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Skim the article below to find outСтр 1 из 6Следующая ⇒ UNIT 1. GOING URBAN Lead-inPointstoPonder 1. Whatisthedifferencebetweenacityandatown? 2. Docitydwellersandtown dwellers differ from each other? If yes, where does the difference lie? 3. What do you think makes a typical urbanite? What images does a city conjure up for many rural residents?What makes a city so alluring to people coming from the provinces? 4. What places do you think are labelled as ‘tech cities’, ‘garden cities’, ‘smart cities’, ‘media cities’? Can you give examples of these? READING 1 Skim the article below to find out · whattitles and subtitles modern towns aspire to. · what the phenomenon of ‘urbicide’ means. · how the text answers the title questions. Reading Comprehension Check Read the text for detail and answer the following text-based questions 1. What distinction does the author consider indisputable irrespective of a city profile? 2. What settlements can the word “city” be applied to in the USA Midwest and in Australia? Are there any historical grounds behind it? 3. When and why did the garden cities movement emerge? What is a garden city like? Give some examples of garden cities. 4. What problems do low-density cities face? 5. What was the status of city bound to under Henry VIII? 6. What British towns became cities in the second half of the 19th century? 7. What official criterion for what constitutes a city is currently used in the UK? 8. How many officially designated cities are there in the UK currently? 9. What is the role of the monarch in the elevation of the UK towns to city status? 10. Does the holding of city status give a settlement any special rights? 11. Why do British towns strive to receive the city title? 12. Are French towns as obsessed with being granted city status as British ones? Why? 13. What criteria were taken into account to differentiate a town from a city in ancient times? 14. How does Richard Sennett define a city? 15. Why do developers tend to label a place a “tech city”, a “media city” or a “smart city”? 16. What does the architect Sir Terry Farrell’s recent recommendation to government testify to? 17. What is considered to be a smalltown mentality and a true city mentality, according to the text? v Over to you Ø What advantages and disadvantages may be found in city life? Ø What elements does a city or a town need to attract people? What are your guidelines for urban beauty? Ø If you were an urban planner, what improvements would you suggest for your city (town)? Ø What are pros and cons of small town mentality / lifestyle? Paraphrase or explain the following phrases from the text. 1. This is the pioneer spirit at work… 2. Ebbsfleet echoes the ambition of the garden cities movement that first gained traction at the beginning of the last century 3. …we need a more discerning definition of the title… 4. While utopian in vision, low-density “cities” such as these are, as a concept, profoundly anti-urban. 5. …St David’s on the west coast of Wales enjoyed the city mantle.
Completethe gapped summary of the article. Pay attention to summary language and structure patterns. TOPIC – What is the subject matter of the article? The article entitled “What Makes a City a City …” sheds light on a challenging yet vital topic of ___________________. MAIN IDEA – What view does the author hold on the issue? The key idea of the article is that although the status of a city is normally nothing but honorific, a lot of UK towns strive_____________, which is truly a British obsession. MAJOR SUPPORTING DETAILS – How does the author prove his view? In the first place, the author argues that outback dots have always had aspirations to style themselves _____________. However, while pointing out that there is a growing tendency of garnering a city status among__________, the author elaborates on the roots of this phenomenon. He also pinpoints why it is of great significance to provide a discerning definition of a city and its subtitles such as ______________ etc. Moreover, the author contends that towns that brand themselves as cities unequivocally remain towns and lack something cityish, therefore, _________ might be nothing but a moniker. In addition, the author proves that historical grounds for a city title such as ____________________ are no longer reasonable. Instead, _______________ is applicable to define a city. The author emphasizes that some practical reasons such as being a center of a wider area and having a good record of local government outweigh ____________________. What is more, he also __________ the profound impact of ______________on the elevation of UK towns to city status. Finally, the author also notes that the issue of a city status is topical as _______________________________. CONCLUSION – Restate (paraphrase) the main idea To sum up, the author highlights the importance of defining a city once again and concludes that it is ______________________________that distinguishes a true city from a town. Text Vocabulary Boost FURTHER LANGUAGE BOOST Language Transfer 1: ‘City’ Collocations 9 Find in Text 1 the words that collocate with the word ‘city’. Study the word partnerships below and complete the sentences. garden CITY slicker edge scape tent planner smart hall father wide break 1. She was a city ______, and getting used to pumping water and using an outhouse was pretty hard for her. 2. If you ask me there’s plenty of space already, but the city______ are so determined to keep the place green and clean that they are planning to create 50% more parks. 3. Authorities asked residents to take pilgrims into their homes, while a ______city was opened on the outskirts of the capital. 4. After receiving the petition, city administrators met at city______ and decided to call for a further clarification of the laws. 5. The city______ had set up the short street for parallel parking, normally a good choice for a small-business zone. 6. In this fabledfinancialmecca, the eyes are dazzled by highriseviews of the harbor and city ______ below. 7. The state of public education, as well as race and class relations in the United States, have pushed many families into the sprawling suburbs and ______ cities of North America. 8. ______ city is a town that has been designed to have a lot of trees, areas of grass, and open spaces. 9. Book now and make huge savings on city ______ to Paris, Berlin and Edinburgh. 10. A city councilor has called for a city ______ ban on smoking in public places, provoking anger from city pubs and students. 11. _______ cities initiative addresses information, communication and technology in urban planning. Fill in the spaces with prepositions where necessary Consolidation Render the following into English READING 2 Lead-In Points to Ponder · What is branding and image-making? How can they be applied to city management? · Can you name any cities with the most powerful brand? What is the main asset of their global image? · What makes your city (town) stand out?
Skim the article below to find out · what idea is behind city branding as a global industry. · the catalytic role of globalization in the branding process. Reading Comprehension Check Paraphrase or explain the following phrases from the text. 1. … who is this frenzied exercise in image-making actually for? 2. …this essence becomes a meme or a logo for the city’s brand. 3. But the old images... were no longer attractive, or even accurate. 4. Branding can also be a political liability. 5. Consultants advise cities to begin branding by cataloguing their strategic assets. 6. Branding is a means of selling a place. Text Vocabulary Boost FURTHER LANGUAGE BOOST Can Cities Kick Ads? Staring out of a hotel window in São Paulo, my eye was caught by an (1) ______ digital display crowning the top of an undersized skyscraper. Steadily flashing the time, then the temperature, the display was (2) ______ in a way that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was only later, when a colleague mentioned that São Paulo had banned billboard advertising, that I realised what had felt so odd about my view. Those flashing numbers were the only visible signage actively making a play for my attention. Having come from New York, I was used to looking out at a landscape of logos and gargantuan product shots; a vista of advertisements all jostling for “eyeballs”, as the industry so charmingly (3) ______ it. Left unchecked, the (4) ______ of outdoor advertising can consume a city. In the early 2000s, advertising grew exponentially in Brazil, and São Paulo began to suffocate under a smog of signage. Finding it difficult to control the number of ads through regulation, the city took the unprecedented (5) ______ of banning them altogether. In 2007, Mayor Gilberto Kassab implemented the Clean City Law, (6) ______ outdoor adverts a form of “visual pollution”. In a single year, the city removed 15,000 billboards and 300,000 oversized storefront signs. It was a small glimpse of things to come. In the last decade, from Bristol to Tehran, there’s been a global (7) _______ to un-brand cities – to rid them, at least partially, of adverts. Citizen vigilantes, artists and activists are playing important roles. They have re-imagined what cities would look like if classical paintings replaced adverts; a team of (8) ______ in New York has created No Ad, an augmented-reality app that strips the New York City subway of ads, (9) ______them with art. It’s not just about cleansing cities of “visual pollution” as if it were a sort of surface grime. Billboard advertising is far more intimately (10) ______ with the architecture of cities. While in other media we can, to some extent, choose to consume ads, out of home advertising has melded itself inextricably into our environment. The ubiquity of outdoor advertising means that we have come to (11) ______ it for granted; accepting both its presence and its purpose as natural features of the (12) ______ environment. It was also instructive: tearing down ads helped uncover previously hidden inequality within the city, (13) ______ favelasthat had previously been blocked by billboards. Without the perma-glow of advertising, people were forced to confront public space in a new light. The latest and perhaps boldest attempt to un-brand public space (14) ______ from Grenoble, France, which became the first city in Europe to ban commercial street advertising. The mayor’s office replaced 326 advertising signs with community noticeboards and trees. Advertising helps to (15) ______ some city and in (16) ______, it insinuates itself semi-permanently into the environment. Entirely ridding a city of its advertising and truly (17) ______ public space is a long process of untangling public infrastructure from private interests. (The Guardian 11 August 2015) 1. a) oversized b) overlapped c) heightened d) downsized 2. a) ambiguous b) outplayed c) contradictory d) incongruous 3. a) puts b) says c) holds d) treats 4. a) proliferation b) extent c) projection d) exuberance 5. a) instance b) pace c) step d) case 6. a) nicknaming b) labelling c) monickering d) stereotyping 7. a) way of thinking b) movement c) inclination d) attachment 8. a) city fathers b) elaborators c) city experts d) developers 9. a) replacing b) decorating c) collaborating d) overtaking 10. a) related b) appended c) contaminated d) entwined 11. a) take b) set c) get d) view 12. a) urbanism b) urbanite c) urban d)urbanization 13. a) exposing b) spotlighting c) exhibiting d) expressing 14. a) goes b) initiates c) comes d) takes 15. a) fund b) focus c) figure out d) raise 16. a) contrast b) return c) profile d) turn 17. a) recasting b) devising c) rebalancing d) diverting Consolidation READING 3 THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN (from “Politically Correct Bedtime Stories” By J.F. Garner) The picturesque little town of Hamelin had everything a community could wish for non-polluting industries, effective mass transit, and a well-balanced ethno-religious diversity. In fact, the town leaders had managed to legislate or intimidate away every element that could keep the citizens from living a good and sensitive life. Every element, that is, except the trailer park. The trailer park on the edge of Hamelin was a civic embarrassment. Not only “was it a terrible eyesore, with its rusted pickup trucks and trash heaps in every backyard. Within it dwelled some of the most unregenerate and irredeemable people you could ever imagine murderers of nondomestic animals, former clients of the correctional system, and off-road bikers. With their plastic daisy pinwheels, loud music, and drunken weekend brawls, they sent a shudder through every respectable person in town. One day, after a particularly riotous road rally through the trailer park, the town leaders had a meeting. After heated debate, they decided that somehow they had to eradicate the trailer park. But they were at a loss as to how to do it without ignoring or infringing upon the rights of the people who lived there. Finally, after even more oratory, they decided to let that be someone else’s worry, since they were already so burdened with more important concerns, such as declining property values. So the town leaders decided to advertise for someone to solve their problems. Soon after the advertisement was sent out, a man appeared in town. He was very vertically gifted and of lower-than-average weight for his size. His clothes were worn in combinations never before seen or imagined, and his mannerisms and high-pitched voice were certainly unique. Although he looked like he came from some world other than (but certainly not unequal to) our own, he gained the trust of the desperate town leaders. “I will be able to rid your town of the trailer-park dwellers,” said the man of enhanced strangeness, “but you must promise to pay me 100 pieces of gold.” The town leaders wanted this whole unpleasant business finished as soon as possible, so they readily assented. The sooner the trailer park was eliminated, the sooner they could all revert to their open-minded, progressive selves. So the man of enhanced strangeness got down to work. He reached into his tattered knapsack and pulled out a sophisticated, compact recording machine. The people around him looked on with interest as he inserted a few tapes, set some knobs, and checked the sound levels. Then he began mumbling into the built-in microphone. No one could hear exactly what he was saying, but the man seemed to be lacking in coherence. Abruptly, he stopped mumbling, stood up, and told the town leaders that he needed a truck with a public-address system. The authorities scrambled after this strange request. They managed to find such a truck at the Department of Public Biodiversity and handed over the keys to the man of enhanced strangeness. He climbed in and drove off, popping the cassette he had made into the sound system. Everyone followed the truck as it headed toward the trailer park. Soon music began to emerge from the slowly moving truck generally country music but also occasional classics like “The Ballad of the Green Berets” and “Ghost Riders in the Sky”. The town leaders were puzzled by this, until they noticed people emerging from their trailers, tool sheds, and taverns. The people had a certain glassy expression and talked to themselves as they stumbled along. “I’m gonna go git me a job,” said one. “I hear the carny is hirin’.” “I think I’ll join the professional tractor-pull circuit,” said another. “Do you think I could make a livin' by signin' up for medical experiments?” asked a third. The denizens of the trailer park followed the truck as it drove slowly toward the edge of town. Soon both they and it disappeared over the horizon, and the town leaders lifted a cheer. About an hour later the truck returned, minus its entourage. “I led them all to the highway,” said the man of enhanced strangeness as he alighted from the truck. “They’re out thumbing rides for anyplace but Hamelin. Now the trailer park is free for you to use in whatever way you want.” “Marvelous!” said one of the authorities, who was serving as a spokesperson. “Now that they’re gone, we can commence with our plans for a Third-World Refugee Reorientation Center. Thank you, thank you.” “Now, if you will kindly pay me the 100 pieces of gold you promised, I’ll be on my way.” “Well, er... Hamelin is striving to establish an economy that is based on human capital and not the mere exploitation of physical resources. And so, to this end, we’d like to offer you this coupon book, which entitles you to such services in Hamelin as free massages and seminars on releasing your inner child.” The man of enhanced strangeness squinted his eyes. “You promised me 100 pieces of gold,” he said, growing visibly angry. “Now pay up or suffer the consequence”. “If you wish to abandon your responsibility for making the world a more equitable place,” clucked the spokesperson, “so be it. We will have to give you the official Hamelin IOU, which can be redeemed for a significant portion of its face value at many of the currency exchanges and liquor stores in the surrounding towns.” The man of enhanced strangeness paused, then chuckled eerily and climbed back in the truck. Before anyone could stop him, he began to drive through all the neighborhoods of Hamelin. As he went, the truck played a weird, high-pitched music that no one could recognize. Soon, the children of Hamelin emerged from their houses and streamed from their playgrounds. With glazed looks, they milled about in the streets. The town leaders could hear the children talking earnestly to each other; “Free markets are the only sure way to give people the personal incentive to build a better society,” said one child. “We must respect the rights of citizens to preserve the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods,” said another. “Our only obligation as a society is to make sure everyone has a level playing field,” said a third. As their children began to form tax protest groups and gun clubs, the town leaders sadly realized that all their years of careful social planning would soon come to nothing. The next day, they found the public-address truck on the outskirts of town, but there was no sign of the mysterious man whom they had tried to swindle. Notes: · the Pied Piper (of Hamelin) - the main character in an old story about a man who got rid of all the rats from the town of Hamelin in Germany, by playing his flute and making the rats follow him into the river and drown in it. When he was not paid for this job, the Pied Piper played his flute again and led away all the town’s children too. Reading Comprehension Check Text Vocabulary Boost Active Vocabulary List Reading 1
Reading 2
How to Shrink a City Many cities are losing inhabitants. Better to manage decline than try to stop it
One of the biggest challenges for the world this century is how to accommodate the hundreds of millions of people who will flock to cities, especially in emerging economies. Coping with this human torrent will be fearsomely difficult – but at least the problem is widely acknowledged. That is not true of another pressing urban dilemma: what to do with cities that are losing people. They are hardly unusual. Almost one in ten American cities is shrinking. So are more than a third of German ones – and the number is growing. Although Japan’s biggest cities are thriving, large numbers of its smaller ones are collapsing. Several South Korean cities have begun to decline – a trend that will speed up unless couples can somehow be persuaded to have more babies. Next will come China, where the force of rapid urbanisation will eventually be overwhelmed by the greater power of demographic contraction. China’s total urban population is expected to peak by mid-century; older industrial boom towns are already on a downward slope. An abandoned street containing a rotting nursery or primary school is a sad sight. And declining cities have more than visual problems. Disused buildings deter investors and attract criminals; superfluous infrastructure is costly to maintain; ambitious workers may refuse to move to places where the potential clientele is shrinking. Where cities are economically self-sufficient, a smaller working population means a fragile base on which to balance hefty pension obligations. That is why Detroit went bust. So it is unsurprising that governments often try to shore up their crumbling smaller cities. Japan recently announced tax cuts for firms that are willing to move their headquarters out of thriving Tokyo. Office parks, art museums and tram lines have been built in troubled American and European cities, on the assumption that if you build it, people will come. For the most part, they will not. Worse, the attempt to draw workers back to shrinking cities is misconceived. People move from smaller to larger cities in countries like Germany and Japan because the biggest conurbations have stronger economies, with a greater variety of better-paying jobs. The technological revolution, which was once expected to overturn the tyranny of distance, has in fact encouraged workers to cluster together and share clever ideas. Britain’s productivity is pitiful these days but it is almost one-third higher in London than elsewhere. Policies meant to counteract the dominance of big cities are not just doomed to fail but can actually be counter-productive. The most successful metropolises should be encouraged to expand by stripping away planning restrictions. If housing were more plentiful in the bigger conurbations it would be cheaper, and the residents of declining cities, who often have little housing equity, would find it easier to move to them. Rent controls and rules that give local people priority in public housing should go, too: they harm the poor by locking them into unproductive places. Even so, many people will stay stuck in shrinking cities, which will grow steadily older. Better transport links to big cities will help some. But a great many cannot be revived. In such cases the best policy is to acquire empty offices and homes, knock them down and return the land to nature – something that has worked in the east German city of Dessau-Rosslau and in Pittsburgh in America. That will require money and new habits of mind. Planners are expert at making cities work better as they grow. Keeping them healthy as they shrink is just as noble. (The Economist May 30th 2015)
UNIT 1. GOING URBAN Lead-inPointstoPonder 1. Whatisthedifferencebetweenacityandatown? 2. Docitydwellersandtown dwellers differ from each other? If yes, where does the difference lie? 3. What do you think makes a typical urbanite? What images does a city conjure up for many rural residents?What makes a city so alluring to people coming from the provinces? 4. What places do you think are labelled as ‘tech cities’, ‘garden cities’, ‘smart cities’, ‘media cities’? Can you give examples of these? READING 1 Skim the article below to find out · whattitles and subtitles modern towns aspire to. · what the phenomenon of ‘urbicide’ means. · how the text answers the title questions.   Конфликты в семейной жизни. Как это изменить? Редкий брак и взаимоотношения существуют без конфликтов и напряженности. Через это проходят все...  Что способствует осуществлению желаний? Стопроцентная, непоколебимая уверенность в своем...  ЧТО ПРОИСХОДИТ ВО ВЗРОСЛОЙ ЖИЗНИ? Если вы все еще «неправильно» связаны с матерью, вы избегаете отделения и независимого взрослого существования...  Что делает отдел по эксплуатации и сопровождению ИС? Отвечает за сохранность данных (расписания копирования, копирование и пр.)... Не нашли то, что искали? Воспользуйтесь поиском гугл на сайте:
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