石春祯 2011英语阅读理解220篇 word版-02.docVIP

UNIT 11-1 　　You may not know it to look at them, but urban planners are human and have dreams. One dream many share is that Americans will give up their love affair with suburban sprawl and will rediscover denser, more environmentally friendly, less auto-dependent ways of living. 　　Those dreams have been aroused over the past few months. The economic crisis has devastated the fast-growing developments on the far suburban fringe. Americans taste the bitter fruit of their overconsumption. 　　The time has finally come, some writers are predicting, when Americans will finally repent. Theyll move back to the urban core. They will ride more bicycles, have smaller homes and tinier fridges and rediscover the joys of dense community - and maybe even superior beer. 　　America will, in short, finally begin to look a little more like Amsterdam. 　　Well, Amsterdam is a wonderful city, but Americans never seem to want to live there. And even now, in this moment of chastening pain, they dont seem to want the Dutch option. 　　The Pew Research Center just finished a study about where Americans would like to live and what sort of lifestyle they would like to have. The first thing they found is that even in dark times, Americans are still looking over the next horizon. Nearly half of those surveyed said they would rather live in a different type of community from the one they are living in at present. 　　If you jumble together the five most popular American metro areas - Denver, San Diego, Seattle, Orlando and Tampa - you get an image of the American Dream circa 2009. These are places where you can imagine yourself with a stuffed garage filled with skis, kayaks, soccer equipment, hiking boots and boating equipment. These are places you can imagine yourself leading an active outdoor lifestyle. 　　They offer the dream, so characteristic on this continent, of having it all: the machine and the garden. The wide-open space and the casual wardrobes. 　　The folks at Pew asked one other interesting