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The Development of Cities
    Mass transportation revised the social and
economic fabric of the American city in three
fundamental ways. It catalyzed physical expansion,
 it sorted out people and land uses, and it
accelerated the inherent instability of urban
life. By opening vast areas of unoccupied land
for residential expansion, the omnibuses, horse
 railways, commuter trains, and electric trolleys
 pulled settled regions outward two to four times
more distant form city centers than they were in
the premodern era. In 1850, for example, the borders
 of Boston lay scarcely two miles from the old
business district; by the turn of the century the
 radius extended ten miles. Now those who could
afford it could live far removed from the old city
 center and still commute there for work, shopping,
 and entertainment. The new accessibility of land
around the periphery of almost every major city
sparked an explosion of real estate development
and fueled what we now know as urban sprawl. Between
 1890 and 1920, for example, some 250,000 new residential
 lots were recorded within the borders of Chicago,
most of them located in outlying areas. Over the same
 period, another 550,000 were plotted outside the city
 limits but within the metropolitan area. Anxious to
take advantage of the possibilities of commuting, real
 estate developers added 800,000 potential building
sites to the Chicago region in just thirty years –
lots that could have housed five to six million people.


 Of course, many were never occupied; there was
always a huge surplus of subdivided, but vacant,
 land around Chicago and other cities. These
excesses underscore a feature of residential
expansion related to the growth of mass transportation:
 urban sprawl was essentially unplanned. It was
 carried out by thousands of small investors who
 paid little heed to coordinated land use or to
future land users. Those who purchased and prepared
 land for residential purposes, particularly land
near or outside city borders where transit lines
and middle-class inhabitants were anticipated, did
so to create demand as much as to respond to it.
Chicago is a prime example of this process. Real
estate subdivision there proceeded much faster than
 population growth.




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Vocabulary
1.revise                  改变
2.fabric                  结构
3.catalyze                  催化，加速
4.sort out                  把……分门别类，拣选
5.omnibus                  公共汽车/马车
6.trolley                  （美）有轨电车，（英）无轨电车
7.periphery            周围，边缘
8.sprawl                  建筑物无计划延伸，蔓延，四面八方散开
9.lot                  小片土地
10.underscore            强调，在下面划横线
11.transit lines            运输线路
12.subdivision            （出售的）小块土地，再划分小区