歷年考研英語(yǔ)閱讀理解1998年04

[00:05.80]1998 Passage4 [00:08.72]Emerging from the 1980 census [00:11.23]is the picture of a nation developing [00:13.25]more and more regional competition, [00:15.78]as population growth in the Northeast [00:18.19]and Midwest reaches a near standstill. [00:21.93]This development--and its strong implications for [00:24.84]US politics and economy in years ahead [00:28.07]--has enthroned the South as America's most densely populated region [00:32.70]for the first time in the history [00:34.06]of the nation's head counting. [00:36.59]Altogether, the US population rose in the 1970s [00:40.81]by 23.2 million people [00:43.84]--numerically the third-largest growth [00:46.18]ever recorded in a single decade. [00:49.71]Even so, that gain adds up to only 11.4 percent, [00:55.06]lowest in American annual records [00:57.45]except for the Depression years. [01:00.57]Americans have been migrating south and west [01:03.91]in larger numbers since World War II, [01:06.83]and the pattern still prevails. [01:10.17]Three sun-belt states--Florida, Texas and California [01:14.90]--together had nearly 10 million more people in 1980 [01:19.05]than a decade earlier. [01:21.16]Among large cities, San Diego moved from 14th to 8th [01:26.21]and San Antonio from 15th to 10th [01:29.64]--with Cleveland and Washington, D.C., [01:32.07]dropping out of the top 10. [01:34.99]Not all that shift can be attributed to the movement [01:38.02]out of the snow belt, [01:39.43]census officials say. [01:41.25]Nonstop waves of immigrants played a role, too [01:44.78]--and so did bigger crops of babies [01:47.10]as yesterday's "baby boom" generation [01:49.61]reached its child-bearing years. [01:52.84]Moreover, demographers see the continuing shift [01:56.16]south and west as joined [01:58.48]by a related but newer phenomenon: [02:01.51]More and more, Americans apparently [02:03.83]are looking not just for places with more jobs [02:06.34]but with fewer people, too. [02:09.37]Some instances-- [02:11.68]﹒Regionally, the Rocky Mountain states [02:14.01]reported the most rapid growth rate [02:16.52]--37.1 percent since 1970 in a vast area [02:21.51]with only 5 percent of the US population. [02:25.84]﹒Among states, Nevada and Arizona [02:28.80]grew fastest of all: [02:30.70]63.5 and 53.1 percent respectively. [02:35.94]Except for Florida and Texas, [02:38.38]the top 10 in rate of growth is composed [02:41.04]of Western states with 7.5 million people [02:45.29]--about 9 per square mile. [02:48.51]The flight from overcrowdedness [02:50.62]affects the migration from snow belt [02:53.00]to more bearable climates. [02:55.61]Nowhere do 1980 census statistics dramatize more [02:59.91]the American search for spacious living [03:02.14]than in the Far West. [03:04.45]There, California added 3.7 million to its population [03:09.49]in the 1970s, [03:11.40]more than any other state. [03:14.23]In that decade, however, large numbers [03:17.05]also migrated from California, [03:19.88]mostly to other parts of the West. [03:22.57]Often they chose [03:24.08]--and still are choosing [03:25.81]--somewhat colder climates such as Oregon, [03:28.72]Idaho and Alaska in order to escape smog, [03:32.75]crime and other plagues of urbanization in the Golden State. [03:37.90]As a result, California's growth rate dropped [03:41.23]during the 1970s, to 18.5 percent [03:45.66]--little more than two thirds the 1960s' growth figure [03:49.70]and considerably below that of other Western states.

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