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  3. In the past, most cities usually were the natural outgrowth of villages and towns that happened to prosper. Rome started out as

In the past, most cities usually were the natural outgrowth of villages and towns that happened to prosper. Rome started out as

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问题
    In the past, most cities usually were the natural outgrowth of villages and towns that happened to prosper. Rome started out as a small village, as did Athens, Paris, London and New York. Of course, there were exceptions to this general rule. In ancient times, Alexandria in E-gypt, and Saint Petersburg, were both planned cities. But for the most part, cities throughout history were not the products of deliberate thought.
    Today the reverse is true. Many nations, alarmed by the urban sprawl that has been gobbling up farmland and open countryside, and appalled by the staggering urban problems in the central cities, have begun building new cities that are specifically designed to meet modern needs.
    Britain has long been a pioneer in planning new cities. As the first nation to become industrialized and urbanized, it faced traffic, slums and pollution long before anyone else. In 1898 an Englishman , Sir Ebenezer Howard, published a book called To-morrow: a Peaceful Path to Real Reform, in which he advocated a new form of urban growth and organization: the "garden city". Such a city combined the beauty of nature—trees, grass, sunshine and fresh air—with all the advantages of city living, including an abundance of jobs, social and cultural centres and good shopping facilities. The garden city was to be fairly small in size and the inhabitants would have easy access to the countryside, while at the same time they would be close to their work.
    In 1899 Howard organized the Garden City Association and in 1903 and 1920 he built the first and the second garden city, Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City. These projects encountered many difficulties and failed to arouse widespread enthusiasm. Nevertheless, both Welwyn and Letchworth survived and grew, and in later years—particularly after World War II—British planners looked at them with renewed interest.
    The war had given the British a painful lesson in the weakness of modern, heavily populated cities. Cities were not the places of refuge they had once been. On the contrary, the invention of the aeroplane had made them the most vulnerable targets for attack. Aerial warfare made it clear that people were far safer outside the great urban centres. It was better not to concentrate so much of the population and industrial resources in a few large cities, but to spread them out into many smaller towns and cities. Fast, modern transportation methods made such dispersal possible. Furthermore , these new towns—modeled on Howard’s garden cities—could also drain off the surplus population of the large cities, relieving the overcrowded conditions, housing shortages, slums and traffic jams that plagued them.
It can be inferred that the author believes the construction of big cities is a mistake.
选项 A、TRUE
B、FALSE
答案A
解析 (在最后一段中，作者介绍了大城市所带来的一些困扰，而且还提倡建设以霍华德的花园城市为原型的新型城镇。)
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