【文章标题】：You probably own this 7-Eleven (and that’s why it looks so sad) 【文章标题】：你可能拥有这家7-11便利店（这就是它如此糟糕的原因）
【文章正文】： You are probably one of the landlords of this 7-Eleven in Williamsburg, Virginia. Do you care about how it looks? How it fits into the landscape? Of course not, since you did not know it existed. Also, it’s apparent from looking at it that no one else particularly cares. 你可能是弗吉尼亚州威廉斯堡这家7-11便利店的房东之一。你在乎它的外观吗？在乎它与周边环境的协调性吗？当然不，因为你根本不知道它的存在。而且从外观就能看出，其他人也都不怎么关心。
It’s located on a classic “stroad” — that is, not quite a highway but also not a street of the kind that would allow for walking from place to place. One would not normally walk anywhere to or from this 7-Eleven. The 7-Eleven is surrounded by chain hotels that are only accessible by car and have nothing distinctive or memorable about them. Also nearby are a bank branch and a weed dispensary, and behind it is a single-family housing subdivision, all nondescript. It’s nowhere in particular. The landscape is laid out without much intention. No one would have designed it to be so boring and faceless. 它坐落在一条典型的”stroad”上——既不是高速公路，也不是适合步行的街道。人们通常不会步行去这家7-11。便利店周围是只能开车到达的连锁酒店，毫无特色可言。附近还有一家银行分支和大麻商店，后面是一片普通独户住宅区，全都平淡无奇。这里毫无特色可言，整个景观布局毫无设计感，没人会故意把它设计得如此乏味平庸。
You would not have. And yet, you likely had a hand in it, passively, as a part owner of this 7-Eleven. 你本不会这样设计。但作为这家7-11的部分所有者，你可能被动地参与了这种设计。
This building and the land it sits on are not owned by 7-Eleven, or by an individual. Instead, this 7-Eleven is the tenant of a real estate investment trust, a financial structure that allows huge numbers of people to invest in real estate without having to worry about the details of what it is they are investing in. That trust, named Agree Realty Corporation, also owns the properties for a dialysis center in Hilo, Hawaii, a PetSmart in Port Arthur, Texas, a grocery store in Augusta, Maine, and nearly 3,000 other retail properties spread across all fifty states. It’s located in Royal Oak, Michigan. 这栋建筑及其所在土地不属于7-11公司或个人所有。相反，这家7-11是一个房地产投资信托基金的租户。这种金融结构让大量投资者无需了解投资细节就能参与房地产投资。这个名为Agree Realty Corporation的信托基金还拥有夏威夷希洛的透析中心、德克萨斯州阿瑟港的PetSmart宠物店、缅因州奥古斯塔的杂货店，以及遍布全美50个州的近3000处零售物业。该信托总部位于密歇根州皇家橡树市。
Agree Realty Corporation, in turn, is about one-eighth owned by Vanguard, whose diversified funds of trillions of dollars in assets are bought into by tens of millions of investors, including through 401(k)s and other ubiquitous savings vehicles. If you have such a retirement plan or market account, it’s quite likely you have a piece of the 416 Bypass Road 7-Eleven. 而Agree Realty Corporation约八分之一的股份由先锋集团持有。这家公司管理着数万亿美元资产的多元化基金，数千万投资者通过401(k)等常见储蓄工具进行投资。如果你有这样的退休计划或市场账户，很可能你就拥有416号绕道公路这家7-11的一部分股权。
It is unfair to single out this location. There are thousands just like it. And that is the point: it is interchangeable. That quality is an advantage for its marketability as a financial product — but it is a problem for the character of its neighborhood, or lack thereof. 单独挑出这个地方并不公平，因为类似场所有成千上万。这正是关键所在：它们可以相互替代。这种特性作为金融产品具有市场优势，但对社区特色（或者说特色的缺失）却是个问题。
It exemplifies a shortfall of American urban design, namely that the system of property ownership has created too much distance between the owners of a given plot of land and the families who live and work around it. 这体现了美国城市设计的缺陷：产权制度在土地所有者与周边生活工作的家庭之间制造了太大距离。
“That enormous amount of separation leads to tons of qualitative issues and really leads to a lot of commodification,” Ward Davis, a founding partner of an Arkansas real estate company focused on traditional-style development, told me in a phone interview. “这种巨大分离导致大量质量问题，并真正导致过度商品化，“阿肯色州一家专注于传统风格开发的房地产公司创始合伙人沃德·戴维斯在电话采访中告诉我。
The U.S. has separated landowners from neighborhoods through regulations and tax laws meant to make real estate markets accessible and liquid — that is, easily bought and sold among investors. These rules and regulations have worked for their intended purposes. They have successfully turned much of the built environment into commodities, which are easy for buyers and sellers to understand, price, and transact. They have made it possible for teachers in Ontario, policemen in Los Angeles, sheikhs in Dubai, and millions of others to finance the convenience stores, houses, hospitals, hotels, malls, and offices that Americans frequent every day. All kinds of people get access to a powerful investment vehicle, while builders get access to a vast pool of financing. 美国通过旨在提高房地产市场流动性的法规和税法，将土地所有者与社区分离——即让投资者更容易买卖房地产。这些法规实现了预期目标，成功将大部分建筑环境转化为商品，便于买卖双方理解、定价和交易。这让安大略省的教师、洛杉矶的警察、迪拜的酋长等数百万人能够为美国人日常光顾的便利店、住宅、医院、酒店、商场和办公室提供资金。各类人群获得了强大的投资工具，而建筑商则获得了庞大的资金池。
But there has been a cost. Commodities aren’t lovable. 但这是有代价的。商品无法让人产生爱。
All the qualities that give a place charm or loveliness are ones that are best stewarded by people who live there. Someone who owns the plot from afar, without even visiting, can never understand the subtle details that give it life. And the middleman property developer or manager just will never care. 赋予一个地方魅力或可爱之处的所有特质，最好由当地居民来管理。远在他乡的土地所有者甚至从未到访，永远无法理解赋予土地生机的微妙细节。而作为中间人的房地产开发商或管理者根本不会在乎。
No one will ever cherish a plot of land as much as someone who has a long-term ownership and residence interest in it. Yet more and more of the built environment we live in every day is owned by people far away who don’t even know they own it. 没有人会比长期拥有并居住在这片土地上的人更珍惜它。然而，我们日常生活的建筑环境越来越多地被远方的人们所拥有，他们甚至不知道自己拥有这些资产。
The relationship between the land and its owners wasn’t always this way. Nor is it this way in other places. 土地与其所有者之间的关系并非一直如此。在其他地方也不这样。
Take the classic British village as depicted in Downton Abbey, which gripped large audiences in part because of the strong sense of place and belonging it evoked. 以《唐顿庄园》中描绘的经典英国村庄为例，这部剧吸引大量观众的部分原因就在于它唤起了强烈的地方感和归属感。
The plot of the show is driven by the problem of who will become the property’s future owner: Downton Abbey is set to pass to a remote relative because of property laws, developed over the course of centuries, that ensured that estates not only stayed within the family but specifically passed on to a male heir. The family’s efforts to keep control of the manor and village, despite the lack of a son, lead to all the adventures that follow. 这部剧的情节围绕着财产未来继承人的问题展开：由于经过几个世纪发展的财产法规定，唐顿庄园将传给远亲，这些法律不仅确保财产保留在家族内，还特别规定要传给男性继承人。尽管没有儿子，这个家族为保住庄园和村庄控制权的努力引发了后续所有冒险故事。
Under this medieval system of ownership, generally known as fee tail, the house and surrounding town had a special relationship to 在这种通常被称为限定继承权的中世纪所有权制度下，房屋与周边城镇有着特殊的关系