Уровень сложности: средний
Moving to small towns is a new trend in the USA which is very evident now. In the 1990s, two million more Americans moved from metropolitan centers to rural areas than migrated the other way. In the 1980s, by contrast, rural areas suffered a net loss of 1,4 million people. Unlike the middle class escape from multiethnic cities to the suburbs a generation ago, this middle-class migration is from crowded, mainly white suburbs to small towns and rural counties.
Thanks to the newcomers, 75% of the nation’s rural counties are growing again after years of decline*. Some towns are even booming, with high-tech industrial parks and busy downtowns in which you can find restaurants and community theaters, pubs and coffee bars.
Inevitably, a cottage industry is springing up to service the newcomers. At last four recent books promise to teach city folk how to find the village of their dreams, and one entrepreneur has a company, the Greener Pastures Institute, that helps urbanites plan great escape.
The trend, which began in the back-to-nature 1970s but stopped in the 1980s, has roared back because of powerful technological forces that are decentralising the American economy. The Internet and the overnight shipping are enabling high-tech industries to settle in the countryside, creating jobs for skilled workers almost anywhere.
There’s a software-design company in Bolivar, Mo (population 6,845), a big computer-maker in North
Sioux City, SD ( population 2,019), a major catalogue retailer in Dodgeville, Wis., all attracting people who want to live in places where the landscape is emptier, the housing costs lower, the culture is more gentle.
If young professionals move because their jobs can move with them, pensioners are moving because their fat accounts can put them almost anywhere. And whether young or old, the new emigre believe that in rural America they won’t get lost, and maybe they’ll even leave a mark.
(текст 2000-го года)
Слова:
escape — n, бегство, побег,избавление, v, бежать, спасаться
trend — тенденция
evident — очевидный
county — графство (в Англии), округ (в США)
decline — п, снижение, и,снижаться
to boom — процветать
downtown — центр города
inevitable — неизбежный
inevitably — неизбежно
to spring up — появляться, вырастать, подниматься
city folk — городские жители
entrepreneur — предприниматель
pasture — пастбище
overnight — ночной
shipping — перевозки
software — программное обеспечение ЭВМ
retailer — розничный торговец
retail — розничная торговля
account — счет
to open an account — открыть счет
