More and more of the world's population are living in towns or cities. The speed at which cities are growing in the less developed countries is alarming.
世界上越来越多的人口居住在城镇或城市。那些欠发达国家的城市发展速度是令人担忧的。
Between 1920 and 1960, big cities in developed countries increased two and a half times in size, but in other parts of the world the growth was eight times their size.
在1920年和1960年之间,大城市在发达国家中增加了2.5倍,但在世界有些城市却以8倍的速度扩张。
The sheer size of growth is bad enough, but there are now also very disturbing signs of trouble in the comparison of percentages of people living in towns and percentages of people working in industry. During the 19th century, cities grew as a result of the growth of industry.
纯粹的面积增长已经很糟了。然而目前有一个堪忧的问题,针对于居住在城镇人口百分比与从事工业的人口百分比的比较。在第十九世纪的时候,城市的增长源于工业增长。
In Europe, the proportion of people living in cities was always smaller than that of the workforce working in factories.
在欧洲,居住在城市的人口比例总是小于在工厂工作的人口比例。
Now, however, the reverse is almost always true in the newly industrialized world: The percentage of people living in cities is much higher than the percentage working in industry.
然而,在新兴的工业化国家情况正好相反。生活在城市的人口比例远高于在工厂工作的比例。
Without a base of people working in industry, these cities cannot pay for their growth; there is not enough money to build adequate houses for the people that live there, let alone the new arrivals.
如果没有在工业上勤劳工作的人们,这些城市就不能发展,就没有充足的资金用来建筑人们的住房,更不用说外来的新居民了。
There has been little opportunity to build water supplies or other facilities. So the figures for the growth of towns and cities represent proportional growth of unemployment and underemployment, a growth in the number of hopeless and despairing parents and starving children.
这里能提供水资源或其他设施的能力已大大减少。因此,失业和就业不足的情况在城镇和城市迅速增长的不协调比例下大大增加,也增加了很多绝望的父母和挨饿的儿童。