Housing and Class in UKⅢ.docVIP

British Society: Housing and Class 1、Housing住房 For individual members of any society the home they live in is of great importance in their lives. 对于任何一型社会的个体成员来说，他们的居所在他们的生活中都是非常重要的。 The way the living arrangements of a society as a whole are organized tells us something about that society—its standard of living, its social and familial structure, the distribution of wealth in a society—both in terms of geography and social hierarchy—and even something about that societys values and dreams. 一个社会对居住环境的总体设计，多少会反映出该社会的生活水平，社会和家庭结构，以及就地域和社会等级而言的财富分配，甚至能反映出该社会的价值和梦想。 Certainly, in the case of the United Kingdom, there are some distinctive features in its housing system, features which differentiate it from both of the main societies we might choose to compare it with other European countries on the one hand, and the United States and the English-speaking Commonwealth on the other. 当然,在英国的情况下,其有特色的住房制度、特点可以使它与我们可以选择来与之比较的欧洲其他国家、美国和以英语为母语的主要社会共同体分别开来。 What the UK shares with the United States and the wealthy English-speaking commonwealth (countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand) is a very high proportion of owner-occupation: that is, most homes, around 65% of them, are owned by the people who live in them. 同美国以及英联邦其他成员国（如加拿大、澳大利亚和新西兰等这样的国家）相似的是极高的业主居住率，大约65%左右是由业主即房屋的拥有者居住着。This is a higher proportion than in most of Europe.这与欧洲的大部分地区相比来说是很高的比例。 It is the ambition of most British people to buy their own home, and there is a sophisticated and accessible system of finance from banks to allow them to do so—usually through a loan, or mortgage paid back over a period of 25 years. 对大多数英国人来说他们最大的心愿就是,去买他们自己的房子,英国银行有一种复杂但容易的财务系统允许他们去这样做——通常是通过借贷,或“按揭”25年来偿还。抵押借款（或称银行按揭）在西方是很常见的一种购买方式，尤其是购买房屋、汽车之类的大型商品。Often the loan is made for 95% of the value of the property to be purchased leaving the buyer to provide 5% as a deposit.通常购房人先付贷款的5%作为第一期预付款，其余95%的房价分期付清。 But what the UK shares with the more socially-oriented societies of the rest of Europe is a large-scale provision o