From the bubonic plague to cholera and tuberculosis, disease and pandemics th have changed the way cities have been built. For example, buildings in 19 century Paris were designed with large, high-up windows to allow plenty of sunlight. They were supposed to stop the spread of tuberculosis.
Coronavirus has been no different. In lockdown, cities from Rio to Barcelona were transformed as wildlife and birdsong replaced the noise of taxi horns and traffic. And with no car pollution you could even see the stars at night!
In this programme we’ll be asking if cities after lockdown will ever be the same again – and if we want them to be.
在这个节目中，我们将询问封锁后的城市是否会再次相同 —— 以及我们是否希望它们保持不变。
Rob(罗伯)
We’ll be hearing some ideas from different cities around the world.
我们将听到来自世界各地不同城市的一些想法。
Neil(尼尔)
And of course we’ll be learning some new vocabulary along the way. One of the cities most affected by Covid-19 was Mumbai in India – but approximately how many people were affected? What’s the estimated population of Mumbai? That’s my quiz question for you today Rob. Is it: a) 15 million people? b) 20 million people? or, c) 25 million people?
I know Mumbai is an international mega-city so I’ll say b) 20 million people.
我知道孟买是一个国际特大城市，所以我会说b）2000万人口。
Neil(尼尔)
OK, Rob, we’ll find out later if that’s right. Now, Beatriz Colomina is a professor of architecture at Princeton University in the United States. She’s spent years researching the relationship between cities and disease. Here she is talking with Kavita Puri, presenter of BBC World Service programme, The Inquiry:
Take tuberculosis. Unlike cholera, which was eliminated in London by re- designing the sewage system in the 1850s, TB was airborne.
以肺结核为例。与1850年代通过重新设计污水处理系统在伦敦消除的霍乱不同，结核病是通过空气传播的。
Professor Colomina(Colomina教授)
It became a real problem with the rise of the industrial cities, the metropolis, before an antibiotic was effective.
在抗生素有效之前，随着工业城市、大都市的兴起，这成为一个真正的问题。
Kavita Puri(卡维塔·普里)
One in seven people on the planet had TB, but in dense cities like Paris, it was one in three. Closely packed tenements meant the disease spread like wildfire and architects and planning experts responded.
Some diseases, like cholera, could be prevented by redesigning cities to improve th hygiene, like the waste water sewers in 19 century London. But the problem with tuberculosis, or TB for short, was that the disease is airborne – carried and spread in the air.
Adding to the problem was the fact that antibiotics – medicines like penicillin that can destroy harmful bacteria or stop their growth – was not discovered until 1928 – too late to save the thousands of people who died in Mumbai, New York, Paris and other cities during the 1800s.
Diseases like TB killed more and more people as cities industrialised and grew bigger and bigger, leading to the creation of the metropolis – the largest, busiest and most important city in a country or region.
Many people crowded together in large metropolises meaning that disease could spread like wildfire – an idiom meaning spread quickly around many people.
许多人挤在大城市里，这意味着疾病可以像野火一样蔓延 —— 这个谚语的意思是在许多人中迅速传播。
Rob(罗伯)
Even today disease is shaping our cities. In post-Covid Paris, new ideas for a ’15 minute city’ aim to make all public services available within a fifteen minute walk to help people working from home.
When you shift them out, you’re moving them away from their livelihoods and they’re not going to be able to sustain themselves there so they will be coming back because their jobs are in the city and they cannot afford the commute from further off places.
Dr Vaidehi Tandel there, talking on the BBC World Service programme The Inquiry. Trying to make cities less crowded is one way to minimise the risks from disease. But moving people away from the city centre means moving them away from their livelihood – their job or other way of earning money to pay for food, housing and clothing.
Many people still want to live near their workplace in the city centre because they can’t afford to pay for the commute – the journey between their home and their place of work.
许多人仍然希望住在市中心的工作场所附近，因为他们负担不起通勤费用 —— 从家到工作地点的旅程。
Rob(罗伯)
Which is real problem when you live in a city of… how many people did you say live in Mumbai, Neil?
当你住在一个城市时，这是真正的问题......尼尔，你说有多少人住在孟买？
Neil(尼尔)
Ah yes, in our quiz question I asked you what the estimated population of Mumbai is.
啊，是的，在我们的测验问题中，我问你孟买的估计人口是多少。
Rob(罗伯)
I said b) 20 million.
我说b）2000万。
Neil(尼尔)
And you were absolutely right! Around 20 million people live in the Mumbai metropolis, making it very difficult to socially distance.
你是绝对正确的！大约有 2000 万人居住在孟买大都市，因此很难保持社交距离。
Rob(罗伯)
In this programme we’ve been discussing the relationship between cities and disease. In the 1800s, tuberculous, or TB, killed thousands because it was an airborne disease – spread in the air, and hard to prevent.
Antibiotics – medicinal chemicals like penicillin which can destroy harmful germs, couldn’t help because they weren’t discovered until decades later.
抗生素 - 像青霉素这样的药用化学物质可以消灭有害细菌，无济于事，因为它们直到几十年后才被发现。
Rob(罗伯)
So in metropolises – the largest and most important cities, where people live crowded close together, diseases spread like wildfire – an idiom meaning spread widely and quickly.
In Mumbai and other places, the problem remains that many people need the city for their livelihood – job or other way of earning money.
在孟买和其他地方，问题仍然存在，许多人需要城市来谋生 —— 工作或其他赚钱方式。
Rob(罗伯)
So they prefer to live in the city centre instead of paying for the daily commute – a journey, often by train, bus or car, from your home to your workplace.
That’s all we have time for in this programme, but remember you can find more useful vocabulary, trending topics and help with your language learning here at BBC Learning English. Bye for now!
这就是我们在这个计划中的全部时间，但请记住，您可以在 BBC Learning English 找到更多有用的词汇、热门话题并帮助您学习语言。再见！
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