By Derek Thompson and Jordan Weissmann

In 2009, Ford brought its new supermini, the Fiesta, over from Europe in a brave attempt to attract the attention of young Americans.1. supermini: 超迷你車，小型車；Fiesta: 嘉年華，福特公司旗下品牌。It passed out 100 of the cars to in fluential bloggers for a free six-month test-drive, with just one condition: document your experience online,whether you love the Fiesta or hate it.2. pass out: 分發(fā)；document: v.記錄。

Young bloggers loved the car. Young drivers? Not so much. After a brief burst of excitement, in which Ford sold more than 90,000 units over 18 months, Fiesta sales plummeted.3. burst: 強(qiáng)烈感情的突然爆發(fā)；plummet: 驟跌，暴跌。As of April 2012, they were down 30 percent from 2011.

Don’t blame Ford. The company is trying to solve a puzzle that’s bewildering every automaker in America: How do you sell cars to Millennials (aka Generation Y)?4. bewilder: 使迷惑，使糊涂；Millennial:“千禧一代”，指1984年至1995年間出生的人，他們差不多與電腦同時(shí)誕生，在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的陪伴下長大；Generation Y: 美國人把1980年到1995年間出生的人稱作“Y一代”。The fact is, today’s young people simply don’t drive like their predecessors5. predecessor: 前輩，前任。did. In 2010, adults between the ages of 21 and 34 bought just 27 percent of all new vehicles sold in America,down from the peak of 38 percent in 1985. Miles driven are down,too. Even the proportion6. proportion: 比例。of teenagers with a license fell, by 28 percent, between 1998 and 2008.

每個(gè)年代的人都會(huì)受到成長時(shí)期經(jīng)濟(jì)、社會(huì)和文化等因素的影響，并會(huì)形成不同的價(jià)值觀、生活態(tài)度和行為方式。“千禧一代”幾乎與電腦同時(shí)誕生，他們的成長伴隨著信息化社會(huì)的發(fā)展，如今他們已不再是以自我為中心、慵懶叛逆、個(gè)性張揚(yáng)的小孩子了，而是到了“而立”之年，面對(duì)著買房買車，結(jié)婚生子的生活現(xiàn)實(shí)。然而，在全球性經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退的背景下，他們?cè)谖镔|(zhì)生活上有著不同于父輩的獨(dú)特選擇，而這也將給社會(huì)發(fā)展帶來一定的影響。

What if Millennials’ aversion to car-buying isn’t a temporary side effect of the recession, but part of a permanent generational shift in tastes and spending habits?7. 如果“千禧一代”厭惡買車并非源于經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退帶來的暫時(shí)的副作用，而是一代人品味和消費(fèi)習(xí)慣永久性改變的一部分，那將會(huì)怎樣呢？aversion: 厭惡，憎惡；side effect: 副作用。It’s a question that applies not only to cars, but to several other traditional categories of big spending—most notably, housing.8. category: 種類，分類；notably: 顯著地，尤其。And its answer has large implications for the future shape of the economy—and for the speed of recovery.9. implication: 可能的影響（或結(jié)果）；recovery: 恢復(fù)，（經(jīng)濟(jì)）復(fù)蘇。

Needless to say, the Great Recession is responsible for some of the decline.10. Great Recession: 經(jīng)濟(jì)大衰退，指2007年8月9日開始浮現(xiàn)的金融危機(jī)引發(fā)的經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退，12月開始全球性經(jīng)濟(jì)大衰退；decline: 減少，衰退。But it’s highly possible that a perfect storm of economic and demographic factors—from high gas prices, to reurbanization, to stagnating wages, to new technologies enabling a different kind of consumption—has fundamentally changed the game for Millennials.11. 但是極有可能的情況是一系列經(jīng)濟(jì)和人口因素的沖擊——包括高油價(jià)、再城市化、工資停滯和催生全新消費(fèi)方式的新技術(shù)——這已從根本上改變了“千禧一代”的生活方式。The largest generation in American history might never spend as lavishly12. lavishly: 過分慷慨地，奢華地。as its parents did—nor on the same things. Since the end of World War II, new cars and suburban houses have powered the world’s largest economy and propelled our most impressive recoveries.13. suburban: 近郊的，城郊的；power: v.給……提供動(dòng)力；propel: 推動(dòng)，驅(qū)使；impressive: 激動(dòng)人心的，給人以深刻印象的。Millennials may have lost interest in both.

The emergence of the “sharing economy”—services that use the Web to let companies and families share otherwise idle goods—is headlined by Zipcar, but it also involves companies such as Airbnb,a shared marketplace for bedrooms and other accommodations for travelers; and thredUP, a site where parents can buy and sell kids’used clothing.14.“分享經(jīng)濟(jì)”的出現(xiàn)——利用互聯(lián)網(wǎng)使公司和家庭能夠分享閑置商品的服務(wù)——其主角就是Zipcar, 同時(shí)也有其他公司，如Airbnb，為旅行者提供臥室和其他食宿服務(wù)的共享市場(chǎng)；還有thred-UP，一家供父母買賣孩子舊衣服的場(chǎng)所。headline: 使成為注意中心，把……作為主角；Zipcar: 美國網(wǎng)上租車公司以“汽車共享”為理念。

Millennials, of course, are sharing more than transportation: they’re also sharing living quarters, albeit begrudgingly, and with less gee-whiz technology involved.15. living quarter: 住處，住房；albeit: 雖然，即使；begrudgingly: 不滿地；有怨言地；geewhiz: 驚人的。According to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, between 2006 and 2011, the homeownership rate among adults younger than 35 fell by 12 percent, and nearly 2 million more of them—the equivalent of Houston’s population—were living with their parents, as a result of the recession.16. homeownership rate: 住房自有率；equivalent:等值物。The ownership society has been overrun by renters and squatters.17. overrun: 席卷，侵占；squatter: 擅自占用者。

In some respects, Millennials’ residential aspirations appear to be changing just as significantly as their driving habits—indeed, the two may be related.18. in some respects: 從某種意義上說；aspiration:志向，抱負(fù)；significantly: 顯著地，巨大地。The old cul-de-sacs of Revolutionary Road and Desperate Housewives have fallen out of favor with Generation Y.19. cul-de-sac:〈法〉死巷，死路； Revolutionary Road:電影《革命之路》，是由萊昂納多·迪卡普里奧和凱特·溫斯萊特主演的影片，講述20世紀(jì)50年代美國中產(chǎn)階級(jí)的生活；Desperate Housewives: 美劇《絕望的主婦》，講述一個(gè)小鎮(zhèn)上四個(gè)中產(chǎn)階級(jí)家庭主婦的生活；fall out of favor: 失寵。Rising instead are both city centers and what some developers call “urban light”—denser suburbs that revolve around a walkable town center.20. denser: （人口）更加密集的，后文density意思是“密集，密度”；walkable: 可以走到的，適于步行的?！癙eople are very eager to create a life that blends the best features of the American suburb—schools still being the primary,although not the only, draw—and urbanity,”21. primary: 最重要的，首要的；draw: 引人注目的事物；urbanity: 都市風(fēng)格，城市性；consultancy: 咨詢公司。says Adam Ducker, a managing director at the real-estate consultancy RCLCO.

Wholly apart from their urban sensibility, townhouses and other small houses are more affordable, all else equal, and developers know that to attract Millennials, they need to cater to tattered bank accounts.22. sensibility: 敏感，善感；cater to: 迎合，投合；tattered: 破舊的，此處指銀行賬戶存款不充足?！癟he types of properties young people are buying now are different from what [that age group] bought five years ago,” said Shannon Williams King,the vice chair of strategic planning at the National Association of Realtors. “They are within walking distance of shopping centers. These buyers want bike shares and Zipcar. They like feeling connected23. connected: 有聯(lián)系的，有關(guān)系的。.” In short, the future of the house might look a lot like the future of the car: smaller, cheaper, built for a new economy.

If the Millennials are not quite a post-driving and postowning generation, they’ll almost certainly be a less-driving and less-owning generation. That could mean some tough24. tough: 艱難的，困難的。adjustments for the economy over the next several years. In recent decades, the housing industry has usually led us out of recession. When the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates in the midst of the sharp recession of the early 1980s, for instance, a construction boom helped fuel the “Reagan Recovery.”25. 例如，在20世紀(jì)80年代初，經(jīng)濟(jì)嚴(yán)重衰退的情況下，聯(lián)邦儲(chǔ)備委員會(huì)降低利息率，由此引發(fā)的一場(chǎng)建設(shè)熱潮帶來了“里根經(jīng)濟(jì)復(fù)蘇”。With the housing market moribund26. moribund: 垂死的，停滯不前的。, the Federal Reserve has lost a key means of in fluencing the economy with lower interest rates. The serviceled recovery we’ve gotten instead is not nearly as robust27. robust: 強(qiáng)勁的，強(qiáng)健的。.

Smaller houses built in dense, mixed-use neighborhoods generally take longer to build than McMansions28. McMansion: 巨無霸豪宅，一種大型現(xiàn)代房屋，猶如大批量建造，缺乏個(gè)性，和當(dāng)?shù)卦薪ㄖ袇^(qū)別。on green- field sites. And of course, because they require fewer fixtures and furnishings, their construction spurs less economic activity.29. fixture: 不可移動(dòng)的定位安裝家具；spur: 推動(dòng)，激勵(lì)。

Yet in the long run, there’s good cause for optimism as well. Nobody is suggesting that the American consumer has bought her last house or car—only that houses and cars may lose some of the outsize30. outsize: 特大的。importance they’ve had to the economy for the past 10 or 20 years or more. “There are a lot of countries, Germany for example, where homeownership rates are a lot lower than ours, and they have healthy incomes,” said Robert Lerman, an Urban Institute fellow in labor and social policy. Simple arithmetic says that if Americans spend less money on cars and houses, they’ll have more money left over to spend or save—and not all of that will go to electronic gadgets.31. arithmetic: 算數(shù)，算法；gadget:小裝置，小玩意。

Education is the “obvious outlet32. outlet: 出口，出路。for the money Millennials can spend,”Perry Wong, the director of research at the Milken Institute, told us, noting that if young people invest less in physical things like houses, they’ll have more to invest in themselves. “In the past, housing was the main vehicle33. vehicle: 載體，媒介。for investment, but education is also a vehicle.” In an ideas economy, up-to-date knowledge could be a more nimble34. nimble: 機(jī)智的，敏捷的。and valuable asset than a house.

What’s more, the shift away from traditional suburbs toward denser,urban-light living could have major economic-growth implications on its own. Economic research shows that doubling a community’s population density tends to increase productivity by anywhere between 6 percent and 28 percent. Economists have found that more than half of the variation in output35. output: 產(chǎn)量，作品。per worker across U.S. states can be explained by density. Our wealth, after all, is determined not only by our own skills and talents, but by our ability to access the ideas of those around us; there’s a lot to be gained by increasing the odds that smart people might bump against each other.36odds: （某事發(fā)生的）機(jī)會(huì)，可能性；bump: 碰，撞。Ultimately, if the Millennial generation pushes our society toward more sharing and closer living, it may do more than simply change America’s consumption culture; it may put America on firmer economic footing for decades to come.