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
28
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.
The urban population of the world ______.
选项
A、has risen to around forty percent in the last 200 years
B、will have risen to more than fifty percent by the year 2010
C、has risen by forty-five percent since 1800
D、will five in cities for The first time
答案
A
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/xd1O777K
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
Ifthedisputeisnotsettledina(n)______waysoon,thetwocountrieswillcertainlygotowar.
Anumberofarticleshavebeenpublishedbypsychologistsinfavoroftheirprocessionbeingpermittedtoprescribepsychotropic
Asresearcherslearnmoreabouthowchildren’sintelligencedevelops,theyareincreasinglysurprisedbythepowerofparents.T
Shakenbytwodecadesofvirtualanarchy,themajorityofpeoplewerereadytobuy______atanyprice.
SomepeoplewouldliketodoshoppingonSundayssincetheyexpectto______wonderfulbargainsinthemarket.
Thescientistshaveabsolutefreedomastowhatresearchtheythinkitbestto_____.
Whatdoconsumersreallywant?That’saquestionmarketresearcherswouldlovetoanswer.Butsincepeopledon’talwayssaywhat
Beingadevelopingcountry,Chinahasmadegreatprogressinacquisitionandapplicationofscienceandtechnologyaswellasmo
21.Everytimeyoutrytoansweraquestionthataskswhy,youengageintheprocessofcausalanalysis--youattempttodetermine
Thepeoplewereannoyedbythe______supplyofelectricityandwaterinsummer.
随机试题
关于施工总承包管理模式中,与分包人的合同一般由()签订。
以证券交易为中心,有组织机构和人员,有专门设施的交易市场是()。
ABC公司正在着手编制明年的财务计划,公司财务主管请你协助计算其加权资本成本。有关信息如下:(1)公司银行借款利率当前是10%,明年将下降为8.93%;(2)公司债券目前市价580万元,面值为650万元,票面利率为8%,尚有5年到期,分期付
朝鲜现任最高国家领导人是()。
下列各组都属于名形兼类词的是()。
“扬州八怪”可分为三类:其中一类是厌弃官场的文人画家,如_______、_______、_______等。
在天平上重复称量一重为a的物品.假设各次称量结果相互独立且服从正态分布N(a,0,2*).若以表示n次称量结果的算术平均值,则为使n的最小值应不小于自然数_______.P{|-a|<0.1}≥0.95
阅读以下说明和交换机的配置信息,回答问题1至问题3,将解答填入对应栏内。某公司下设三个部门,为了便于管理,每个部门组成一个VLAN,公司网络结构如图5-1所示。阅读路由器Router的部分配置信息,解释(5)~(7)处的命令,将答案填写在答
窗体上有名称为Commandl的命令按钮和名称为Textl的文本框()。PrivateSubCommandl_Click()Textl.Text=“程序设计”Textl.SetFocusEndSubPrivateSub
Everygenerationhasitsemblematicboy’stoy.Onceuponatimetherewasthegolfcart:alittletoycarspecificallydesigned
最新回复
(
0
)