In keeping with the urban theory reading self-guided reading course I'm doing, I thought I'd take a brief sidestep here for a bit of theological take on the topic. It is Sunday after all...

A few years back I read a book on the theology of the built environment by T.J. Gorringe. It's worth noting that my interest in urbanism in large part came from my mdiv where I was taught to see theology as a contextual project, not something that just exists outside of time and space. Not only that, but my professor (and the founder of the particular program I took, Donald Goertz, always said that the bible was primarily urban in nature. Anyways, as a part of one of my directed reading courses, I read this particular book and I thought it might be nice to just share a thought from it today that also builds off Mumford's work on the origin of cities.

Gorringe here is riffing off Mumford and considering how cities do or do not participate in the economy of redemption, that is, creating something that lasts for the betterment of the world.

"If Mumford is right, the Hellenistic city effectively built to celebrate its own achievements, as did Imperial Rome. This ought to be a warning to us, for today we wander about in their ruins. For what gave a new lease of life to Rome was Christianity without which, at several points in the past two millennia, it would probably not have survived. Cities necessarily have markets; they are centres of the arts and of innovation. But without a creative spirituality, a sense of transcendent purpose, they die."

I've always kind of liked the idea that cities have a soul, so to speak, and like people, that soul can be nurtured or starved. I think this puts it in an interesting framing, calling it a transcendent purpose. Going back a few days to what I was reflecting on with Mumford in the way that cities began as spaces for ritual and memory, I think it's interesting to consider what gives a city that spark. We sort of intuitively know when we visit a city that has it. It feels alive and exciting. It might also be why suburban sprawl can feel so soulless, they lack a transcendent purpose.