美国国家公共电台 NPR The American Dream: One Block Can Make All The Difference

 

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Now, is geography destiny? Does the place where you were born and raised determine how far you will get in life? Harvard economist¹ Raj Chetty and colleagues recently developed an online tool called The Opportunity Atlas². It is a map. It's a map that uses tax and U.S. census³ data to track people's income from one generation to the next. And it reveals some uncomfortable truths. It turns out even what block you were born on can make a big difference. NPR's Jasmine Garsd reports that in one New York City neighborhood, the divide is especially stark⁴.

JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE⁵: When people find out where Audra Palacio is from, they often react in disbelief.

AUDRA PALACIO: Well, how could you come from there, and you lived there? And it's like - almost as if it's like, I can't believe you made it out.

GARSD: Palacio was born in the Linden Houses, a brick complex, public housing to several thousand families right next to Brownsville in Brooklyn. Nearly 40 percent of Brownsville lives in poverty. And if you look at The Opportunity Atlas and zoom⁶ into Brownsville, a lot of it is exactly what you'd expect. Black kids raised in the area 30-some years ago now make about $17,000 a year, same as their parents. But once you head across Dumont Avenue, everything changes. Black kids from the same exact background are doing better than their parents, making around $26,000 a year. To find out what happened on the other side of Dumont Avenue, people told me to go to church.

DAVID K BRAWLEY: If the Lord has been good to you, you ought to thank him for blessing⁷ you.

GARSD: Reverend David K. Brawley is one of the leaders of East Brooklyn Congregations. In his office, he tells me that in the early 1980s, Brownsville, N.Y., was often referred to as...

BRAWLEY: The beginning of the end of civilization - burnt-out homes, empty lots. People were leaving the city in droves.

GARSD: In the '80s, New York City had been hard-hit by a recession, then the crack and HIV epidemics⁸. There was a part of Brownsville that was totally abandoned - the other side of Dumont. The New York City government sold over 16 square blocks of Brownsville to the East Brooklyn Congregations for $1. Those blocks were dilapidated, rundown. The city agreed to build infrastructure⁹ and provide cash subsidies¹⁰ for over a thousand affordable¹¹ homes. They would start selling at $30,000 each. They were called Nehemiah houses after the man in the Bible who rebuilt parts of Jerusalem.

RUTH PALACIO: The family was growing, and we needed something that was much better for the children.

GARSD: Ruth Palacio is Audra's mom. She and her husband came to New York from Honduras and Belize fleeing poverty. They identify as both black and Hispanic. They say they're grateful that public housing was available when they needed it but jumped on the chance to move on when the children were born.

R. PALACIO: I didn't like elevators - up and down the elevators for my children because there was a lot of people living in the housing projects.

GARSD: For a lot of people in Brownsville and the surrounding areas, coming up with $30,000 for a house was impossible. For the Palacio family, it took generations' worth of savings¹².

R. PALACIO: My mother built her first house out of bamboo. Then eventually - she was hardworking. She used to trade. She built a house out of timber. Eventually, she built a house of concrete cement blocks, just like the story of the three little pigs.

GARSD: Audra Palacio was 6 when they bought the house.

A. PALACIO: I remember when we moved into Nehemiah's. We were so excited. We had rooms. We had space. We had a backyard.

GARSD: In their new online tool, economist Raj Chetty and his colleagues at Harvard found that the sooner kids move out of an area with such limited opportunity, the better they will fare. When the Palacio family moved, they didn't just get a backyard. They shifted their future like a ship changing course. Here's Reverend Brawley.

BRAWLEY: I'm not surprised when I look at this map and see the seed that has planted, there has been a harvest.

GARSD: There are a lot of factors that determine a child's success. Having a mom like Ruth Palacio, tough but loving, is definitely one of them. But it turns out geography also matters. A lot of kids who moved here from public housing did a lot better than those they left behind. Reverend Brawley beams when I tell him two of the Palacio children are working on their master's and Ph.D. He says the Nehemiah houses in Brooklyn gave children a space to do homework, a good night's sleep.

BRAWLEY: When people have ownership of their properties, ownership of their community, you have a better chance of addressing all core issues such as education and quality of life.

GARSD: A neighborhood that can focus on more than just surviving the day-to-day. Brawley points out that those quaint¹³ $30,000 Nehemiah houses built on land once sold for a buck¹⁴ are now valued at as much as half a million.

BRAWLEY: What has happened is that families now have wealth that they can pass down generationally.

GARSD: And that's just what the Palacios did. They passed their Nehemiah home on to one of their daughters. After I leave the family, I walk just a few blocks to Dumont Avenue. According to the Atlas, it's the dividing line. On the map it looks jarring, but in person it's completely unspectacular. People bustle¹⁵ on their way to work. Cars zoom by. Just another New York City street - it means nothing. But what side you're on means everything. Jasmine Garsd, NPR News, New York.

1 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

2 atlas   

n.地图册，图表集

参考例句：

• He reached down the atlas from the top shelf.他从书架顶层取下地图集。
• The atlas contains forty maps,including three of Great Britain.这本地图集有40幅地图，其中包括3幅英国地图。

3 census   

n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查

参考例句：

• A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
• The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。

4 stark   

adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地

参考例句：

• The young man is faced with a stark choice.这位年轻人面临严峻的抉择。
• He gave a stark denial to the rumor.他对谣言加以完全的否认。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 zoom   

n.急速上升；v.突然扩大，急速上升

参考例句：

• The airplane's zoom carried it above the clouds.飞机的陡直上升使它飞到云层之上。
• I live near an airport and the zoom of passing planes can be heard night and day.我住在一个飞机场附近，昼夜都能听到飞机飞过的嗡嗡声。

7 blessing   

n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿

参考例句：

• The blessing was said in Hebrew.祷告用了希伯来语。
• A double blessing has descended upon the house.双喜临门。

8 epidemics   

n．流行病

参考例句：

• Reliance upon natural epidemics may be both time-consuming and misleading. 依靠天然的流行既浪费时间，又会引入歧途。
• The antibiotic epidemics usually start stop when the summer rainy season begins. 传染病通常会在夏天的雨季停止传播。

9 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。

10 subsidies   

n.补贴，津贴，补助金( subsidy的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• European agriculture ministers failed to break the deadlock over farm subsidies. 欧洲各国农业部长在农业补贴问题上未能打破僵局。
• Agricultural subsidies absorb about half the EU's income. 农业补贴占去了欧盟收入的大约一半。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 affordable   

adj.支付得起的，不太昂贵的

参考例句：

• The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
• There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。

12 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

13 quaint   

adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的

参考例句：

• There were many small lanes in the quaint village.在这古香古色的村庄里，有很多小巷。
• They still keep some quaint old customs.他们仍然保留着一些稀奇古怪的旧风俗。

14 buck   

n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃

参考例句：

• The boy bent curiously to the skeleton of the buck.这个男孩好奇地弯下身去看鹿的骸骨。
• The female deer attracts the buck with high-pitched sounds.雌鹿以尖声吸引雄鹿。

15 bustle   

v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹

参考例句：

• The bustle and din gradually faded to silence as night advanced.随着夜越来越深，喧闹声逐渐沉寂。
• There is a lot of hustle and bustle in the railway station.火车站里非常拥挤。