However urban life strikes you, cities worldwide have been growing ever more rapidly. Some of this growth has occurred in the developed world, but the most dramatic increase has been in the Third World. Almost all the world’s population growth over the next 30 years will take place in the cities of developing countries
By the year 2030, for the first time in history, 60 percent of the world’s people will be living in cities.
This is actually good news in some ways. “Cities are the fundamental building blocks of prosperity,” says Marc Weiss, chairman of the Prague Institute for Global Urban Development, “ both for the nation and for families.” Industrial and commercial activities in urban areas account for between 50 and 80 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in most countries of the world“ there’s the crazy notion that the way to deal with a city’s problems is to keep people out of them,”Weiss continued. “But the problems of the rural life are even more serious than those of the city.” For better or worse, urban-watchers are clear on one point: The quality of life for most people in the future will be determined by the quality of cities. Those cities will be bigger than ever. And yet, population numbers by themselves don’t determine a city’s prospects; after all, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Hamburg, Germany, have the same population. Nor is explosive growth necessarily the determining factor. “City problems,” one authority points out, “mostly have to do with weak, ineffective, and usually unrepresentative city governments.”
小题1:The passage mainly discusses ______________.
A．Big cities.
B．City life.
C．Population.
D．Gross Domestic Product.小题2:According to the passage, in the year of 2030 _______.
A．there will be 21 cities having a population of more than 10 million.
B．rural area will be extinct.
C．most people will live in cities.
D．the third world will keep abreast with the developed world.小题3:In the author’s opinion, _________.
A．better city, better life
B．both urban and rural areas have a larger population
C．the larger population, the faster a city develops
D．both urban and rural areas have larger gross domestic products小题4:Which statement is NOT true according to the passage?
A．The developing countries develop faster than the developed countries.
B．Cities contribute more to the GDP than the villagers.
C．Some problems are more easily solved in cities than in country.
D．It’s impossible to solve urban problems by getting people out of cities.小题5:The last paragraph implies that ____________.
A．Public services are ineffective.
B．Cities are increasing too fast.
C．Population is not linked with development.
D．Government should be responsible for the problems in the cities.
