关于阅读文章“Urban Sprawl”的中文翻译

V3：关于urban sprawl那道题目，本贴里有篇google上查到的文章，就是我考到的那篇的扩展版大家看熟哦！

A View Of Urban Sprawl From Outer Space Recent urban development in Los Angeles is less
scattered than recent development in Boston. Miami is America's most compact big city and Pittsburgh is most
sprawling. Changing the number or size of municipal governments in a metro area
 has no impact on whether or not urban development is
scattered, but controlling
access to    groundwater does.
        【控制地下水has
impact on是否城市发展呈分散化】

从外空间来看城市的扩张。最近洛杉矶的城市发展并没有波士顿的分散。迈阿密是美国最密集的大城市，皮茨堡是经历城市扩张最快的城市。改变城市地区市政府的数目和规模对城市发展是否分散化并没有影响，相反，控制地下水会影响城市发展是否呈分散化。

    These are among the startling findings from a University of
Toronto-based team of researchers who used satellite data and aerial
photography to create a grid of 8.7 billion data cells tracking the evolution
of land use in the continental United States.

上述发现是多伦多大学一个科研组一些惊人的研究成果的一部分。这些研究人员利用卫星数据和空中摄影制造了一个含8.7亿数据方块的网格来跟踪美国大陆的土地演变历史。

    Matthew Turner and Diego Puga of the University of Toronto,
Marcy Burchfield of the Neptis Foundation, a Toronto-based organization focused
on urban and regional research, and Henry Overman of the London School of
Economics present their findings in the May issue of The Quarterly Journal of
Economics, in a paper entitled Causes of Sprawl: A Portrait（标本，模型） from Space. Heavily illustrated with Geographic Information System
images, the paper challenges conventional wisdom about urban sprawl and
presents a vivid and detailed picture of land consumption in America's cities.
        【新研究出现】

多伦多大学的Matthew Turner 和 Diego Puga，Neptis 基金会（坐落在多伦多一个搞城市和区域研究的组织）的Marcy Burchfield, 和伦敦经济学院的Henry Overman在经济杂志的五月份季刊上发表了一篇题为“城市扩张的起因：从太空的一个描述”。
        文章中例举了大量的地理信息系统的图像来挑战对市区范围扩展的传统认识，并提出了一个生动而详尽的美国土地消费的画面。

                Though urban sprawl is widely
regarded as an important environmental and social problem, according to the
authors, much of the debate over sprawl is based on speculation. The data to
conduct detailed and systematic measurement of how and where land is converted
to urban use has, until now, simply not been available. Despite widespread
interest in the topic, "we know next to nothing （差不多没有）about the extent to which development is scattered or compact, and
how this varies across space," they write. 【新研究的局限：based
on speculation】

虽然市区范围的扩展是被广泛视为是一个重要的环境问题和社会问题，根据文章作者，大部分的争论扩张，是基于投机活动。目前为止，用来进行详细和系统的测量如何及在何处土地转为城市使用的数据根本没有。尽管人们对这个课题有着广泛兴趣，
        文章的作者写道，"我们差不多不知道在何种程度上发展是分散或密集，已及他们是如何在空间上变化的 "。

                The authors merged high-altitude
photos from 1976 with satellite images from 1992 (the most recent available) to
create a grid of 8.7 billion 30-metre by 30-metre cells that tracks land use
changes nationwide. "The data set we've constructed is unprecedented（空前的） in that we have coverage of the whole continental United States
with a very high degree of accuracy for two time periods. That's never been
done before," says Turner.【新研究的优势：覆盖面广，精确性accuracy】

文章作者通过合并来自1976年的卫星图象和最新的1992年高海拔照片，建立了一个由87.0亿小方块（30米长和30米宽）组成的网格来追踪全国范围的土地利用变化。特纳说，"我们已经兴建起来的数据集我们是空前的。它以非常高的精确度覆盖了为两个时段的整个美国大陆。这是以前从未有过的 "。

                The new high-resolution data allow
the authors to observe the amount of open space in the neighborhood of every
house in every U.S. city. Since development is more scattered when there is more open
space around a house, the authors measured urban sprawl by calculating the
average amount of open space in the neighborhood of a house in each city.【measure
urban sprawl 的具体方法】

新的高分辨率数据让作者能够观察到在美国城市中每家附近空地的数量。当在一所房子周围有更开放的空间，由于发展较为分散，作者通过计算在每一个城市中一所房子周围空地的平均数额来测量市区范围的扩展。

    They found that more recent residential development is not
any more（不再） scattered than development was in
1976. Forty two per cent of land in the square kilometre surrounding the
average residential development in 1976 was open space, compared with 43 per
cent in 1992. "While a substantial amount of scattered residential
development was built between 1976 and 1992, overall residential development
did not become any more biased toward such sprawling areas."【结论一：scatter现象不再明显了】

他们发现，最近的住宅发展不再比1976分散。
        在1976年，平均住宅发展周围的42%土地是休憩用地；在1992年是43% 。
        尽管大量的分散住宅发展是建立在1976年和1992年之间，整体住宅发展没有成为任何更偏向这些扩展地区。

    The authors are quick to point out that any one household
would have seen much change in the study period, but that "if we zoom out
and look at the city from a distance, we see little change, at least in terms
of the proportions of sprawling and compact development: the new city is just
like an enlarged version of the old city."【结论二：虽然household
的变化大，但实际city的sprawling并不明显。】

作者们很快指出，在研究进行期间，任何一个家庭都会看到很大的变化，但"如果我们缩小观察的空间，从一个遥远的距离来看待城市，那么我们看不到有什么改变，至少根据扩张和紧凑发展的比例：新城区就像是一个放大版的老城区。 "

    Overall, Boston is less scattered than Atlanta, however recent
development in Boston has been less compact than recent development in Atlanta. Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles were the most compact major cities, while Pittsburgh and Atlanta were the most
scattered.

整体而言，波士顿是并没有比亚特兰大分散，但波士顿最近的发展比亚特兰大不密集。迈阿密，旧金山和洛杉矶分别为最密集的主要城市，而美国匹兹堡和亚特兰大是最分散的。

    The authors also investigated why some cities are more
sprawling than others. They found that a city's climate, topography and access
to groundwater account for 25 per cent of the nationwide variation. When the
climate is temperate, people spread out to have more space to enjoy the
weather.【研究城市之间sprawling的不同：1，适度气候导致人们spread
out】

作者还调查了为什么一些城市比其他城市更容易扩展。他们发现，一个城市的气候，地形和地下水的利用占全国范围内变化的25 ％。当气候是温带，人们倾向分散开来有更多的空间来享受天气。

                Hilly places see more scattered
development as people avoid the costs of building on hillsides — but mountains act as a barrier
and lead to more compact development. Places with easy access to
groundwater see more scattered development, since people can supply remote
houses with water by drilling inexpensive wells rather than paying for water
lines. 【研究城市之间sprawling的不同：2，avoid
cost of building on hill】

加亮部分有题：估计是推理题，问mountain对scatter现象的作用有什么不同.这里把握住作者态度即可：hillside会导致scatter，mountain却反而more
compact. (因为山脉上没法建房子，人们只好集中在较为平坦的地方了，想想四川盆地。。而城市有hillside的就会往周边扩展，山上的房子造价太高～想想香港浅水湾山上豪宅那个贵，所以只能填海了。。)

            

            

丘陵地方容易看到更多的分散发展是因为人们想避免在山坡地的建设成本。但山脉作为屏障，也导致更密集的发展。比价靠近地下水源的地方通常看到更多的分散的发展，因为人们可以通过便宜的钻井来供应水到偏远的住房，因此就不需要水费。

    "The presence of aquifers（蓄水层） is particularly important," says Turner, "and that seems
to me to have policy implications. It looks as if controlling access to groundwater is an important
way to control whether development spreads or not."【照应文章第一段观点：控制地下水源决定了城市扩张程度】

"含水层的存在尤其重要,” 特纳说道，“在我看来，这对政策也产生影响。控制地下水水源是一个重要的控制城市扩展与否的方法。 "

    Roads, on the other hand, have no impact on the extent to
which development is scattered, despite commonly held beliefs to the contrary.
"We looked at a lot of measures of road density — miles of road per area, average distance to a road,
distance to an interstate exit — and we could find no relation between those
measures and the scatteredness of development," Turner says.

但在另一方面，道路并没有对在何种程度上发展是分散的产生影响，尽管人们通常相信道路会产生影响。 "我们研究了很多措施，公路密度（每地区的英里数），到一条道路的平均距离，到一个州际公路出口的距离-我们没有能够找到关于这些措施和扩张发展关系，"特纳说。

    The number of municipalities
in a metropolitan area also does not affect development patterns. "You
hear about fragmentation of jurisdictions being an important determinant of
development patterns and we could find no evidence for that," says Turner.
However, the team also found that development near cities is less scattered if
it occurs in a municipality than if it occurs in an unincorporated area of a
county. This suggests that people may be moving out to just beyond municipal
boundaries in order to avoid more stringent municipal regulations.

在一个大都市地区的市政府数目也不影
        响发展的模式。 "你可能听说，司法管辖的分区是发展模式的一个重要决定性因素，但我们也找不到证据，"特纳说。不过，该研究小组还发现，如果比较一个直辖市地区和一个县的未并入地区，在靠近城市地区的发展更少的趋向分散。这意味着人们可以搬家到
        刚刚超出市政边界的地区以避免更严格的市政法规。

【猜想1】：这里可以考municipalities影响cities
to be not less scattered than unincorporated area的原因：avoid
more stringent regulations.

【猜想2】：上面几个黑色短语可以考except题。

    One of the common complaints about urban sprawl is that as
development spreads, municipal services such as roads, sewers, police and fire
protection are more expensive. The authors suggest that this concern is well
founded. Development in municipalities that receive larger subsidies from
higher levels of government is, on average, more scattered. Says Puga,
"This suggests that as local taxpayers are held accountable（=responsible） for
infrastructure costs, they respond by insisting on patterns of development that
require less infrastructure spending."

其中一个最常见的对市区范围扩展的投诉是：当发展蔓延，市政服务，如道路，下水道，警察和消防保护，将会更加昂贵。作者认为这种忧虑是有道理的。平均来说，在从高层次的政府那里获得较大的补贴的城市扩展更趋向分散。Puga说，
        这显示，当当地纳税人被追究在基础设施费用方面的责任时，他们的回应是坚持那些需要更少基础设施的发展模式。

    "People have been eager to rush to policy prescriptions
without a very good understanding of the underlying phenomena," says
Turner. "We wanted to try to put the policy discussion on sounder
footing."

"在对基本现象没有一个很好的了解的情况下，人们就急于想找到一个政策处方， " 特纳说。 "我们要设法把政策讨论基于一个更健全的基础上。 "

Great

wow，好认真，祝楼主的LP best luck!

嘿嘿，有没有说版权出处是俺那里啊……

祝福！

这篇文章好像在哪里见过??

好像是TOEFL的文章?