一、原文
The horrible housing blunder（paragraph4）
The soaring cost of housing has created gaping inequalities and inflamed both generational and geographical divides. In 1990 a generation of baby-boomers, with a median age of 35, owned a third of America’s real estate by value. In 2019 a similarly sized cohort of millennials, aged 31, owned just 4%. Young people’s view that housing is out of reach—unless you have rich parents—helps explain their drift towards “millennial socialism”. And homeowners of all ages who are trapped in declining places resent the windfall housing gains enjoyed in and around successful cities. In Britain areas with stagnant housing markets were more likely to vote for Brexit in 2016, even after accounting for differences in income and demography.
二、词汇
1. soaring cost 持续增长的花费-soar
2. gaping inequalities 日益加深的不平等-gap
3. inflame 英[ɪnˈfleɪm] 美[ɪnˈfleɪm] 激起
4. baby-boomer (尤指在第二次世界大战后) 生育高峰期出生的人
5. a third of 1/3
6. real estate 英[ˈriːəl əsteɪt] 美[ˈriːəl əsteɪt] 房地产
7. a cohort of 英[ˈkəʊhɔːt] 美[ˈkoʊhɔːrt] 一群人
8. millennial 英[mɪˈlɛnjəl] 美[mɪˈlɛniəl]
Silent and Older（老去的沉默世代）：1946年以前出生
Boomer（婴儿潮世代）：1946-1964年之间出生
Gen X（X世代）：1965-1980年之间出生
Millennial（千禧年世代，又称Y世代）：1981-1996年之间出生
Gen Z（Z世代）：1996年以后出生
9. drift towards≈tend to≈move towards
10. millennial socialism 千禧社会主义
11. be trapped in 陷入
12. declining place 衰落的地方（和successful city相反）
13. windfall 英[ˈwɪndfɔːl] 美[ˈwɪndfɔːl] 意外之财
14. stagnant 英[ˈstæɡnənt] 美[ˈstæɡnənt] 停滞的
15. Brexit=British exit or Britain exiting from the EU 英国脱欧
16. demography 英[dɪˈmɒɡrəfi] 美[dɪˈmɑːɡrəfi] 人口统计学
三、结构
第4段的结构非常清晰，整段文字继续阐述第3段首句提到的deeply unfair。第4段的内容围绕首句The soaring cost of housing has created gaping inequalities and inflamed both generational and geographical divides，分别从generational divide和geographical divide展开。
在generational divide方面，对比了baby-boomers和millennials的房产拥有情况；在geographical divide方面，对比了declining cities和successful cities的情况。
