早稲田法2015 I

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Read the following passage from a weekly news magazine published in London and answer the questions below.

① The word "eco-city" first took off with a book written in 1987 by Richard Register, a green thinker based in California. Now, what may become the world's first city with the word in its name is beginning to take shape in the unlikely setting of a smog-shrouded expanse of mud on the northern Chinese coast. Around a salt lake that not so long ago was a sewage farm, energy-efficient apartment blocks are going up. Electric buses operate along the still largely empty streets. Public garbage cans are equipped with solar lighting so that residents can find them more easily at night. China's urban growth is warming up the planet, and the elaborately named Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City is being sold as a cool solution.

② Few other countries could dream of building a large city from scratch, let alone an eco one, but China has the advantage of a [ 1 ] approach to urban planning (and to governance in general). It can decree that a piece of land will become a green city, take it over, and sell it cheaply to developers. That is how the eco-project began in 2007, when Singapore proposed a co-operative green-city venture. China's leaders agreed, having recently awoken to the environmental horrors created by rapid urban expansion. Later that year, the ruling Communist Party of China formally declared that its goal was to build an "ecological civilization." The 30 square kilometers of inhospitable terrain near the northern port city of Tianjin became a testing ground.

③ China has tried a couple of eco-city projects before and failed. About 60 kilometers farther along the coast to the east of Tianjin, in Caofeidian, work began in 2009 on an eco-city aiming for 500,000 residents by 2020. Yet most of the site remains a wilderness, too remote to attract developers. In Shanghai, plans a decade ago for a similar-sized eco-city on an island of flood soil became entangled in local corruption and never got off the ground. But the Tianjin project, with strong backing from central and [ 2 ] governments, is making progress.

④ To give it a flying start, officials designated it as China's first industrial park devoted to the animation industry. The $690 million state-funded zone opened in 2011 and has attracted hundreds of businesses. To lure in more residents, the government built a Victorian-style school in brown brick with lavish facilities, including a room full of stuffed animals to help children learn about nature. ("All real, except the tiger and the panda," says a proud teacher.) A 350-bed hospital, supposedly one of the best in China, is due to be completed next year, at a cost of $110 million. At a control center, a dozen officials watch a giant screen displaying readings from heating and water systems, as well as feeds from closed- circuit cameras at traffic intersections. "If an emergency happens, we can respond," says an official surveying the images of lifeless streets. Officials are not deterred by the "ghost city" label. The city opened two years ago and now has 10,000 residents. By 2030 it aims to have 350,000. Work is due to begin this year on subway lines that will make it easier for locals to get to Tianjin itself, currently about an hour's drive away, and nearby industrial zones.

⑤ The government has a powerful [3] to support the project. Within China, public resentment of its deteriorating environment, particularly the poisonous haze over its cities, is growing, and abroad the country is being criticized for its contribution to global warming. In 2006 China became the world's biggest emitter of carbon from energy, overtaking America; it is now discharging nearly double America's level. The spread of Chinese smog across the region is worrying neighbors such as South Korea and Japan.

⑥ Ho Tong Yen, the Singaporean CEO of the eco-city's development company (and a director of Mr. Register's Californian consultancy, Ecocity Builders), says he believes many of the eco-city's methods will eventually become "a key part of urbanization in China." A decade ago, he recalls, Chinese officials he met at conferences would boast about their cities' economic growth. [ 4 ] they brag about how green their cities are. This sounds like a bit of a stretch. China's urban landscapes appear to be the antithesis of green: smog, foul-smelling streams and canals, roads jammed with cars belching out exhaust fumes, shoddy buildings erected with little regard for building codes. But growing public discontent with the urban environment is beginning to change what the officials say at least, and in some cities what they do as well. In recent years about a third of China's 600-plus municipalities have announced plans to turn themselves into eco-cities. The central government has imposed stricter controls on emissions of carbon and smog-forming pollutants. In March the prime minister, Li Keqiang, "declared war" on pollution. Smog, he said, was nature's "red-light warning against the model of inefficient and blind development." It was a remarkable admission of urbanization gone wrong.

⑦ Since there is no agreed definition of an eco-city, local governments interpret the term to suit themselves. They often use it as an excuse for prettification, or worse, for seizing yet more land from farmers and using it to build luxury housing, with golf courses next to them (because grass is "green"). Even the eco-city in Tianjin, a drought-prone area, has a golf course, supposedly irrigated with recycled water. Register himself is not altogether convinced by the project. In 2012 he wrote that its layout, [ 5 ] the wide streets and long blocks typical of modern Chinese cities, looked "every bit as if created to encourage driving." Its plan for 20% of its energy to come from renewable sources does not sound much bolder than the nationwide target of 15% by 2020, compared to 9% now.

⑧ And for all its claims to greenery, the eco-city lacks a vital ingredient: a thriving civil society that is free not only to protest about the environment but to put pressure on the government to live up to its promises. The Communist Party talks green and sometimes even acts green, but all the while it has been plotting to prevent the growth of an environmental movement. It does not want residents to set their own agenda for the way their cities are run.

[Adapted from a special report in The Economist (April 19, 2014).]

Choose the best way to complete these sentences about Paragraphs (I) to c.

1 In Paragraph ① writer mainly

2 In Paragraph ② writer mainly

3 In Paragraph ③ writer mainly

4 In Paragraph ④ writer mainly

5 In Paragraph ⑤ the writer mainly

6 In Paragraph ⑥ the writer mainly

7 In Paragraph ⑦ the writer mainly

8 In Paragraph ⑧ the writer mainly

A  argues that the autocratic character of the Chinese government makes it difficult for local communities to put forward their own opinions and policies regarding environmental problems.

B  contrasts the Japanese idea of the "smart city" with the concept of the "eco-city" being developed in China.

C  describes how damage to the environment from pollution has become much worse in China during recent years, leading to the raising of critical voices both inside and outside the country.

D  details how the different levels of Chinese government are now beginning not only to talk about the problems of urban pollution, but to act on them as well.

E  emphasizes the importance of designing new urban environments that are artistically pleasing as well as ecologically friendly.

F  explains the circumstances that make it easier for China to initiate an experiment in ecologically friendly urban planning.

G  focuses on the term "eco-city," touching on its origin and describing its incorporation into the name of a recent urban planning project.

H  lists the public initiatives and facilities that have been set up to help to ensure that Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City does not become another failed project.

I  notes the growing tensions between the Chinese and Singaporean governments concerning the management of the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City project.

J  outlines a couple of earlier Chinese attempts to create an eco-city in mainland China that were not successful.

K  points out concerns about a number of aspects of the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City project, including those from the originator of the concept of the eco-city.

(2) Choose the FOUR statements below which DO NOT agree with what is written in the passage. You must NOT choose more than FOUR statements.

A  A new hospital has already been completed in Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City, while a new school is currently under construction.

B  Around two hundred Chinese urban areas have recently put forward plans to transform themselves into eco-cities.

C  China outstripped the United States as the world's largest emitter of carbon from energy in 2006 and now accounts for close to double the American figure.

D  Ho Tong Yen is the head of the development company responsible for the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City project, and is focusing on economic growth.

E  In the spring of 2014, the Chinese prime minister announced a policy of fighting against the type of uncoordinated urban development that leads to environmental pollution.

F  Richard Register is the director of a California consulting firm who wrote a book popularizing the idea of the eco-city back in the 1980s.

G  Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City is not the only eco-city development project to be attempted on the northern Chinese coast.

H  Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City was opened to residents only seven years ago and already has over a quarter of a million people living within its boundaries.

I  Some Chinese local governments have used the concept of the eco-city as an excuse to take over farm land and build luxury housing and sports facilities.

J  The new eco-city in Tianjin is being built around a salt lake on around thirty square kilometers of muddy land.

K  The Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City project calls for the city to supply over half of its energy

needs from renewable sources by 2020.

(3) Choose the best way to fill each of the numbered blanks [1] to [5] found in the passage.

1 A bottom-up  B consensual  C democratic  D meritocratic  E top-down

2 A American  B local  C outstanding  D party  E Singaporean

3 A competitor  B incentive  C objection  D obstacle  E profit

4 A Always  B Later  C Now  D Often  E Soon

5 A after  B before  C despite  D with  E without

(4) Choose the best way to complete each of these sentences, which refer to underlined words in the passage.

1 Here "inhospitable" means

A unavailable.  B uncharted.  C uncompromising.  D uncultivated.  E uninviting.

2 Here "antithesis" means

A embodiment.  B enemy.  C essence  D ideology.  E opposite.

3 Here "shoddy" means

A badly made.  B extremely tall.  C inconvenient.  D outdated.  E oversized.

(5) Choose the most appropriate title for the passage from the list below.

A  Another Failed Eco-city

B  China Cuts Down on Carbon Emission

C  From Tianjin to California

D  Pollution Is Becoming a Political Issue

E  Richard Register's Dream Comes True