金融時報:“科技城市”：顛覆創(chuàng)新還是癡人說夢？

“科技城市”：顛覆創(chuàng)新還是癡人說夢？

谷歌的母公司Alphabet將一個全新的議案提上了日程：創(chuàng)立并運營自己的城市。根據(jù)其子公司Sidewalk Labs的計劃，這座城市將會是一個前所未有的科技試驗場，最尖端的新技術將會應用于交通、公共政策、環(huán)境治理和基礎設施等各個方面。這樣一個宏大的計劃具有可行性嗎？顛覆性的“科技城市”將會是什么樣子？

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

grapple['ɡræpl] vt.抓住

integrated ['?nt?ɡre?t?d] adj.完整的；整體的

explicit[?k'spl?s?t] adj. 明確的，詳述的

incentive[?n'sent?v] n. 刺激，鼓勵

neutrality [nu?'træl?ti] n. 中立

Alphabet looks for land to build experimental city(541 words)

By Leslie Hook

Alphabet’s far-reaching ambitions are forcing it to grapple with an unusual challenge for a private company: how to run its own city.

Google’s parent company was working on a sweeping plan to build a city from the ground up, the executive in charge of its urban innovation business said on Tuesday, in an attempt to prove that a technologically-enabled urban environment can improve quality of life and reduce cities’ impact on the environment.

That would raise profound questions about the rules that govern such tech-centric places, particularly regarding how citizens’ data are collected, protected and used, conceded the head of Sidewalk Labs, the Alphabet subsidiary running the project.

“We actually want to build a new city, it is a district of the city, but one that is of sufficient size and scale that it can be a laboratory for innovation on an integrated basis,” said Dan Doctoroff, head of Sidewalk Labs, at a talk to the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association.

Sidewalk was “quite far along” in its search for a city with which to partner to build a testing ground for new approaches to transport, infrastructure and possibly even governance and social policy, he said.

Mr Doctoroff said he hoped the city could pioneer new approaches to data policies and even “set an example” for other places. “I think the real issues, which we have to confront as a society anyway, involve the use of data.”

“Having a place in which we actually aggressively wrestle with those issues, and we aggressively develop policies — that are the result of a really thoughtful conversation amongst privacy advocates, and members of the community, and the government as well as us, as sort of a sponsor of the place — I think that could set an example,” he said, in his most explicit comments to date on the planned project.

When Alphabet co-founder Larry Page first suggested the idea of building a new city, his comments sparked a strong public pushback — but since then the company has quietly continued to advance its ambitious plan.

Sidewalk’s search for a location for its new city coincides with Amazon’s hunt for a new, second headquarters that would house 50,000 employees, as it expects to outgrow its big campus in downtown Seattle.

Mr Doctoroff criticised Amazon’s request for tax incentives, saying that such incentives could hurt cities in the long term by undermining their tax base. He said that unlike Amazon, Sidewalk Labs was “not looking for huge handouts”.

Mr Doctoroff, who was previously deputy mayor of New York City under Michael Bloomberg, cited more affordable living costs and carbon neutrality as two examples of making improvements in quality of life.

Founded in 2015, New York-based Sidewalk Labs is working on urban technologies, including projects such as software for public transit, or bringing free, fast wifi to cities like New York and London.

While Mr Doctoroff declined to name specific locations under consideration, he said that the effort was looking for “a fair amount of land” that had “not a whole lot on it” because existing structures would just get in the way and “there is an inverse relationship between your capacity to innovate, and the actual existence of people and buildings”.

請根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內容，完成以下自測題目：

1.Which of the following statements about the tech-centric experimental city is true?

A. The technologically-enabled city can bring down living costs.

B. The city is designed to become an enterprise incubator center.

C. The city is expected to be a laboratory for electronic government.

D. The tech-centric urban environment can eliminate carbon emission.

答案(1)

2.According to head of Sidewalk Labs, which issue should be of particular concern in the experimental city?

A. New approaches to data policies.

B. Achieving carbon neutrality.

C. Citizens’ data utilization.

D. New approaches to transport.

答案(2)

3.According to the passage, Mr Doctoroff is ____.

A. head of Urban Research Association.

B. a former government official in New York.

C. former mayor of New York City.

D. former deputy manager of Bloomberg Institute.

答案(3)

4.Mr Doctoroff believes tax incentives is harmful in the long term because ____.

A. urban technologies require continuous investment.

B. tax income is the basis of public transit.

C. insufficient funding will encumber innovation.

D. it will undermine the city's tax base.

答案(4)

* * *

(1) 答案：A.The technologically-enabled city can bring down living costs.

解釋：Doctoroff稱在新建的城市將會提高人們的生活質量，生活成本將會更加平易近人，碳排放量可以達到中和。

(2) 答案：C.Citizens’ data utilization.

解釋：Sidewalk Labs的負責人承認，為這樣一個以科技為中心的城市制定規(guī)則會面臨一系列深刻的問題，尤其值得關心的是如何收集、保護和使用公民的數(shù)據(jù)。

(3) 答案：B.a former government official in New York.

解釋：Doctoroff先生是布隆伯格手下的前紐約市副市長。

(4) 答案：D.it will undermine the city's tax base.

解釋：Doctoroff先生批評了亞馬遜要求的稅收優(yōu)惠。他表示，這種優(yōu)惠會削弱城市的稅收基礎，長遠來看對城市的發(fā)展不利。