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GE’s affection for its old home in Connecticut was no doubt weakened by the state’s decision in 2015 to raise business taxes by $750m.
2015年康涅狄克州政府將企業(yè)稅提高了7.5億美元，毫無(wú)疑問(wèn)，這讓通用集團(tuán)對(duì)老東家的感情受到嚴(yán)重傷害。
Boston provided an estimated $145m in incentives to secure the deal.
而波士頓為了使企業(yè)扎根，提供了約1.45億美元的激勵(lì)。
Still, something is clearly changing in America’s older cities.
但是，美國(guó)的一些舊城市正發(fā)生顯著變化。
They are much less crime-ridden than before, thanks to a combination of better policing and demographic change.
城市中心區(qū)因?yàn)橹伟补芾矸矫娴募訌?qiáng)，以及人口結(jié)構(gòu)的改變，犯罪率較以前大大減少。
The homicide rate fell by16.8% from 2000 to 2010 in big cities.
從2000至2010十年間，大城市中的謀殺率也下降了16.8%。
Now these urban centres are magnets for millennials fresh from university and with few responsibilities.
如今，城市中心區(qū)對(duì)剛從大學(xué)畢業(yè)、卻鮮有責(zé)任感的千禧一代有著較大的吸引力。
Young professionals are reconquering former no-go areas and shifting the problem of urban blight into the suburbs.
年輕職業(yè)人在重征這片之前被稱為“禁區(qū)”之地時(shí)，同時(shí)也將城市問(wèn)題轉(zhuǎn)向了郊區(qū)。
Hiring such people in Boston, GE reckons, will help it shift its focus from hardware to software and from selling things to offering services over the internet.
通用認(rèn)為，雇傭這些人到波士頓，可以將公司側(cè)重點(diǎn)從硬件轉(zhuǎn)向軟件，從網(wǎng)絡(luò)銷售商品轉(zhuǎn)為網(wǎng)上提供服務(wù)。
Yet the new downtown headquarters are very different from the old ones, and not just because they are open-plan and trendy.
但是，新城區(qū)的公司和舊式的公司不同，并不僅僅是因?yàn)檫@些公司是時(shí)髦的開(kāi)放式辦公室。
They are far smaller.
還在于這些公司的規(guī)模小得多。
Often, firms are moving their senior managers to the city along with a few hundred digital workers.
公司搬進(jìn)城市時(shí)帶著他們的高級(jí)經(jīng)理和數(shù)百位技術(shù)人員。
Moving back to Chicago’s centre has usually involved downsizing.
遷入芝加哥中心的同時(shí)也在縮減規(guī)模。
Motorola Solutions’ HQ shrank from 2,900 to 1,100, and that of Archer Daniels Midland from 4,400 to 70.
摩托羅拉從2900人減少到1100人，阿徹丹尼爾斯米德蘭由4400人減少到70人。
Many companies are deconstructing their headquarters and scattering different units and functions across the landscape, leaving most middle managers in the old buildings, or else moving them to cheaper places in the southern states.
許多公司在分流他們的總部，將不同部門(mén)和職能的人員分散在整個(gè)城市中心區(qū)，讓許多中層經(jīng)理留在舊辦公樓中，或者搬至價(jià)格更便宜的南方各州。
Aaron Renn of the Manhattan Institute, a think tank, reckons that head offices are splitting into two types: old-fashioned “mass” headquarters in the sunbelt cities, and new-style “executive headquarters” of senior managers and wired workers in elite cities such as San Francisco, Chicago and Boston.
曼哈頓研究院是一家智庫(kù)，其研究員亞倫·雷恩認(rèn)為現(xiàn)在公司總部分為兩總類型：一種是陽(yáng)光地帶城市中舊式“大規(guī)模”型的總部；另一類是在舊金山、芝加哥和波士頓這樣的精英之城中僅有高級(jí)管理階層以及普通電子技術(shù)工人的新式總部。
That suggests there will be no return to the broad-based urban prosperity of America’s golden age.
這表明美國(guó)并不是回到黃金時(shí)代中規(guī)模宏大的城市繁榮。
San Francisco could be the template of the future.
舊金山會(huì)成為未來(lái)城市的模版。
Its centre is divided between affluent young people who frequent vegan cafes and homeless people who smoke crack and urinate in the streets.
在舊金山中心區(qū)，經(jīng)常去素食餐廳的富家子弟與吸毒、隨地大小便的流浪漢各占半壁江山。
Long-standing San Franciscans resent the way that the urban professionals have driven up property prices.
而舊金山本地人卻對(duì)都市職場(chǎng)人士抬高了房?jī)r(jià)而感到憤怒。
And those young workers may fall out of love with the city centre when they have children and start worrying about the quality of schools and the safety of streets.
當(dāng)年輕職場(chǎng)人士有了孩子，開(kāi)始擔(dān)心市中心學(xué)校的質(zhì)量和街道安全時(shí)，他們可能對(duì)市中心不再留戀。
The best book to read if you want to understand corporate America’s migration patterns is not Mr Florida’s, but a more recent study, Bill Bishop’s “The Big Sort”.
如果你想要理解美國(guó)公司的遷移模式，最好去讀最新的研究成果—比爾·畢曉普的《大歸類》，而不是佛羅里達(dá)先生的《創(chuàng)意階層的崛起》。
It argues that Americans are increasingly clustering in distinct areas on the basis of their jobs and social values.
他在書(shū)中闡述了許多不同地區(qū)的美國(guó)人因?yàn)楣ぷ骱蜕鐣?huì)價(jià)值觀而日益集中。
The headquarters revolution is yet another iteration of the sorting process that the book describes, as companies allocate elite jobs to the cities and routine jobs to the provinces.
并將公司將高層管理工作轉(zhuǎn)向城市，把基層工作留在郊區(qū)的改革描述成另一種反復(fù)分類的過(guò)程。
Corporate disaggregation is no doubt asensible use of resources.
分流公司無(wú)疑是一種明智的整合資源的方式。
But it will also add to the tensions that are tearing America apart as many bosses choose to work in very different worlds from the vast majority of Americans, including their own employees.
但是，由于許多老板選擇在與包括他們自己?jiǎn)T工在內(nèi)的大多數(shù)美國(guó)人不同的地區(qū)工作，這也加劇了使美國(guó)分裂的緊張局勢(shì)。
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