经济学人158:独居时代的崛起

　　The rise of solo living

独居时代的崛起

A room of one's own

属于一个人的房间

Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone. By Eric Klinenberg.

走向单身:独身主义的崛起与诱惑》；艾瑞克·克兰伯格著

“YOU need an apartment alone even if it's over a garage,” declared Helen Gurley Brown in her 1962 bestseller “Sex and the Single Girl”. To Brown, who went on to edit Cosmopolitan 1 magazine, the benefits of solo living were innumerable: it afforded the space to cultivate the self, furnish the mind, work late and indulge in sexual experimentation 2. Young women should enjoy their best years without a husband, she advised, as this not only laid the foundation for stronger marriages but also gave them a lifestyle to fall back on in case they found themselves alone again.

"就算它是在停车库上方，你也需要一座属于自己的公寓。”海伦·格莉·布朗在其1962年的畅销书《单身女孩》宣扬道。对于这位《大都市》杂志的主编来说，独居生活的好处无穷无尽。独居可以拥有培养自我，心灵供给，熬夜工作，纵情性爱的空间。她认为，年轻女性应该不急于结婚，好好享受她们人生中最美好的年华。这样才能为强力的婚姻培养好基础，同时以防下一次落单能够重返从前的生活方式。

Sensational 3 at the time, Brown's counsel seems sensible now. Certainly both sexes have taken it to heart, marrying later, divorcing readily and living alone in larger numbers than ever before. In America more than half of all adults are single and roughly one out of seven lives alone. Worldwide, the number of solo dwellers 4 has climbed from 153m in 1996 to 202m in 2006—a 33% jump in a decade, according to Euromonitor International, a market analyst 5. Yet little is known about the wider social effects of this unprecedented 6 boom, writes Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist 8 at New York University. His new book “Going Solo” offers a comprehensive look at the lures 10 and perils 11 of living alone.

布朗的建议曾轰动一时，现在看来也不失理智。很显然，男女双方都将建议铭记于心，迟迟结婚，快速离婚，独自生活的人数比过往多了许多。美国有逾半数的成年人单身，大概有七分之一的人独居。据市场分析公司欧睿信息咨询公司数据统计，全球独居人数已由1996年的153百万攀升至2006年的202百万人—十年间增加了33%。而这始料未及的上涨所引起的更广泛社会效应却鲜有人知道，纽约大学社会学家艾瑞克· 克兰纳伯格写道。他的新书“走向独居”一书向我们全面诠释了有关独居生活的诱惑和冒险。

Mr Klinenberg parts with those who see the rise of solo living as yet another sign of the decline of civic 12 society. Now that marriage is no longer the ticket to adulthood 13, a desire to live alone is perfectly 14 reasonable, he writes. Young adults view it as a rite 7 of passage, a period of personal growth before possibly settling down. Its cultural acceptance has helped to liberate 15 women from bad marriages and oppressive families, granting them a space to return to civic life. And as elderly adults live longer than ever before, often without a partner, many hope to stay independent for as long as possible. Nearly everyone who lives alone prefers it to their other options, says Mr Klinenberg, and ever more people hope to join the ranks.

有人将独居人数的上涨视为公民社会衰退的象征，克兰伯格对此并不赞同。他在书中写道，现在婚姻并不再是通往成熟的唯一途径，独居的渴望是非常理智的。青年人将独居视为成熟的仪式，安定之前的自我成长。文化上对独居的接受让妇女得以从不良婚姻，压抑家庭解放出来，确保她们能有足够空间重返公民生活，而且随着人们寿命延长，年老者多无伴，许多人希望尽可能保持独立。几乎每位独居者更享受现在的生活，而且越来越多的人希望加入独居的队伍当中。

Solitary 16 living need not mean solitude 17. The author offers evidence that people who live alone are often more socially active than their cohabitating peers. The “communications revolution” has allowed more people to experience the pleasures of social life from the comforts of home, and cities with high numbers of singletons enjoy a thriving public culture of bars, cafés and restaurants. Urban officials are now eager to lure 9 professional singles—known to both work and play hard—in the hope that they will stimulate 18 the local culture and economy.

独居生活并不意味着形单影只。克兰伯格在书中罗列种种例子，表明独居的人比群居的同龄人更加活跃于社交。“通信革命”让更多人体验到由居家舒适感带来的社交愉悦，享受到和众多单身族一起在酒吧、咖啡馆和餐馆同欢这一种兴盛的公共文化。如今，城市官员热切希望职业单身族能够在当地定居。众所周知，职业单身族不仅勤于工作也乐于享受，这样就可以大大促进当地的文化和经济。

Living alone is easy enough for the young and solvent 19; less so for the elderly, frail 20 and poor. Mr Klinenberg came to this story while working on a book about the lethal 21 Chicago heatwave of 1995, when hundreds of people died alone at home, out of touch with friends and neighbours. The trend for solo living can too easily morph into social isolation 22, particularly for men, who are less adept 23 than women at making and sustaining connections. Other bugbears include loneliness, discrimination (in the workplace, the tax code and so on) and workaholism. Ageing single adults—a fast-growing group—complain that there are few decent, affordable 24 alternatives to withering 25 away.

对于年轻人和富有的人来说，独居是很容易的，而对于长者，体弱多病或者穷人来说相对较难。克兰伯格正是在写作一本关于1995年芝加哥致命热浪的书而关注到独居现象的。当年，有成百的人在房子里孤独地死去，邻里朋友并不相知。独居的热潮很容易演变为社会孤立，特别是对于男人。因为男人并不如女人那样会创造和维持社会连接。其他令人担忧的原因还包括孤独感，歧视（在工作场所，免税代码等等）和工作狂。作为快速增长的群体，曾经的单身青年逐渐老去，开始埋怨很少有其他体面的，支付得起的变老方式傍他们逝去。

Mr Klinenberg looks wistfully to the Scandinavian countries, where generous social-welfare benefits and communal 26 urban design allow more people to live alone together. He optimistically calls for “bold policy initiatives” such as more affordable housing and assisted-living facilities. “We'll need them,” he adds, “since so many of us will be living alone.”

克林伯格想必非常渴望到斯堪的纳维亚国家生活。 这些国家拥有慷慨的社会福利，而公共的城市设计允许许多人可以一起享受独居生活。他积极呼吁“政治上进行勇敢的首创改良”—诸如提供老百姓支付得起的房屋和辅助生活设备。“我们将需要这些。”他补充说道“因为将来我们中的大多数人将过上独居的生活。“