美英报刊阅读教程Lesson 6 课文

Lesson 6 The Roof That Costs Too Much

A problem for poorer Americans that most voters prefer to ignore

1. Motherhood and apple pie are still fine, but the thing many Americans relish most these days is owning their own home. Two in three homes are owned by their occupants, and the lowest mortgage rates in three decades keep the numbers rising. But this does not suit everybody.

2. There have long been cities, such as San Francisco and Boston, which lure in so many members of the ever-growing middle class that poorer people get priced out of the housing market.[2] Now the problem is national. According to a report by Harvard University, house prices have been jumping ahead of incomes[3] in most of America’s big cities. Eight of the 50 biggest metropolitan areas have seen prices rise by nearly a third in real terms[4] since 1997. The national rate for mortgage foreclosures is at a 30-year high, with Indiana, Ohio, Mississippi and Utah to the fore.[5]

3. The Department of Housing and Urban Development[6] (HUD) defines “affordable housing” as a home which costs less than 30% of a family’ s income, in either rent or a monthly mortgage. When households pay more than 30% they tend to skimp on other necessities, such as health care. Janet Smith, a professor of urban planning at the University of Illinois, reckons that 38% of all the renters in the Chicago area—more than 180,000 households are in this squeeze[7]. So are nearly a quarter of the area’s home -owners. These are not just the familiar poor. A lot of teachers and nurses are struggling.

4. Some people blame the housing burden hi part for other social ills[8]—everything from children doing badly at school to traffic-jammed roads. Unless the housing problem is addressed, claims Julia Stasch at the MacArthur Foundation, America will waste money on other social programmes.

5. No doubt the housing boom is unsustainable, and prices will eventually adjust themselves to incomes.[9] But that will take time. So affordable housing has become a political issue. Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston has championed it at the Conference of Mayors, which he currently heads (but his solution is apparently to bring back rent controls, which in the end is no solution). California’ s voters have just approved a $2.1 billion bond issue to su bsidise the provision of cheaper homes.

6. Such schemes usually involve cities requisitioning land—often run-down areas where factories or public-housing developments once stood—and handing it over to housing associations or public trusts which, because they get the land cheap, can build homes and rent them out at below-market rates.[10] The trouble is that demand generally swamps supply[11]: in cities like Washington, DC, there have been complaints of Soviet-length waiting lists[12]. The obvious way to mop up some of the demand—more high-rise, high-density apartment blocks[13]—is opposed by people who own houses nearby; many neighborhoods have zoning laws[14] to prevent this.

7. Another problem is that few countries offer such generous tax breaks[15] to home-owners as America does. The Chicago area’ s population has increased by 11% since 1990, according to Ms Smith; but the number of rented homes has dropped by 3%. Jim Houlihan, the Cook County assessor, successfully pushed for lower taxes on rented property. Unfortunately, most of the city’ s new jobs are in its northern suburbs, which are protected by zoning laws; most of its cheaper

housing is in the south. If people live a long way from their work, business suffers, the transport system creaks, and the environment (think of those car fumes) takes a beating.[16]

8. An organization called Metropolis 2020 estimates that the Chicago area will need another 352,000 homes by 2020. But many neighborhoods are suspicious of anything labelled “affordable housing”, o ften assuming that it means public housing (which they rightly or wrongly [17] associate with racial minorities, drugs, gangs and violence). It is true that cheap housing projects do tend to be built in poorer areas. One of the biggest in the country is a $1.6 billion scheme in Chicago: the city is knocking down some of its nastiest public-housing projects, including the notorious Cabrini Green. But the 25,000 new units it is building in their place are divided between public housing, subsidized homes and market-rate ones[18].

9. Some people argue that the federal government should step in—by creating a National Housing Trust Fund[19] to help build cheaper homes; by altering the tax system; by making the Federal Housing Association[20] more efficient. But HUD’ s boss, Mel Martinez, has told the mayors that “the solution will not come out of Washington”. He wants the private sector and non -profit organizations to take the lead.

10. In the end, it may be true that the only answer is to allow the building, or renovation, of a lot more cheap housing. But many middle-class voters do not want that in their communities. “Mosl Americans don’t think there’s a housing problem,” says Nicolas Retsinas of Harvard. Mosl homeowners are still happy with rising prices. Affluent baby-boomers[21] will probably ignore the problem until their children decide that it is cheaper to stay with mum and dad than pay a fortune foi their own homes. And by then the property market will doubtless have crashed.[22] From The Economist, December 7,2002

1. roof: ⊙ three generations living under one roof. 住在一个屋顶下的三代人the roof of a car. 车顶A roof on prices is needed to keep our customers happy. 最好使最高物价能让我们的顾客满意the roof of the world 世界屋脊; 高的山脉 the roof of heaven 天空 the roof of the mouth 上颚under sb.'s roof 住在某人家作客; 寄人篱下; 在某人的照应下When I told her about breaking the window, she went through the roof. 她听我说有关砸碎窗户的事时大发雷霆Angry tenants finally raised the roof about their noisy neighbors. 愤怒的房客终于对吵闹喧哗的邻居提出强烈抗议

2. motherhood: n. 母性, 为母之道, 母亲身份, 母亲们(集合

称), 母爱

3. relish: n. An appetite for something; a strong appreciation or liking: 胃口：对某事物的食欲，强烈的欣赏或者喜欢：独特的滋味 ⊙ a relish for luxury. 对奢侈品的爱好, have no relish for tragedy 不喜欢看悲剧 eat

[read]with relish 津津有味地吃[读] lose [lack] relish 失去[没有]吸引力 Hunger gives relish to any food. 肚子饿时吃什么都香。vt. To enjoy the flavor of. 品尝：品尝…的味，喜欢⊙ relish gossip 喜欢闲谈 relish one's

food 津津有味地吃东西 She won't relish having to get up before dawn to catch that train. 她不喜欢黎明前起床赶那班火车。

4. mortgage: n. A temporary, conditional pledge of property to a creditor as security for performance of an obligation or repayment of a debt. 抵押：给予债权人临时的、有条件的财产抵押，以此作为履行责任或偿还债务的保证 ⊙ repay one's mortgage in monthly installments 每月分期付款偿还抵押借款

5. skimp: vt. To deal with hastily, carelessly, or with poor material: 敷衍：匆忙地、马马虎虎地或用不好的材料处理：⊙ concentrated on reelection, skimping other matters. 集中精力在改选上，其他的事敷衍了事Don't skimp the butter in making a cake. 做糕点时不要吝惜放奶油。vi. To be stingy or very thrifty. ⊙ 吝啬或非常节俭She had to skimp to send her son to college. 她必须节俭来供她儿子上大学。

6. address: vt. a. To deal with: 处理：⊙ addressed the issue of absenteeism. 处理旷工事宜b. To direct the efforts or attention of

(oneself): 忙于，专注于，投入：集中（某人的）精力或注意力：⊙ address oneself to a task. 投入一项工作He addressed himself to the task of doing his homework. 他专心致志地做他的家庭作业。

7. champion: vt. To fight for, defend, or support as a champion: 作为积极的拥护者而斗争、捍卫或支持：⊙ championed the cause of civil rights. 为民权事业而斗争

8. requisition: n. a. A formal written request for something needed. 正式请求：对某需求物的正式的书面要求 b. The state or condition of being needed or put into service. 征用：被需要或服役的状态或情况 ⊙ material requisition 领料单 requisition for money 拨款要求, 请款单

9. swamp: n. A seasonally flooded bottomland with more woody plants than a marsh and better drainage than a bog. 沼泽地：随季节淹没的低地，带有比湿地多的木质植物，比泥塘的排水要好⊙ a corporate swamp; a financial swamp. 共同的困境；财政困境 vt. To inundate or burden; overwhelm: 使应接不暇：使充满或使负重；压倒：⊙ She was swamped with work. 她忙得不可开交be swamped by heavy debts 债台高筑 The horse was swamped in the mud. 马陷入泥潭。A big wave swamped the boat. 一个大浪淹没了小船。

10. mop: n. 拖把(俗称地拖), 洗碗 vt. To wash or wipe with or as if with a mop: 用或好象用拖把反复清洗或擦拭：⊙ mopped the hallway; mopping the spilled water; mopped her forehead with a towel. 拖走廊；擦去溢出的水；用毛巾擦拭她的前额 vi. To use a mop to wash or dry surfaces: 用拖把清洗或擦干表面：⊙ mopped along the baseboards. 沿着底板清洗

11. zoning law: 区域法

12. assessor: a. An official who evaluates property for taxation. 估价员：为征税对财产估价的官员 b. An assistant to a judge or magistrate, usually selected for special knowledge in a particular area. 辅佐人，助理法官：法官或行政官的助理，在一特定领域为特殊常识而选出

13. take a beating: (人) 挨打; (物) 被敲打, 受到打击, 遭到失败

14. metropolis: [mI5trRpElIs n. 首都, 主要都市, 都会, 大城市 ⊙

Chicago, the metropolis of the Midwest. 芝加哥，中西部的大都会a great cultural metropolis. 一个大的文化中心

15. affluent: [5AfluEnt]adj. n. 富裕的（人）⊙ the affluent society 富裕人的社会 land affluent in natural resources 自然资源丰富的土地 an affluent fountain 滔滔不断的泉水the so-called emerging affluents 所谓的暴发户

16. synecdoche: [si5nekdEki]n. A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole (ashand for sailor ), the whole for a part (as the law for police officer ), the specific for the general (as cutthroat for assassin ), the general for the specific (as thief for pickpocket ), or the material for the thing from which it is made (as steel for sword ).举隅法，提喻法：一种修辞方法，以局部代表整体（如用手 代表 水手），以整体代表局部（如用 法律 代表 警官 ），以特殊代表一般（如用直柄剃刀 代表 杀人者 ），以一般代表特殊（如用 贼 代表 扒手），或用原材料代表用该材料制造的东西（如用 钢 代表 剑 ）

17. subprime: Credit with higher risk characteristics, such as bankruptcy or collection accounts, or loans to borrowers with a less-than-perfect credit history