段落练习
It is more important to allocate money for immediate, existing social problems than to spend
it on long-term research that might help future generations.
Immediate and long-lasting social problems that baffled us deeply should have been resolved as quickly as possible due to a seemingly closer relation with people. Seemingly, investment in such problems are likely to raise the income of people and even improve the quality of lives. However, never can numerous present problems, such as social caste system, the gap between the wealthy and the poor and conundrum brought by urbanization be addressed immediately as we hoped; it is because such problems are deeply entrenched in some social policies which probably have stood for a long time. Subsidizing such conundrum may be a kind of measure to alleviate them instead of eradicating them. In other words, overemphasis on existing social problems could result in incomplete resolution to these social problems, which could barely be an expedience rather than an excellent solution.
Urbanisation：Some are more equal than others
China’s need for a new urbanisation policy reaches a critical point
达到临界点 reach a critical point
01 FOR many migrants who do not live in factory dormitories, life in the big city looks like the neighbourhood of Shangsha East Village: a maze of alleys framed by illegally constructed apartment buildings in the boomtown of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong. There are at least 200 buildings, many of them ten storeys tall (see picture). They are separated by only a metre or so, hence the name “handshake buildings”—residents of neighbouring blocks can reach out from their windows and high-five.
违章建筑 illegally constructed apartment buildings
迷宫似的道路 a maze of alleys
十层高 ten storeys tall
02The buildings are China’s favelas: built illegally on collectively owned rural land. Rents are cheap. An eight-square-metre (86-square-foot) flat costs less than $100 a month. They symbolise both the success of the government’s urbanisation policy and also its chronic failures. China has managed a more orderly system of urbanisation than many developing nations. But it has done so on the cheap. Hundreds of millions of migrants flock to build China’s cities and manufacture the country’s exports. But the cities have done little to reward or welcome them, investing instead in public services and infrastructure for their native residents only. Rural migrants living in the handshake buildings are still second-class citizens, most of whom have no access to urban health care or to the city’s high schools. Their homes could be demolished at any time.
平民窟/城中村 China’s favelas (built illegally on collectively owned rural land)
标志……的成功 symbolize the success of
一直存在的/长期的失败 chronic failures
形成一个有秩序的体系 manage a more orderly system of
涌入城市 flock to build China’s cities
回报或者欢迎某人 reward or welcome them
本地居民 native residents
公共服务和设施 public services and infrastructure
没有机会 have no access to
与……无关 have done little to
03China’s new leaders now say this must change. But it is unclear whether they have the resolve to force through reforms, most of which are costly or opposed by powerful interests, or both. Li Keqiang, the new prime minister, is to host a national conference this year on urbanisation. The agenda may reveal how reformist he really is.
有决心做某事 have the resolve to do sth.
举行全国会议 host a national conference
04He will have no shortage of suggestions. An unusually public debate has unfolded in think-tanks, on microblogs and in state media about how China should improve the way it handles urbanisation. Some propose that migrants in cities should, as quickly as possible, be given the same rights to services as urban dwellers. Others insist that would-be migrants should first be given the right to sell their rural plot of land to give them a deposit for their new urban life. Still others say the government must allow more private and foreign competition in state-controlled sectors of the economy such as health care, which would expand urban services for all, including migrants. Most agree the central government must bear much more of the cost of public services and give more power to local governments to levy taxes.
并不缺 have no shortage of sth.
……已经展现 an unusually public debate has unfolded on microblogs and in state media about sth.
征税 levy taxes
城市定居者 urban dwellers
一块地 a plot of land
城市服务覆盖到包括外来人口的所有人 expand urban services for all, including migrants
承担……成本 bear much more of the cost of
05Any combination of these options would be likely to raise the income of migrants, help them to integrate into city life and narrow the gap between the wealthy and the poor, which in China is among the widest in the world. Such reforms would also spur on a slowing economy by boosting domestic consumption.
提高收入水平 raise the income of
融入城市生活 integrate into city life
缩小贫富差距 narrow the gap between the wealthy and the poor
扩大内需 boost domestic consumption
激活放缓的经济 spur on a slowing economy
06Officials know, too, that the longer reforms are delayed the greater the chances of social unrest. “It is already a little too late,” Chen Xiwen, a senior rural policy official, said last year of providing urban services to migrants. “If we don’t deal with it now, the conflict will grow so great that we won’t be able to proceed.”
社会动乱 social unrest
07Yet Mr Li, the prime minister, would do well to dampen expectations. The problems of migrants and of income inequality are deeply entrenched in two pillars of discriminatory social policy that have stood since the 1950s and must be dealt with before real change can come: the household registration system, or hukou, and the collective ownership of rural land.
削减期待 dampen expectations
根植于 be deeply entrenched in
户口制度 the household registration system
Who will pay?
08The hukou perpetuates a rigid caste system. Children of holders of rural hukou inherit their parents’ second-class status, even if they are born in cities. Many urbanites want to keep this system in place, to protect their preferential access to jobs, education and health care.
社会等级制度 a rigid caste system
继承父母的地位 inherit parents’ status
09City governments, meanwhile, cannot afford to extend public services to migrants. Zheng Zhijie, president of state-owned China Development Bank, estimated in May that cities would require 50 trillion yuan ($8.2 trillion) in investment by 2020 to accommodate 100m new migrants and provide increased benefits to those already there. Shanghai’s schools give a sense of the scale of the problem: the city had 170,000 students enrolled in high school in 2010, all holders of Shanghai hukou; more than three times that many children—570,000 migrant children aged 15 to 19—were living in the city in 2010 without Shanghai hukou, most of them unable to attend those schools.
10The collective control of rural land by local officials also impedes social mobility, by allowing local governments and developers to dispossess farmers of the land they lease—and to pay them far below market value for it. Yu Jianrong, a researcher on rural China, calculated in 2010 that the government had expropriated 6.7m hectares (16.5m acres) of rural land over a 20-year period, paying farmers 2 trillion yuan ($326 billion) less than market value.
阻碍社会的流动性 impede social mobility
11At the same time, housing prices in cities are increasingly out of reach for migrants. The central government has encouraged the construction of low-cost housing in cities with limited success, since only local hukou holders are eligible.
低成本住房 low-cost housing
12The discriminatory policies continue to take their toll on migrants. China has 163m migrant workers who have left their home township (another 99m people are classified as migrants even though they have only given up farming without moving away). A higher proportion of those were co-renting apartments with others in 2012 than four years earlier (19.7%, up from 16.7%), according to data released this week by the National Bureau of Statistics. And fewer migrants are becoming homeowners—0.6% in 2012, down from 0.9% in 2008.
对……造成重大伤害 take toll on
合租房 co-renting apartments
13Some scholars say a solution lies in the handshake buildings of Shenzhen. Tao Ran of Renmin University in Beijing says the government should legalise such buildings around the country—allowing rural dwellers near cities to develop them and rent out flats to migrants—and then levy taxes and fees to pay for expanding services. It sounds like a reasonable proposal that would increase the supply of affordable housing and help more migrants become proper urban residents.
14But local governments will have none of it, Mr Tao says, as they will fight to retain control over land, their chief source of revenue. Other vested interests, he says, will fight, too. The road to equality for China’s migrants will continue to be a hard one.
写作积累
达到临界点 reach a critical point
违章建筑 illegally constructed apartment buildings
迷宫似的道路 a maze of alleys
十层高 ten storeys tall
平民窟/城中村 China’s favelas (built illegally on collectively owned rural land)
标志……的成功 symbolize the success of
一直存在的/长期的失败 chronic failures
形成一个有秩序的体系 manage a more orderly system of
涌入城市 flock to build China’s cities
回报或者欢迎某人 reward or welcome them
本地居民 native residents
公共服务和设施 public services and infrastructure
没有机会 have no access to
与……无关 have done little to
有决心做某事 have the resolve to do sth.
并不缺 have no shortage of sth.
……已经展现 an unusually public debate has unfolded on microblogs and in state media about sth.
征税 levy taxes
城市定居者 urban dwellers
一块地 a plot of land
城市服务覆盖到包括外来人口的所有人 expand urban services for all, including migrants
提高收入水平 raise the income of
融入城市生活 integrate into city life
缩小贫富差距 narrow the gap between the wealthy and the poor
扩大内需 boost domestic consumption
激活放缓的经济 spur on a slowing economy
社会动乱 social unrest
削减期待 dampen expectations
根植于 be deeply entrenched in
户口制度 the household registration system
社会等级制度 a rigid caste system
阻碍社会的流动性 impede social mobility
低成本住房 low-cost housing
对……造成重大伤害 take toll on
合租房 co-renting apartments
文章结构
1-2 段 通过中国繁华城市中的城中村现象引出中国城市化现存的问题：外来人口无法和城市人口享受同样的待遇。
3-7段 中国政府已经意识到这个问题，并且针对这个问题，很多人发表了自己的看法。
但是这个问题仍然难以解决。
8-14 解释说明有哪些问题使得这个问题如此棘手。
句子积累
1 尚不清楚他们是否有决心推进改革，毕竟大多数改革或代价高昂，或受到强大利益集团的反对，或同时面临这两大难题。
it is unclear whether they have the resolve to force through reforms, most of which are costly or opposed by powerful interests, or both.
描述改革的难点
2 住在“握手楼”里的农民工依然是二等公民：他们中的绝大多数无法加入城镇的医疗体系，其子女也无法接受城市的高中教育；他们的住所也面临着随时被拆的危险。
Rural migrants living in the handshake buildings are still second-class citizens, most of whom have no access to urban health care or to the city’s high schools. Their homes could be demolished at any time.
描述外来人口的处境
