老托福阅读试题及答案：PASSAGE19.docxVIP

老托福阅读试题及答案：PASSAGE19 为了帮助大家备考托福阅读，提高成绩，下面小编给大家带来老托福阅读真题及答案:passage 19，希望大家喜欢! 老托福阅读试题及答案：PASSAGE19 The principal difference between urban growth in Europe and in the North American colonies was the slow evolution of cities in the former and their rapid growth in the latter. In Europe they grew over a period of centuries from town economies to their present urban structure. In North America, they started as wilderness communities and developed to mature urbanism in little more than a century. In the early colonial days in North America, small cities sprang up along the Atlantic Coastline, mostly in what are now New England and Middle Atlantic states in the United States and in the lower Saint Lawrence valley in Canada. This was natural because these areas were nearest to England and France, particularly England, from which most capital goods (assets such as equipment) and many consumer goods were imported. Merchandising establishments were, accordingly, advantageously located in port cities from which goods could be readily distributed to interior settlements. Here, too, were the favored locations for processing raw materials prior to export. Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Montreal, and other cities flourished, and, as the colonies grew, these cities increased in importance. This was less true in the colonial South, where life centered around large farms, known as plantations, rather than around towns, as was the case in the areas further north along the Atlantic coastline. The local isolation and the economic self-sufficiency of the plantations were antagonistic to the development of the towns. The plantations maintained their independence because they were located on navigable streams and each had a wharf accessible to the small shipping of that day. In fact, one of the strongest factors in the selection of plantation land was the desire to have its front on a water highway. When the United States became an independent nation in 1776, it did n