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Here on this Levittown and Sons construction site,
在萊維特父子公司的工地上
they're building houses almost as fast as babies are born.
建房速度幾乎能趕得上嬰兒出生的速度
One every 16 minutes.8:00 am, trucks unload.
每16分鐘建成一棟，早上8時 卡車卸貨
9:30, bathrooms arrive.11:00, floors are laid.
9時30分 浴室運到了，11時 地板已經鋪好
300 windows a day.30 baths a day.
一天能裝300個窗戶，30個浴室
These techniques are inspired by the industrial age.
這些技術是受工業時代的啟發
1840, Lowell Mills Massachusetts,
1840年馬薩諸塞州洛威爾的紡織廠
the manufacture of cotton is transformed by mechanized looms.
機械化的織布機改變了棉布的生產方式
1918, Henry Ford's Detroit production line.
1918年亨利·福特的底特律工廠的生產線
The automobile revolution.
掀起了一場汽車革命
Now in the 1950s
如今 到了20世紀50年代
America is mass producing family homes.
美國開始批量建造住房
Levitt and Sons call it the Ford production line of house building.
萊維特父子公司稱之為房屋建筑的福特流水線
This is human enterprise.Human ingenuity.
這是人的進取心 人的獨創性
Putting these buildings there they were put there by free men and women making their own free decisions.
這些房屋是由自由的美國人 按自己意愿建造的
By 1951, Levittown New York has 17,000 identical new homes.
截至1951年 紐約萊維特鎮新建了一萬七千棟一模一樣的房屋
A second Levittown is built in Philadelphia.
隨后又在費城建立了第二個萊維特鎮
A third in New Jersey.
在新澤西建立了第三個
My father grew up very poor during the Depression.
我父親孩提時代正逢經濟大蕭條 家中十分拮據
He fought in World War II.
他參加了二戰
It was a big deal for him to get out of a poor neighborhood
很難得 他后來擺脫貧窮的生活環境
and buy a 50x100 lot in Franklin Square Long Island,where I grew up.
在長島富蘭克林廣場買了一塊長100寬50的地 我就在那長大
There was a feeling the country now has regained prosperity.
人們確實感覺到 美國重新開始繁榮起來
After the long decade of the Great Depression
經過大蕭條那漫長的十年
which had made many people think the prosperity might never return.
人們都認為繁榮一去不返了
A family home for less than $8,000.
一間不到八千美元的住宅
That's $71,000 in today's money.
相當于當下的七萬一千美元
Down to the eve of World War II, down to 1940 or so
二戰后期 20世紀40年代
only about 40% of Americans owned their own homes.
僅約四成美國人擁有自己的住房
By 1960, one short generation later,
到1960年 僅僅過了一代
60% of Americans owned their own homes.
已經有六成美國人擁有自己的房子
That's just one way to quantify
窺一斑而見全豹
the spread of affluence and prosperity
可見當時富足與繁榮傳播有多迅速
and all that came with that in terms of self-confidence and enthusiasm for the future.
以及隨之而來的自信，以及對美好未來的熱忱
The American home has developed since the Pilgrims,into, really, the center of the family.
自清教徒時代開始家逐漸成為美國家庭真正的中心
The family is the most important social unit in the United States.
家庭是美國最重要的社會組成單元
And it should be.
理應如此
