6 What I like and dislike about my own town or city

A Read the interviews of four Londoners and do the tasks that follow.

Peter Wilson: ‘The most difficult part of living in London is the appalling transport facilities, everything from roads to underground, and we don’t seem to be doing anything about it. The problem is at the top; they spend millions doing up the stations and nothing on the services. I think it is dirty because the British are dirty. They drop things. In this country there is a culture of the countryside; as soon as you have made your pile you move out of town. I think one reason London is such a poor place is that not enough rich people live here. They all live outside.’

Shirley Wilson: ‘I don’t think it’s very safe, but I should not want to live anywhere else. I am very wary when using transport but the dangers are part of city life. I like everything in London, the theatres and the cinemas, but the people are less friendly than elsewhere.’

Jad Adams: ‘The bad things like crime and high house prices are exaggerated. People have always felt life was worse in the cities but if they hated it that much they would live in Milton Keynes.’

Sallika Wijesinghe: ‘I don’t go out after six at night. When I first came to England about 20 years ago you could walk the streets at two a.m. without fear, but I have been mugged and abused and will not go out alone. It is an amusing and entertaining place, but there is too much liberty, no discipline. I think it is a very difficult city to manage. The underground is alright but the bus services are awful. You wait for hours and then 16 come together, all empty. The roads are full of pot-holes, you are always falling into pot-holes. What is needed is stricter administration.’

B Tick which points each speaker mentions. Explain what they said about each point.

Entertainment Safety Transport Money Litter People

Peter .................................................................................................

Shirley …………………................……………………...………...

Jad ………............…….....………….…………………..………....

Sallika ……………….........……………………….…………….

C What is your own town or city like? Exchange the information with your patners.

7 Over the recent years there seems to have been a swing against the popularity of high-rise buildings

A Discuss with your patners strong and weak points of living in high-rise houses.

B Read the text below and do the tasks that follow.

Flats in the Clouds

Blocks of “high-rise” flats have been erected in large numbers in London and in many other big cities. Just after the Second World War these immense twenty-to-thirty storey buildings, hundreds of feet in height, were thought to be the ideal solution to the dual problem of acute housing shortage and lack of space in urban areas. At first, the ultramodern apartments were much sought after by city dwellers, and hundreds of the vast blocks had been built before anyone began to doubt that they were suitable places for people, children especially, to live in. A well-known British architect, who personally designed many of these buildings, now believes that they may well have inflicted a great deal of suffering on those people who have been housed in them, and evidence has been amassed by sociologists which suggests that severe loneliness and deep depression are brought about by life within these great towers. Some psychologists even maintain that an unduly large proportion of their inhabitants suffer from mental disorders and develop criminal tendencies.

C Say if your ideas are in any way similar to those of the author.

D Pick out the key-words/phrases to describe: