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  3. Buy land, advised Mark Twain; they’re not making it any more. In fact, land is not really scarce: the entire population of Ameri

Buy land, advised Mark Twain; they’re not making it any more. In fact, land is not really scarce: the entire population of Ameri

admin2022-07-06  59
问题     Buy land, advised Mark Twain; they’re not making it any more. In fact, land is not really scarce: the entire population of America could fit into Texas with more than an acre for each household to enjoy. What drives prices sky-high is a collision between unrestrained demand and limited supply in the great metropolises like London, Mumbai and New York.
    Even in these great cities the scarcity is artificial. Regulatory limits on the height and density of buildings constrain supply and magnify prices. A recent analysis by academics at the London School of Economics estimates that land-use regulations in the West End of London raise the price of office space by about 800%. Most of the enormous value captured by landowners exists because it is almost impossible to build new offices to compete those profits away.
    The costs of this unwise property market are huge, mainly because of their effects on individuals. High housing prices force workers towards cheaper but less productive places. According to one study, employment in the Bay Area around San Francisco would be about five times larger than it is but for tight limits on construction. Add up these costs in lost earnings and unrealised human potential, and the figures become dizzying. Lifting all the barriers to urban growth in America could raise the country’s GDP by between 6.5% and 13.5%, or by about $1 trillion-2 trillion. It is difficult to think of many other policies that would yield anything like that.
    This fractured market is a good thing, actually, say many. The roads and rails criss-crossing big cities barely function under the pressure of growing populations. Lowering property prices hurts one of the few routes to wealth-accumulation still available to the middle classes. A cautious approach to development is the surest way to preserve public spaces and a city’s heritage: give economists their way, and they would quickly pave over Central Park.
    However well these arguments go down in local planning meetings, they perish on closer scrutiny. Home ownership is not especially egalitarian. Many households are priced out of more vibrant places. It is not accidental that the home-ownership rate in the metropolitan area of falling Detroit, at 71%, is well above the 55% in booming San Francisco. You do not need to build a forest of skyscrapers for a lot more people to make their home in big cities. San Francisco could squeeze in twice as many and remain half as dense as Manhattan.
It is suggested in Paragraph 3 that loosening tight limits on construction
选项 A、forces workers to move out of productive places.
B、enlarges the flexibility of the workforce market.
C、adds more loss in earnings and human potential.
D、promotes economic developments dramatically.
答案D
解析 题干中的tight limits on construction出现在第三段第三句末，该句为虚拟语气，指出“如果没有了对建筑(密度)的严格限制，旧金山海湾地区的就业人数会是现在五倍多”，就是说放宽限制可以促进就业。注意到下文提到Lifting all the barriers to urban growth“放宽城市发展的限制”与题干的loosening tight limits on construction是对应的，该句提到，这样会增加GDP，故D项说“大幅促进经济增长”正确。A项“迫使工人搬离效率低下的地方”与文意相反，放宽了限制就能增加住房供应，从而降低房价，工人就更容易在市区买房了。B项错在flexibility“灵活性”，原文说增加的是employment，即就业人数或规模，与劳动力市场的“灵活性”无关。C项利用第四句原词干扰，放宽限制实际上可以挽回这些损失，而非增加这些损失。
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