经济学人下载:商业天堂还是贼窝?

But in southern California tiny municipalities are not unusual. A clutch of five counties there—Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino—have, between them, no fewer than 183 independent cities. That is because, for much of the past century, California incorporated cities rather as Silicon Valley today launches start-ups. In a 1967 book title, Los Angeles was “The Fragmented Metropolis”.

不过在加州南部，微型城市并非特别现象。此地群集的洛杉矶县、橘县(Orange)、凡图拉县(Ventura)、里弗赛德县(Riverside)以及圣伯纳迪诺县(San Bernardino)五县之间，存在着不少于183座独立市。这是因为在上世纪大多数时间内，加州就像硅谷如今创办新兴企业一样组建着城市。在1967年一本书的书名中，洛杉矶被称为“碎片化的大都会”。

But city-founding has now abruptly gone out of fashion and into reverse. First, several Californian cities—such as Vernon’s neighbour, Maywood—ran into financial trouble largely caused by the recession. They decided they could no longer afford to duplicate all the intricate layers of local democracy and administration, and have tried to consolidate either with other cities or with the county itself.

但是，创建城市的活动如今已突然不再流行，而且这种潮流还在逆转。首先，加州多座城市——例如邻近弗农市的梅伍德市(Maywood)，陷入了主要由经济衰退引发的财政困难之中，这些城市断定自己的财力已不足以复制繁杂的整套地方民主制度及行政制度，并且已经试图与其他城市或县本身合并。

Then, last year, came discoveries of corruption. Most notorious was Bell, another of Vernon’s neighbours, where eight officials lived in remarkable style, levied illegally high taxes and are now on trial. Another city nearby, Montebello, is also being investigated on suspicions that it cooked its books.

之后，人们在去年发现了腐败问题。其中最为臭名昭著的案例是邻近弗农的另一座城市——贝尔市(Bell)，该市的八名官员过着奢华的生活，非法征收高额税款，如今他们已被送上法庭。附近另一座城市蒙蒂贝洛市(Montebello)也在接受调查，人们怀疑该市曾经篡改账目。

So it was perhaps only a matter of time before lawmakers took an interest in the bizarre case of Vernon. The city happens to be in the district of assemblyman John Perez, a Democrat who is also the assembly’s speaker and an up-and-coming sort. Mr Perez, citing an “uNPRecedented pattern of corruption”, has now shepherded a bill through his lower house that would disincorporate any city with fewer than 150 residents and have it be absorbed by its county. That happens to affect only one Californian city, Vernon.

因此，议员对弗农市的古怪案例产生兴趣也许只是迟早的事。该市恰好位于州议会议员约翰．佩雷斯(John Perez)的选区内，这位积极进取的民主党人也担任该州议会议长。引用“空前的腐败格局”为例的佩雷斯，如今已在其众议院中护送通过了一份法案，该法案将撤销任何居民数量不足150人的城市，使其被所在县合并。这一法案恰好只影响到一座加州城市——弗农市。