单选题 Norwood, Ohio-in this town, which is surrounded by Cincinnati, there is a field surrounded by a high chain-link fence. Across a sweet on one side of the field is a residential neighborhood of modest homes. On another side is an upscale shopping center. The field used to be a neighborhood with 99 houses and small businesses, but almost all the structures have been destroyed. One of the homes that remain-the developer of the shopping center wants to level all so he can expand his domain-was for 35 years the first and only home owned by Carl and Joy Gamble, who are both in their mid-60s.
Now they live across the Ohio River in Kentucky, in the basement of their daughter's house, as they wait for the Ohio Supreme Court to decide their home's fate. Norwood's government seized it to enrich itself by enriching a taxpaying developer who has a ＄125 million project.
The Gambles say that when the city offered them money for their house, they were not interested. "We had everything we wanted, right there," says Joy, who does not drive but could walk to see her mother in a Norwood nursing home. "We loved that house-that home." Past tense. Norwood's government, in a remarkably absurd deal, accepted the developer's offer to pay the cost of the study that-surprise! -enabled the city to declare the neighborhood "blighted" and "deteriorating." NEWSWEEK reader, stroll around your neighborhood. Do you see any broken sidewalk pavement? Any standing water in a road? Such factors-never mind that sidewalks and roads are government's responsibility-were cited by the developer's study to justify Norwood's forcing the Gambles and their neighbors to sell to the developer.
Norwood's behavior is part of a national pattern: From 1998 through 2002, state and local governments seized or threatened to seize more than 10,000 homes, businesses, churches and pieces of land, not for "public use" but to enrich private interests, some of whose enhanced riches can be siphoned away by taxes. Such legalized theft-theft by government-does not use a gun, it just abuses the power of eminent domain.
The Gambles' plight-a quiet, blue-collar couple's life in ruins just as they are entering retirement-vividly illustrates what happens when property rights become too attenuated to protect the individual's zone of sovereignty against government power. Because such abuses are proliferating nationwide, people are pressuring state legislatures to forbid the seizure of property simply to give local governments-who never say they have enough revenues-the revenues they say they need. And Congress may forbid the use of federal funds for projects benefiting from such seizures.

单选题 Which of the following is true of the current situation in Norwood, Ohio?

A. There's a shopping center in this town for common people.
B. 99 houses and small businesses remain in this destroyed area.
C. The Gambles, developers of the shopping center moved in lately.
D. The town has undergone great changes in recent years.

单选题 Norwood's government seized the homes of the Gambles in that it wanted to

A. benefit from a taxpaying developer.
B. do justice to other residents.
C. help to develop the area efficiently.
D. level all to build a new town.

单选题 It is indicated in Paragraph 3 and 4 that

A. the Gambles were hesitating when the government offered them money.
B. the government allowed the developer to conduct a study in this area.
C. Norwood's government tried to prevent the residents from losing their homes.
D. Norwood's behavior is rare compared with other regions in the country.

单选题 The word "attenuated" (Line 2, Paragraph 5) most probably means

A. overpowered.
B. dominating.
C. weak.
D. centralized.

单选题 Which of the following is the best title for this text?

A. Norwood, a Neglected Place
B. The Revenues Governments Need
C. The Gambles' Dilemma
D. Legal Theft in Norwood