1.09
hree decades of sustained economic growth,concentrated along the booming coast,has lured
millions from the impoverished Chinese countryside.This great migration —unprecedented in human his -tory —has put 46Chinese cities over the one million mark since 1992,out of a national total of 102.
And this is just the start.Currently only about 40%of China ’s population lives in cities,roughly that of America in 1885.It is estimated that another 350million Chinese will become urban by 2025,raising China ’s urban numbers to a cool 1billion.
Accommodating all these people has meant building on a scale the world has never seen before.In the first 20years of China ’s economic revolution,begun under Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s,China built some 6.5bn sq m of new housing —the equivalent of more than 150million average -sized apartments.
In Shanghai there were no skyscrapers in 1980;today it has twice as many as New York.Between 1990and 2004developers erected 85m sq m of com -mercial space in the city —equivalent to 334Em -pire State buildings.
Nationwide,China ’s construction industry em -ploys a workforce of about 37million.Nearly half the world ’s steel and cement is devoured 2there,and much of the world ’s heavy construction equipment
国经济30年的持续增长主要集中于迅速发展的沿海地
区，吸引了农村数百万贫困人口。自
1992年以来，人类历史上这一史无
前例的大移民使46个城市人口逾百万大关，使全国百万人口以上城市达102个。
可这只是开始。现在仅约40%的中国人居住在城市，大体相当于美国1885年的比例。据估计，2025年前还会有3.5亿中国人成为城市居民，中国城市人口将达10亿整。
接纳这么多人意味着要以世界上前所未见的规模来建房。在邓小平领导下，中国经济改革始于20世纪70年代末，在改革之初的20年中国建了约65亿平方米新住房，相当于1.5亿套普通面积住房。
在1980年，上海没有摩天大楼，但今天却是纽约的两倍。1990年至2004年，开发商在该市建了8500万平方米商用房，相当于334座帝国大厦。
中国建筑业在全国雇佣约3700万劳动力，消费了几乎全世界一半的钢材和水泥，世界上很多重型建
Megacities:China ’s
Urban Challenge
大都市：中国的城市挑战
By Thomas J Campanella
云南大学
区
林/译注
T
中
Notes:1.cool 【俚】整整的，满的。
2.devour [di ＇vau 藜]消耗，浪费
。
11.09
3.ubiquitous [j u 蘼＇bikwit 藜s]
到处存在的，普遍存在的。
4.head -long 鲁莽的，迅猛的。
5.node 节点，交汇点，这里指中心点。
6.absurdly 荒谬地，愚蠢地。
7.sanitize [＇s 覸nitaiz]净化，消毒。
8.reconstitution 修复，复原。cerate [＇l 覸s 藜reit]割裂。10.pancake 烤饼。
11.本句主语是homes,谓语是are ，
detached 分开的，分离的。
has relocated there.Tower cranes,for example,have be -come the ubiquitous 3symbol of urban China.
But China ’s urban revolution has also destroyed as much as it has built.In its head -long 4rush to be rich and modern,China has deprived itself —and the world
—of a priceless heritage.
Beijing,once among the world ’s great urban trea -sures,is fast becoming just another node 5of globalised consumerism;full of absurdly 6sanitized 7reconstitutions 8of its lost past,lacerated 9by eight -lane highways.
Urban development in China has also displaced more people than any nation in peacetime.In Shanghai alone,redevelopment projects in the 1990s displaced more residents than did 30years of urban renewal in the United States.
Because China ’s cities are growing outward as well as upward,urbanization has also consumed a stag -gering amount of rural countryside.Between 1985and 1995,Shanghai ’s footprint grew from 90sq miles to 790.The
“spreading pancake 10”of urban growth in
China —“tan da bing ”,the popular Chinese expression for sprawl —has devoured some 45,000sq miles of productive farmland over the last 30years,nearly half the land area of the United Kingdom.
Chinese suburban development is much more con -centrated than that in the rge detached homes owned by single -families —the American standard —are relatively rare.11The basic unit of Chinese suburbia
—with its mid -rise apartment towers,community centre
筑设备部署在这里，吊塔成为中国城市无处不在的风景。
但中国城市革命破坏的东西同其修建的不相上下。在不顾一切奔向富裕和现代化的过程中，中国剥夺了自己、也剥夺了世界极其珍贵的遗产。
北京曾是世界城市瑰宝，现迅速成为全球消费至上的另一中心，荒谬地到处净化、修复早不存在的古迹，被八车道的大路撕得支离破碎。
和平时期中国城市开发迁移的人口超过任何国家。仅上海上世纪90年代重建项目迁移人口就超过美国30年来城市重建所为。
中国城市向空中发展，还向外扩展，城市化所占用农村面积惊人。从1985年到1995年，上海面积从90平方英里扩张至790平方英里。过去30年，中国城市“摊大饼”式的扩张吞噬了4.5万平方英里的可耕地，几乎是英国陆地面积的一半。
与美国相比，中国城市开发密度大得多，美国标准的每家独立大宅相对较少。中国城郊的基本民宅单元有中高层塔楼公寓、社区中心和公共空间，介于毛泽
笤神州之窗笤
