I may comment further on this quote in the future, and on its relevance for the pursuit by the Church of the welfare of the city – particularly when both the local church and the city in question consist to a substantial degree of transients. For now I just post the quote, heartily recommend the book from which it’s taken (Jane Jacobs’ classic work of urban planning The Death and Life of Great American Cities), and heartily thank Jonathan for recommending it to me.
If self-government in [a city neighborhood] is to work, underlying any float of population must be a continuity of people who have forged neighborhood networks. These networks are a city’s irreplaceable social capital. Whenever the capital is lost, from whatever cause, the income from it disappears, never to return until and unless new capital is slowly and chancily accumulated. …
Over intervals of time, many people change their jobs and the locations of their jobs, shift or enlarge their outside friendships and interests, change their family sizes, change their incomes up or down, even change many of their tastes. In short they live, rather than just exist. If they live in diversified, rather than monotonous, districts… and if they like the place, they can stay put despite changes in the locales or natures of their other pursuits or interests. …
However, this asset has to be capitalized upon. It is thrown away where districts are handicapped by sameness and are suitable, therefore, to only a narrow range of incomes, tastes and family circumstances. Neighborhood accommodations for fixed, bodiless, statistical people are accommodations for instability. The people in them, as statistics, may stay the same. But the people in them, as people, do not. Such places are forever way stations. (pp. 139-140)
A few questions to ponder: Assuming that Jacobs is right, what role does the Church play in promoting such diversity in order indirectly to contribute to the formation of this social capital? To what extent does it assume any responsibility of contributing directly to such social capital? Can any distinction be drawn between the transience of the members of a church and that of the church itself?
Here I point you to Philip Bess’s amazing book Til We Have Built Jerusalem for a few ideas.
I notice the review of the book in the March/April Books & Culture, written by a pastor from Austin. Have you had any interaction with the book aside from reading it (i.e., was it coming up for discussion in your former neck of the woods much)? I’m intrigued; tell me more.
Yep, the pastor from Austin that reviewed it in Books and Culture was David Taylor, who is the brother-in-law of my former priest at Holy Trinity. Small world, huh? I borrowed the book from my friend Steven a few months ago and read it. The book is actually an eclectic set of essays. Some are building a natural law style argument against sprawling suburban development. Some are encouraging religious types to reject the functionalizing rationality of modern architecture as anathema to a creationist paradigm. Ultimately, he argues, the only thing that can preserve new urbanism from its current trajectory as a plaything of the rich is for churches to get involved in recovering it. Some are critiquing the new urbanist literature for its lack of attention to first principles, i.e. what are people for? In other words, the argument that new urbanist architecture and planning, insofar as it mimics the best aspects of traditional urbanism, is no more than aesthetic preference (and therefore an idle pursuit of the wealthy) unless grounded in anthropological observation. The last set of essays consist of reviews of the thought of various advocates of traditional urbanism, e.g. Leon Krier and James Howard Kunstler. But all have the general trajectory of promoting traditional urbanism, cautiously endorsing the aims of new urbanists, and encouraging the religious to be the vanguard in the recovery of traditional urban form.
[...] Jane Jacobs on the importance of diversity for maintaining city leadership [...]