通勤铁路线新建高层公寓 员工被高房价逼走

The oft-used advertisement — “If you lived here, you’d be home by now” — usually seen stretched across blocks of new high-rise flats overlooking commuter train lines, carries a cruel irony for the passengers who pass it every day.

在可以俯瞰通勤铁路线的新建高层公寓附近，人们经常会看到这种频繁出现的广告：“如果你住在这里，你现在已经到家啦”。对于每天经过这幅广告的乘客而言，它带有一种残忍的讽刺。

Many of them would love to live there but cannot afford to. So they live outside the city and travel in each day.

很多人愿意住在这里，但买不起。因此，他们住在城市外面，每天通勤。

Economically successful cities are growing rapidly and struggling to find housing for their swelling populations. At the same time some have seen an influx of the international rich, although this is said to benefit an area’s economy, according to research published last year by property analysts Ramidus Consulting. The average buyer of a ￡15m UK home, it said, spent ￡4m to ￡5m a year on goods and services in Britain. In total, Ramidus calculated, London’s super-rich added ￡4bn a year to the capital’s economy.

经济成功的城市正快速发展，它们很难为日益增长的人口找到住房。同时，国际富豪涌入其中一些城市——尽管根据房地产分析机构Ramidus Consulting去年公布的研究，这有利于该地区经济。研究称，在英国购置了价值1500万英镑的房子的典型买家，每年在英国的商品和服务上花销400万至500万英镑。据Ramidus计算，伦敦超富人群每年为伦敦经济做出总计40亿英镑的贡献。

But by flocking to thriving conurbations such as London, incomers risk killing some of the things they may love about an area. By driving up house prices, they push out the diverse mix of locals who give the place its buzzy vibe.

但外来者涌入伦敦等蓬勃发展的大都市圈，可能会毁灭这个地区的一些或许为他们喜爱的东西。通过推升房价，他们把那些给这个城市带来热闹氛围的多样化的本地人挤了出去。

City dwellers around the world pay $650bn more a year in housing costs than they can afford as rapid urban growth meets a constrained supply, research published last year by consultants McKinsey found.

咨询机构麦肯锡(McKinsey)去年公布的研究发现，由于城市的快速发展遇上供应有限的瓶颈，全球城市居民每年付出的住房成本超出他们的承受能力6500亿美元。

Some of the world’s leading urban areas face the biggest housing cost problems, with New York, Tokyo and London among the worst affected. Beijing, São Paulo and Buenos Aires are among those suffering most in lower-income cities.

全球一些领先城市地区正面临最严重的住房成本问题，纽约、东京和伦敦受到的影响最为严重。北京、圣保罗和布宜诺斯艾利斯是收入较低城市中受到影响最为严重的几个。

Toby Lloyd, head of policy at Shelter, a British housing charity, says that cities need to accommodate people on a wide range of incomes in order to thrive. “If a city can’t provide the homes its nurses, teachers, shop workers and cleaners can afford, eventually it will choke off its own economic success,” he says.

英国住房慈善组织Shelter政策主管托比•劳埃德(Toby Lloyd)表示，要想繁荣，城市需要容纳不同收入的人群。他表示：“如果一个城市不能为护士、教师、商店员工和清洁工提供住房，最终这将扼杀其经济成功。”

A third of workers in developed economies need some form of housing subsidy, according to Christine Whitehead, a professor of housing economics at the London School of Economics. But many big cities’ policy makers have not kept up with their rising populations. As a result, more people are moving further away from their workplaces and commuting long distances.

伦敦政治经济学院(London School of Economics)住房经济学教授克里斯蒂娜•怀特黑德(Christine Whitehead)表示，在发达国家，三分之一的劳动者需要某种形式的住房补贴。但很多大城市的政策制定者没有跟上人口增长的需要。因此，更多的人搬到距离工作地更远的地方住，每天长距离上下班。

In London, which is battling rapidly rising house prices, the problem has become acute. House prices increased by 9.4 per cent in the past year, according to official data. KPMG research says a Londoner must earn ￡77,000 a year in order to be able to buy. Salaries in the city average ￡34,320.

在正应对房价快速上涨的伦敦，这个问题已变得严重起来。根据官方数据，过去一年，伦敦房价上涨9.4%。毕马威(KPMG)研究称，伦敦人必须每年挣7.7万英镑才能买得起房。而伦敦的平均薪资为34320美元。

Businesses are worried. The London Chamber of Commerce and fellow lobbyists London First have cited housing affordability as one of their members’ biggest concerns. More than half of employees surveyed by London First say rent or mortgage costs make it difficult for them to live and work in the capital.

企业感到担忧。伦敦工商会(London Chamber of Commerce)和另一个游说团体London First指出，它们的会员企业最大的顾虑之一就是房价可承受度。在接受London First调查的员工中，超过一半表示，租金或房贷成本让他们很难在伦敦生活和工作。

Baroness Jo Valentine, London First chief executive, says: “London’s chronic housing shortage is making it difficult for many of those with the talents the capital needs to live and work here, and this problem will only get worse unless we start building more homes.” Particularly badly hit are younger workers, aged between 25 and 40.

London First首席执行官乔•瓦伦丁女男爵(Baroness Jo Valentine)表示：“伦敦长期的住房短缺让很多伦敦需要的人才很难在这里生活和工作，除非我们开始建设更多住房，否则这个问题只会越来越严重。”较为年轻的员工（年龄介于25岁至40岁之间）受到的影响最大。

“For a world-leading city that owes much of its success to the service sector and knowledge-based industries, losing a tranche of its young professionals would be disastrous,” she adds.

她补充称：“对于一个其成功很大程度上有赖于服务业和知识性行业的世界领先城市而言，部分年轻专业人士的流失将是灾难性的。”

High housing costs in cities often spread into areas to which priced-out former city-dwellers move. Their influx pushes up prices in other parts of the country, as workers commute ever longer distances.

城市的高房价通常会向外溢出，影响到被高房价逼走的曾经的城市居民搬往的地区。他们的涌入抬高了该国其他地区的房价，劳动者通勤里程越来越长。

Savills, a property group, last year found that growing numbers of London employees are becoming “work tourists”, while areas with more London workers have seen house price rises.

房地产集团第一太平戴维斯(Savills)去年发现，越来越多的伦敦员工正成为“工作游客”，拥有较多在伦敦工作的上班族的地区出现房价上涨。

Perhaps the best-known example of new housing built for those priced out of cities was US housebuilder William Levitt’s post-second world war prefabricated suburbs known as “Levittowns”. He had four of these developments built in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Puerto Rico.

为那些被城市高房价逼走的人们建造新房的最知名例子，或许就是美国房屋建筑商威廉•莱维特(William Levitt)在二战后打造的人造郊区，也就是所谓“莱维特镇”(Levittowns)。他在纽约、宾夕法尼亚、新泽西和波多黎各开发了4个这样的项目。

The houses were sold to war veterans who wished to move out of pokey city apartments into spacious family housing, which meant a long commute for those wanting to keep their jobs.

这些房子销售给那些希望搬出沉闷的城市公寓、住进宽敞的家庭式住房的退伍老兵，这意味着，那些希望继续工作的人要每天长时间通勤。

En route to and from the city, Levittown residents probably went past highly-priced new developments, which, like many of today’s workers, they simply could not afford.

在往返城市的路上，莱维特镇居民很可能会经过一些价格高昂的新房地产开发项目，与今天很多员工一样，他们根本买不起。