郊區(qū)：從逃離之地到安居之所

Cities are endlessly celebrated; the suburbs are derided. Urban culture is the apex of cool. Suburbs are places to leave, settlements on a horizon just close enough to the glamour of the metropolis to feel its glow yet too far to feel a part of it.

城市永遠被歌頌，郊區(qū)則是被嘲諷的對象。城市文化代表了酷的極致。郊區(qū)則是人們選擇離開的地方，在這種地方定居，距離大都市的魅力足夠近以至于可以感受到它所散發(fā)的光彩，但要融入成為城市的一部分又距離太遠。

They are places for parents, not youth, despite the irony that couples move to the suburbs to find better conditions for their children: housing, schooling, more space and safety. It is no accident that the music and fashion movements that come from the suburbs — Mod, Punk, New Wave and onwards — are based on a particularly suburban alienation and a desire for the coolness or the anarchy of the urban future.

郊區(qū)是屬于父母而不是年輕人的地方，有諷刺意味的是，家長們遷居郊區(qū)正是為了給自己的子女尋求更好的生活條件：例如住房、學校教育、更寬闊的空間和更高的安全性等。絕非偶然的是，源自郊區(qū)的音樂和時尚潮流——例如摩登派(Mod)、朋克(Punk)、新浪潮(New Wave)等等——是基于某種獨特的郊區(qū)隔離景象以及對于扮酷的渴望，或者對于城市未來無政府主義狀態(tài)的向往。

With the suburb as a place for the young to escape from, what happens when the city becomes too successful? When the young can no longer afford to rent even the tiniest of apartments? What has tended to happen is that the centre grows, subsuming successive once-suburban centres into its maw.

郊區(qū)是年輕人逃離的地方，但當城市變得過于成功時會怎樣呢?例如當年輕人負擔不起城里哪怕最為窄小的公寓的房租時會出現(xiàn)什么情況?通常的結(jié)果是，城市中心不斷擴張，把一個又一個曾經(jīng)的郊區(qū)中心吞入腹中。

Whether it is Red Hook in Brooklyn or Peckham in southeast London, gentrified suburbs cease to be suburban, price their original residents out and the suburbs move further from the centre. The future of suburbs is one of the biggest questions facing cities today.

不論是布魯克林的紅鉤區(qū)(Red Hook)還是倫敦東南部的佩卡姆區(qū)(Peckham)，中產(chǎn)階級化的郊區(qū)已經(jīng)褪去了郊區(qū)的氣息，高昂的物價水平迫使原住居民遷出，真正的郊區(qū)轉(zhuǎn)移到了距離城市中心更遠的地方。郊區(qū)的未來是城市目前面臨的最重大問題之一。

The British invented them. Bedford Park in west London and Hampstead Garden Suburb to the north, were conceived a century or so ago as antidotes to city horrors. Britain’s great contribution to urbanism amounts to a subversion of the city, mankind’s great invention, into a poor imitation of the country.

英國人發(fā)明了郊區(qū)。倫敦西部的貝德福德公園(Bedford Park)和北部的漢普斯特德花園郊區(qū)(Hampstead Garden Suburb)是在約一個世紀以前作為化解城市恐懼癥的解藥而設計構(gòu)想出來的。英國對于城市化的重要貢獻在于，將城市這一人類偉大的發(fā)明，顛覆為了對于鄉(xiāng)村的一種粗糙模仿。

In the UK, about 80 per cent (in the US about half) of the population live in areas that could be called suburban. Yet very little thought in architecture, planning and culture, is given to the suburbs.

在英國，約有80%(在美國這一比例約為二分之一)的人口居住在稱得上是郊區(qū)的地區(qū)。但人們在討論有關建筑、規(guī)劃以及文化等方面的問題時很少考慮到郊區(qū)。

This is very different from the US postwar period, when they were seen as the engine of the consumer economy. Every family that moved from a city apartment to a suburban house would need to fill it with goods, buy a car, a lawnmower. The suburbs were subsidised by stealth with mortgage tax relief, road building and utilities infrastructure and the money flowed back in manufacturing and white collar jobs and taxes. In the UK the move started earlier, as London’s underground railway extended beyond the confines of the city into a countryside that would allow the English idyll of rural living.

這與美國戰(zhàn)后時期的情況大相徑庭，當時郊區(qū)被視為推動消費經(jīng)濟的引擎。每個從城市公寓搬往郊區(qū)大宅的家庭都需要采購物品填充宅院，買輛車，再買一臺割草機。郊區(qū)不聲不響享受到的補貼包括抵押貸款稅收減免、道路建設和公共基礎設施，這些資金又通過創(chuàng)造制造業(yè)和白領工作崗位以及稅收等形式流回了政府手中。在英國，從城市到郊區(qū)的遷移開始得更早，因為倫敦的地鐵遠遠超出了城區(qū)范圍延伸到了郊區(qū)，而郊區(qū)可以讓英式田園牧歌般的鄉(xiāng)村生活成為現(xiàn)實。

The key difference between US and UK suburbs was transport. In Britain, they were located around bus, tube and train routes. US suburbia was based on the car. The atomisation of the auto-suburb did little for community or cohesion. Endless plots of detached houses echoed the homesteader’s dream of independent living but also created a landscape of social isolation.

英美兩國郊區(qū)最主要的區(qū)別在于交通。在英國，郊區(qū)分布在公交、地鐵和火車線路周圍。而美國的郊區(qū)則主要依賴汽車。車輪上的郊區(qū)的社會原子化趨勢對于促進社區(qū)發(fā)展或者增強社區(qū)凝聚力幾乎毫無幫助。一望無際的成片獨立房屋吻合了土地所有者獨立生活的夢想，但也導致了社會隔離的景象。

US suburbs often contain the wealth. Downtown Detroit might appear an apocalyptic landscape but its suburbs provide the leafy surrounds and affluent homes of the executives who work in its glossy towers. The suburbs of Paris, by contrast, are dominated by the landscape of alienation that is the banlieues.

美國的郊區(qū)常有富人居住。底特律的市中心或許呈現(xiàn)出一派世界末日般的景象，但底特律的郊區(qū)則有著樹木蔥郁的環(huán)境和一戶戶富裕的人家，后者屬于那些在該市富麗堂皇的高樓中工作的企業(yè)高管們。與此形成鮮明對比的是，巴黎的郊區(qū)則充斥著城郊貧民區(qū)與世隔離的景象。

The pressing question, given the centrality of the suburb to the housing problem, is what can be done to make the suburbs better places, more efficient, more desirable. “The solution will require the densification of the city fringes,” says Ellis Woodman, director of London’s Architecture Foundation.

鑒于郊區(qū)在住房問題中的核心地位，當前最緊要的問題是我們能做些什么以使郊區(qū)變得更好，更加節(jié)能高效、適宜居住。“解決之道在于提高郊區(qū)的人口密度，”埃利斯•伍德曼(Ellis Woodman)表示，他是倫敦建筑基金會(Architecture Foundation)的主管。

The challenge “is how you make them more than just dormitory villages. The great value of residential property means other uses are being driven out.”

當前的挑戰(zhàn)是，“我們應如何讓郊區(qū)變得不僅僅是睡村?住宅地產(chǎn)的巨大價值意味著，郊區(qū)的其他用途正在被擠出。”

“Densification” means the intensification of use and density to make the suburbs more populous and efficient. That process carries with it destruction of qualities — greenery, privacy, space — that attracted people to the suburbs, but another way to look at it is that this is the nature of cities as they grow.

“密集化”意味著使用強度和密度的提升，以使郊區(qū)聚集更多人口，運轉(zhuǎn)效率更高。這一過程將導致生活品質(zhì)的下降——例如體現(xiàn)在環(huán)境綠化、私密性和活動空間等方面——而生活品質(zhì)正是吸引人們遷往郊區(qū)的原因，但從另一個角度來看，這一過程是城市發(fā)展中的自然現(xiàn)象。

The argument is that the suburbs should, effectively, be made more like the centre. Mark Brearley, professor at the Cass School in London, suggests the future for the suburb rests in its High Street or Main Street.

有人據(jù)此提出，郊區(qū)事實上應被打造得更像城市中心。倫敦卡斯商學院(Cass Business School)教授馬克•布萊爾利(Mark Brearley)指出，郊區(qū)的未來取決于其主要商業(yè)街或中心街道。

This “can be an ideal for the future not just a residue from the past”, he says. The mix of shops, services, small-scale manufacturing, garages and churches “make it a perfect place for start-ups and a front window for the economy”. That, he suggests, is what attracts people from elsewhere, slowly making a place more urban and less suburban.

這“或許能成為未來的一種理想狀態(tài)，而不僅僅是維持過去的樣子”，他表示。商店、服務業(yè)、小型制造業(yè)、汽車修理廠以及教堂的共存“使郊區(qū)成為初創(chuàng)企業(yè)安家的完美地點，也能為整體經(jīng)濟提供一扇窗口。”他指出，這正是把人們從其他地方吸引到郊區(qū)來的原因所在，與此同時也使這個地方逐漸褪去郊區(qū)氣息，變得愈加城市化。

In the UK, Croydon, to the south of London, has shown what can be done. Designated in the 1960s as an overspill for London commerce, its centre was densified with towers in a way that was much derided yet has proved successful and adaptable. It has some awful buildings but retains a sense of 1960s idealism which has served it well.

在英國，倫敦南部的克羅伊登(Croydon)已經(jīng)展示了我們能夠做些什么。該區(qū)是二十世紀六十年代為容納倫敦過于擁擠的商業(yè)而創(chuàng)設的，高樓大廈密布在克羅伊登中心地區(qū)，雖然這種模式曾經(jīng)備受批評，但現(xiàn)已被證明為是成功并適宜的。這里有一些頗為糟糕的建筑，但保留了二十世紀六十年代的理想主義氣息，而這種理想主義給克羅伊登帶來了積極的影響。

Is a densified suburb a suburb? What of Kensington, Neuilly-sur-Seine or Nassau County, Long Island. They retain much of what made them desirable, yet have become absorbed into the city.

密集化的郊區(qū)還能被稱為是郊區(qū)嗎?我們又應如何看待肯辛頓(Kensington)、塞納河畔納伊(Neuilly-sur-Seine)或者長島的拿騷縣(Nassau County)呢?這些地區(qū)保留了使它們變得適宜居住的許多元素，但它們已經(jīng)被吸收為了城市的一部分。