2016年考研英語(yǔ)閱讀材料:Urban land
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 skyward is a collision between rampant demand and limited supply in the great metropolises like London, Mumbai and New York. In the past ten years real prices in Hong Kong have risen by 150%. Residential property in Mayfair, in central London, can go for as much as 55,000 (82,000) per square metre. A square mile of Manhattan residential property costs 16.5 billion.
Even in these great cities the scarcity is artificial. Regulatory limits on the height and density of buildings constrain supply and inflate prices. A recent analysis by academics at the London School of Economics estimates that land-use regulations in the West End of London inflate the price of office space by about 800%; in Milan and Paris the rules push up prices by around 300%. Most of the enormous value captured by landowners exists because it is well-nigh impossible to build new offices to compete those profits away.
The costs of this misfiring 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. Tot 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.
參考譯文:
馬克吐溫曾建議說(shuō)“都去買地吧”，但現(xiàn)在他們已經(jīng)不這么做了。事實(shí)上，土地并非真的如此稀缺：僅一個(gè)德克薩斯州就能容納整個(gè)美國(guó)人口，而且每戶能有一英畝之多。在倫敦、孟買、紐約這種大都市里，地價(jià)飛漲的現(xiàn)實(shí)是瘋狂的需求和有限的供給共同作用的結(jié)果。在過(guò)去10年里，香港的房地產(chǎn)價(jià)格上漲了150%。倫敦中心的梅菲爾區(qū)的住宅價(jià)格能飆至55000英鎊每平米(相當(dāng)于82000美元)。曼哈頓，一平方英里的的住宅價(jià)格為165億美元。
即便是在這樣的城市里，稀缺性也是人為造成的。從法律層面上對(duì)建筑的高度和密度進(jìn)行限制，降低了供給，也助推了房?jī)r(jià)。倫敦經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)院的一項(xiàng)最新學(xué)術(shù)分析表明，土地使用管理?xiàng)l例令倫敦西區(qū)辦公用房的價(jià)格上漲了800%，令米蘭和巴黎的上漲了約300%。巨額資產(chǎn)掌握在現(xiàn)有的土地所有者手中，因?yàn)樵谶@里建新辦公樓引入競(jìng)爭(zhēng)、分享收益，是幾乎不可能的事。
一潭死水的房地產(chǎn)市場(chǎng)所帶來(lái)的社會(huì)成本是巨大的，因?yàn)樗绊懥诉@里的每個(gè)人。高昂的房?jī)r(jià)迫使務(wù)工者搬到更便宜但生產(chǎn)力更低下的地方。根據(jù)一項(xiàng)研究結(jié)果顯示，如果不是因?yàn)閷?duì)建筑業(yè)的嚴(yán)格限制，舊金山灣區(qū)的就業(yè)應(yīng)該比現(xiàn)在多五倍;再加上損失的收入和未能實(shí)現(xiàn)的人的潛力，這個(gè)數(shù)字能把你嚇暈。如果能掃清美國(guó)境內(nèi)所有限制城市增長(zhǎng)的阻礙因素，那么國(guó)家GDP將會(huì)增加6.5%~13.5%，即10億~20億美元。這是任何其他政策都難以產(chǎn)生的巨大影響。
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