剑桥雅思17Test3Passage3阅读原文翻译 Building the skyline: The birth and growth of Manhattan’s skyscrapers
剑桥雅思17阅读第三套题目第三篇文章的主题为《建造天际线》一书的书评。作者按照书本的章节顺序介绍其内容，并进行相关评价。段与段之间联系不是很大，看起来有些散乱。下面是具体每一个自然段的翻译。
点击查看这篇雅思阅读中出现的常考词汇与对应的答案解析：
雅思阅读真题词汇 剑桥雅思17 Test 3 Passage 3 城市天际线
剑桥雅思17Test3Passage3阅读答案解析 Building the skyline: The birth and growth of Manhattan’s skyscrapers
剑桥雅思17 Test1 Passage1阅读原文翻译
老烤鸭原创翻译，请勿抄袭转载
第1段
In Building the Skyline, Jason Barr takes the reader through a detailed history of New York City. The book combines geology, history, economics, and a lot of data to explain why business clusters developed where they did and how the early decisions of workers and firms shaped the skyline we see today. Building the Skyline is organized into two distinct parts. The first is primarily historical and addresses New York’s settlement and growth from 1609 to 1900; the second deals primarily with the 20th century and is a compilation of chapters commenting on different aspects of New York’s urban development. The tone and organization of the book changes somewhat between the first and second parts, as the latter chapters incorporate aspects of Barr’s related research papers.
在《建造天际线》一书中，Jason Barr带领读者详细回顾了纽约城的历史。该书结合地质学、历史、经济学和大量的数据，解释为什么企业选择聚集在这里，以及工人和公司的早期决定如何塑造我们今天所看到的天际线。《建造天际线》分为两个截然不同的部分。第一部分主要关注历史，描绘纽约的定居点和其1609年到1900年之间的发展。第二部分将重点放在20世纪，几个章节点评了纽约城市发展的不同方面。全书格调与结构在第一部分和第二部分之间有些变化。后者囊括了Barr本人相关论文中的一些内容。
第2段
Barr begins chapter one by taking the reader on a ‘helicopter time-machine’ ride – giving a fascinating account of how the New York landscape in 1609 might have looked from the sky. He then moves on to a subterranean walking tour of the city, indicating the location of rock and water below the subsoil, before taking the reader back to the surface. His love of the city comes through as he describes various fun facts about the location of the New York residence of early 19th-century vice-president Aaron Burr as well as a number of legends about the city.
第一章中，Barr带领读者踏上一场“直升机时间机器”之旅，引人入胜地描绘了1609年从空中看到的纽约风景。他接下来又转向一场城市地下漫步，标示土壤之下的岩石和水源位置，然后才带读者返回地面。当他描述19世纪美国副总统Aaron Burr纽约住址的各种有趣事实，以及有关这座城市的一系列传奇时。他对这座城市的爱跃然纸上。
第3段
Chapters two and three take the reader up to the Civil War (1861–1865), with chapter two focusing on the early development of land and the implementation of a grid system in 1811. Chapter three focuses on land use before the Civil War. Both chapters are informative and well researched and set the stage for the economic analysis that comes later in the book. I would have liked Barr to expand upon his claim that existing tenements prevented skyscrapers in certain neighborhoods because ‘likely no skyscraper developer was interested in performing the necessary “slum clearance”’. Later in the book, Barr makes the claim that the depth of bedrock was not a limiting factor for developers, as foundation costs were a small fraction of the cost of development. At first glance, it is not obvious why slum clearance would be limiting, while more expensive foundations would not.
第二章和第三章带领读者来到内战期间（1861年到1865年）。其中第二章关注早期的土地发展以及1811年电网系统的实施。第三章重点描述内战之前的土地使用。两个章节信息充沛，研究详实，为本书后面的经济分析铺垫好背景。我其实希望Barr能扩展一下他下面的这个观点：当时存在的廉价公寓阻碍了摩天大楼在特定区域的发展，因为似乎没有摩天大楼开发商对清理平民窟感兴趣。后文中，Barr认为，地基的深度对于开发商来说并不是限制因素，因为地基花费在整个开发费用中只占很小一部分。乍一看，似乎不是很清楚，为什么清理平民窟会限制摩天大楼，而更为昂贵的地基则不会。
第4段
Chapter four focuses on immigration and the location of neighborhoods and tenements in the late 19th century. Barr identifies four primary immigrant enclaves and analyzes their locations in terms of the amenities available in the area. Most of these enclaves were located on the least valuable land, between the industries located on the waterfront and the wealthy neighborhoods bordering Central Park.
第四章关注19世纪末的移民，以及居民区和廉价公寓的位置。Barr确认了四块主要的移民聚集区，并从该区域内福利设施的角度分析它们的位置。大多数聚集区位于价值最低的土地上，介于河岸工业区和毗邻中央公园的富人区之间。
第5段
Part two of the book begins with a discussion of the economics of skyscraper height. In chapter five, Barr distinguishes between engineering height, economic height, and developer height — where engineering height is the tallest building that can be safely made at a given time, economic height is the height that is most efficient from society’s point of view, and developer height is the actual height chosen by the developer, who is attempting to maximize return on investment.
该书的第二部分以对摩天大楼高度的经济学讨论开始。在第五章中，Barr区分了工程学高度，经济学高度和开发商高度。其中，工程学高度是在特定时期能够安全实现的最高建筑；经济学高度是从社会角度效益最大的高度；开发商高度则是开发商为了实现投资收益最大化而选择的实际高度。
第6段
Chapter five also has an interesting discussion of the technological advances that led to the construction of skyscrapers. For example, the introduction of iron and steel skeletal frames made thick, load-bearing walls unnecessary, expanding the usable square footage of buildings and increasing the use of windows and availability of natural light. Chapter six this article is from laokaoya website then presents data on building height throughout the 20th century and uses regression analysis to ‘predict’ building construction. While less technical than the research paper on which the chapter is based, it is probably more technical than would be preferred by a general audience.
第五章对促成摩天大楼建设的技术进步进行了有趣的讨论。例如，铁和钢制骨架的引入淘汰了厚厚的承重墙，扩大了建筑的可使用面积，并提升了窗户和自然光的使用。随后，第六章给出整个20世纪建筑高度的相关数据，并利用回归分析预测楼宇建筑。虽然相比于其作为基础的研究论文，本章的技术性稍低，但它可能比普通大众所偏爱的内容更加艰深一些。
第7段
Chapter seven tackles the ‘bedrock myth’, the assumption that the absence of bedrock close to the surface between Downtown and Midtown New York is the reason for skyscrapers not being built between the two urban centers. Rather, Barr argues that while deeper bedrock does increase foundation costs, these costs were neither prohibitively high nor were they large compared to the overall cost of building a skyscraper. What I enjoyed the most about this chapter was Barr’s discussion of how foundations are actually built. He describes the use of caissons, which enable workers to dig down for considerable distances, often below the water table, until they reach bedrock. Barr’s thorough technological history discusses not only how caissons work, but also the dangers involved. While this chapter references empirical research papers, it is a relatively easy read.
第七章解决“基岩谜题”，即有假说认为，纽约下城和中城之间靠近地表的地方缺少基岩，因此两个商业中心之间并没有建设摩天大楼。但Barr却认为并非如此，尽管更深的基岩位置确实增加了地基成本，但这些成本并没有高到离谱的地步，而且相比于建造一座摩天大楼的整体花费文章来自老烤鸭雅思而言也不大。这一章最让我喜欢的是Barr关于地基实际建造过程的讨论。他描述了沉箱的使用，这使得工人可以向下挖掘相当深的距离，经常达到地下水位线以下，直至触及基岩。Barr详尽的技术史描述不仅讨论了沉箱的工作原理，而且还提到其中涉及的危险。尽管这个章节引用了实证性的研究论文，但读起来相对还算容易。
第8段
Chapters eight and nine focus on the birth of Midtown and the building boom of the 1920s. Chapter eight contains lengthy discussions of urban economic theory that may serve as a distraction to readers primarily interested in New York. However, they would be well-suited for undergraduates learning about the economics of cities. In the next chapter, Barr considers two of the primary explanations for the building boom of the 1920s — the first being exuberance, and the second being financing. He uses data to assess the viability of these two explanations and finds that supply and demand factors explain much of the development of the 1920s; though it enabled the boom, cheap credit was not, he argues, the primary cause.
第八章和第九章关注中城区的诞生和20世纪20年代的建筑爆发。第八章包括对城市经济理论的大幅讨论。这可能会干扰到只对纽约感兴趣的读者。然而，它们很适合学习城市经济学的本科生。下一章中，Barr探讨了促成20世纪20年代建筑爆发的两个主流解释：其一是繁荣的环境，其二是金融的支持。他利用数据评估这两种解释的有效性，发现供给与需求很大程度上促进了20世纪20年代的发展。他认为，虽然低息贷款确实使得繁荣成为可能，但它并非主要原因。
第9段
In the final chapter (chapter 10), Barr discusses another of his empirical papers that estimates Manhattan land values from the mid-19th century to the present day. The data work that went into these estimations is particularly impressive. Toward the end of the chapter, Barr assesses ‘whether skyscrapers are a cause or an effect of high land values’. He finds that changes in land values predict future building height, but the reverse is not true. The book ends with an epilogue, in which Barr discusses the impact of climate change on the city and makes policy suggestions for New York going forward.
在最后一章中（第十章），Barr讨论了他的另一篇评估20世纪中叶一直到现在曼哈顿土地价值的实证论文。这些评估的数据工作让人印象深刻。在本章末尾，Barr探讨“摩天大楼究竟是高昂土地价值的原因还是结果”。他发现土地价值的变化能够预测未来建筑的高度，但反过来却不成立。全书以一篇后记收尾。Barr在其中讨论了气候变化对城市的影响，并对纽约的未来做出一些政策建议。
剑桥雅思17Test3Passage1阅读原文翻译 The thylacine 袋狼
剑桥雅思17Test3Passage2阅读原文翻译 palm oil 棕榈油
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2023-06-23 13:40