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The suburban lifestyle is the antithesis of a sustainable lifestyle.
郊区的生活方式是可持续生活方式的对立面。
Think about it.
想想看。
If you’ve ever lived in the suburbs, your life revolves around cars, large homes, and manicured lawns.
如果你住在郊区，你的生活就会围绕着汽车、大房子和修剪整齐的草坪打转。
All of which require immense amounts of energy, gas and materials to maintain.
所有这些都需要大量的能源、天然气和材料来维持。
According to one research paper, the suburbs require 2 to 2.5 times more energy per person than urban centers, while another recent study estimates that the emissions of wealthy suburbs can sometimes be 15 times higher than their surrounding neighborhoods.
一篇研究论文表明，郊区的人均能源需求比市中心多2到2.5倍，而另一项最新研究估计，富裕郊区的排放量有时可能比周边社区高出15倍。
In the US this large carbon footprint is deeply tied to the design of suburbia.
在美国，这种巨大的碳足迹与郊区的设计息息相关。
Sprawling lots of grass require fuel to mow, enormous homes suck up energy to heat and cool, and all of these homes are isolated from any shops or places of work, which means that you have to drive sometimes multiple hours a day to your job or to run errands.
比如，修剪杂乱无章的草地需要燃料，大房子的取暖和制冷需要吸收能量，而且所有这些房屋都与商店或上班地点相隔甚远，这就意味着，你有时不得不每天开好几个小时的车去上班或办事。
In the process of isolating themselves from the city, suburbanites also isolated themselves from everything else, making the trip to the store or the movies one ladened with emissions.
在与城市隔绝的过程中，郊区居民也将自己与其他一切隔绝开来，所以一旦他们去商店或电影院，路上就会充满废气。
Suburban design is a masterclass in not just exclusion but pollution.
郊区设计不仅在排外方面做得很好，在污染方面也是大师级别。
To demonstrate the effect of suburban living on the atmosphere a research group took the average carbon footprint of thousands of zip codes across the US and visualized that data as a heat map.
为了展示郊区生活对大气的影响，一个研究小组收集了全美数千个邮区的平均碳足迹数据，并将这些数据可视化为热图。
With each and every city, their map reveals low carbon footprints in the urban core and extremely high carbon footprints in the surrounding suburbs.
他们的地图显示，在每一座城市中，都是核心地区的碳足迹低，而周边郊区的碳足迹极高。
In order to build their supposed oases from the corruption of the city, suburbanites have left a trail of environmental destruction in their wake.
为了脱离城市的腐败，建造他们所谓的绿洲，郊区居民对环境造成了一系列破坏。
Or as environmental and urban historian Robert Gioielli writes: “The American metropolis is a constantly expanding and morphing racial petroscape, where decisions made to maintain racial inequality and white privilege reinforce carbon-intensive forms of urban development and mobility, while delegitimizing anything that would help cities move along a more sustainable path.”
或者正如环境和城市历史学家罗伯特·乔埃利所写的那样：“美国大都市是一个不断扩张和变化的种族岩石区，在那里，维持种族不平等和白人特权的各种决策，强化了碳密集型形式的城市发展和交通，同时使任何有助于城市走上更可持续发展道路的行为都失去了合法性。”
In short, the suburbs are unsustainable, and their environmental destruction is supported in part by a refusal to interrogate white privilege and the racial underpinnings that gave rise to them.
简而言之，郊区是不可持续的，郊区对环境的破坏在一定程度上可以归咎于，郊区居民拒绝质疑白人特权，以及产生这些特权的种族基础。
The suburbs are steeped in a legacy of settler-colonialism and racism that have locked the United States into one of the highest per capita emissions rates in the world.
郊区充斥着定居殖民主义和种族主义的遗留风气，而这些主义导致美国一直是世界上人均排放量最高的国家之一。
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
但我们其实还有其他选择。
There are so many alternatives across the world, and even within the US.
世界各地的选择非常多，甚至在美国国内也是如此。
We know that dense cities are less carbon intensive.
我们知道，人口密集的城市碳密集度较低。
They are the exact opposite of the suburban lifestyle.
他们与郊区的生活方式截然相反。
City dwellers have smaller homes, easier access to mass transit, and can walk or bike to stores and their jobs.
城市居民的住房较小，公共交通更方便，他们可以步行或骑自行车去购物和工作。
But we can’t just eliminate the suburbs and force everyone into the city, so what would it look like to transform the suburban landscape?
但我们不能只是清除掉郊区，然后强迫所有人进入城市，那么要如何改造郊区景观？
For one it would mean building a lot more low-income and accessible housing projects like the one that was blocked in Black Jack.
首先，要建造更多的低收入和无障碍住房项目，就像在黑杰克镇被阻止的那个项目。
It would also mean bringing places of work, play, and stores closer to the home, so people can walk or bike to them instead of using the car, and finally it means dramatically expanding public transportation options in a dense net throughout neighborhoods and between suburb and city.
还要缩短住宅与上班地点、娱乐场所和商店之间的距离，这样人们就可以步行或骑自行车，而不是开车去这些地方了；最后，要在整个社区，以及郊区和城市之间的密集网络中，大幅增加公共交通设施。
This all requires an emphasis on mixed-use zoning laws over single-family zoning, public investment in transportation, and an overhaul of infrastructure, all of which require incredible political pressure.
这一切都需要聚焦于混合用途分区法，而不是单一家庭分区法；在交通方面投入公共资金；以及对基础设施进行全面改革，所有这些都需要在政治领域施加极大压力。
But right now, in the local planning boards of American suburbs, that political pressure looks like the opposite of what we need.
但现在，在美国郊区的地方规划委员会中，这种政治压力与我们所需要的似乎是南辕北辙。
It looks like older white folks pushing back against any change that may disrupt their views, their yards, or their suburban safe havens.
看起来，年长的白人抵制任何可能破坏他们的视野、庭院或郊区避风港的变化。
Even for self-professed environmentalists and progressives, like Susan Kirsch, settler-colonial racism and entitlement still tints the justification of suburban living.
即使对于苏珊·基尔希这样自称是环保主义者和进步人士的人来说，定居殖民种族主义和特权感也仍然是在郊区生活的正当理由。
Kirsch lives in Mill Valley, a suburb of San Francisco, and spearheaded the successful campaign to block California’s eradication of single-family zoning laws.
基尔希住在旧金山郊区的米尔谷，她曾带头成功阻止了加州废除单一家庭分区法。
According to Kirsch, “climate change is one of the real serious issues that we have to deal with," yet when it comes to transforming her suburban enclave into one with more environmentally ethical infrastructure, she echoes decades upon decades of white people refusing to change in the suburbs by saying “I don't think we need to be forcing draconian measures.”
根据基尔希的说法，“气候变化是我们必须应对的真正严重的问题之一，”然而，当谈到在她的郊区飞地增添更符合环境伦理的基础设施时，她的回答与几十年来白人拒绝改变郊区的说法一样：“我认为我们不需要强制采取严厉的措施。”
So while the destruction of the suburbs necessitates the transformation of antiquated design and policies, it also requires an interrogation of the racism and settler-colonial culture that reinforces them.
因此，尽管摧毁郊区需要改变过时的设计和政策，但也需要对助长这些设计和政策的定居殖民文化和种族主义进行审视。
Until we wrestle with the unconscious and conscious bigotry, hatred, and entitlement that spawns from our culture, the suburban lifestyle will continue to stand in our way of creating environmentally sound and community-focused ways of living.
除非我们与从我们的文化中产生的无意识和有意识的偏见、仇恨和特权感作斗争，否则郊区的生活方式将继续阻碍我们创造对环境无害并以社区为中心的生活方式。
