodes of nomadism, linked to each other by high-speed trains and cheap airline flights. The bustle around airports and train stations will make the crowds in Europe’s great piazza look thin by comparison. Urban designers, with a freshly pricked interest in transience rather than stasis, are even now dreaming up cityscapes that focus on flows of people and fungible uses for buildings.
    Public spaces are due for a revamp. Earlier architects conceived of train stations as single buildings; today’s designers are thinking of them as transit zones that link to the city around them, pouring travelers into bus stations and surrounding shops. In Amsterdam, urban planner Ben van Berkel, codirector of the design firm UN Studio, has developed what he calls Deep Planning Strategy, which inverts the traditional "top down" approach: The creation of a space comes before the flow of people through it. With 3-D modeling and animation, he’s able to look at different population groups use public spaces at different times of the day. He uses the data to design spaces that accommodate mobs at rush hour and sparser crowds at other times.
    The growing mobility of Europe has inspired a debate about the look and feel of urban sprawl. "Up until now, all our cultural heritage has been concentrated in the city center," notes Prof. Heinrich Moding of the German Institute of Urban Affairs. "But we’ve got to imagine how it’s possible to have joyful vibrancy in these outlying parts, so that they’re not just about garages, highways and gasoline tanks. " The designs of new buildings are also changing to anticipate the emerging city as a way station. Buildings have been seen as disconnecting, isolating, defining. But increasingly, the quality of space that’s in demand is movement.
What is the main idea of the passage?

选项 A、The modern cities won’t be places to live the good life so much as way stations.
B、Aristotle’s idea about urban life is no longer applicable in the 21st century.
C、Locational factors will not be so important in the 21st century as in Aristotle’s time.
D、There will be no fixed buildings in the future and the culture of architecture will change.

答案A

解析 本文的中心思想是什么?[A]现代城市在更大程度上是中途停留站而不是人们好好生活的地方。[B]亚里士多德关于都市生活的观点已经不适用于21世纪。[C]在21世纪,本地的因素将不再像亚里士多德时代那样重要。[D]未来不会再有固定的建筑,建筑文化也会发生改变。本篇文章的中心思想在文章中多次重复。第一段,作者利用奈杰尔·哈里斯教授的话:“城市现在是人口、信息、金融和运输流动的枢纽。它们将渐渐变得不再是人们生活和工作的地方。”第二段第三句话指出,人口的流动性将使欧洲的城市成为游牧生活的交汇点。第三段第二句话指出,今天的设计者将火车站看作通向周围城市的运输带。第四段倒数第二句又重复该观点,人们开始将日益成型的城市看作中途停留站。所以,文章的中心思想是[A]“现代城市在更大程度上是中途停留站而不是人们好好生活的地方”。
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