Some people think that the best way to reduce the time spent in travelling to work is to replace parks and gardens close to the city center with apartment buildings for commuters. To what extent do you agree or disagree with the statement?
反对拆公园建房
Some people believe that demolishing recreational facilities near the city center to build apartments will lessen the time residents take on the road while going to work. Although I agree that this policy can enable some commuters to travel to work more quickly, I strongly disagree that it is the best way.
It is true that if members of the working class live near the center of the city, they will spend less time travelling to work, as most workplaces are located at the core of the city. Some of them may even prefer to walk the short distance to work, and this will mean that the amount of traffic on the road no longer affects the time they spend getting to work.
However, the demolition of parks and gardens near the city area might have adverse effects on citizens’ productivity at work. Whenever they decide to shake off the stress of work, they have to travel long distances to parks. As a result, they may skip going to parks to relax and make do with the few recreational activities they can find within the home, which might reduce the amount of exercise they take and be detrimental to their health.
Another disadvantage of this method is that city centers may contain a lot of factories; thus, it may not be the best idea to build homes there. Since factories often release harmful gases, people who live around there may inhale them, fall sick and be unable to work.
There are better ways to reduce the time workers spend travelling to work. Instead of replacing parks with houses, employers can adopt modern technological work methods that allow their employees to work remotely.
Also, citizens can be encouraged to use public transport to commute to work. Because destroying parks in the city center to build homes might reduce productivity of citizens, it is more effective to introduce remote work and public transport to save the time people spend riding to work. While replacing apartments with parks in city center is one of the methods to consider when trying to lessen the time spent to work, I don’t believe it is the most effective method to achieve reduced travel time.