Orientation
When we are initiated into the life of a city we begin an ongoing process of urban formation.
This formation takes place on many levels.
The Layers of a City
I like to look upon a city as having three layers or environments, each stacked on top of the other. Literally at the ground level of the city is its natural setting (the natural environment). On top of this layer is the physical-architectural city (the built environment). The final layer populates the other two layers with dynamic human energy (the social environment).
The City as a Natural Environment
1. This foundational layer of the city as a natural environment embraces elevations and mountains, rivers and streams, flora and fauna.
2. In its most original or primal sense, this layer is the natural space the city occupied before it was settled by those who arrived first, its indigenous occupants. With this first act of settlement, the space quickly becomes a place.
3. After settlement, much of the original natural landscape is altered or covered over. Rivers become channeled, elevations become leveled, forests are felled, and new plants are introduced.
4. While “wild” or untamed nature sometimes returns (like coyotes invading urban neighborhoods), more often nature returns in new and managed forms as parks and gardens, both public and private, as well as domestic animals and house plants.
The City as a Built Environment
1. The city as a built environment is made up of the physical and architectural elements that come together to form that visual picture of a city that most of carry in our minds.
2. Here we discover streets and boulevards, the iconic places, homes and commercial buildings, churches and shrines, public squares and all the physical places where people gather (coffee shops, restaurants, and pubs).
3. The physical and architectural form of the city is not static but changes over time, reflecting a variety of forces at work. These include the deterioration and decay of structures and their replacement by newer structures. The built environment is also altered by generational change, the arrival of new populations, and accompanying results of displacement.
The City as a Social Environment
1. The city is not only a designed environment with a physical form, the city is a social environment comprised of all the people who occupy the city and all the various ways they come together in the city.
2. This layer is the throbbing heart of any city. Here we find people at work and at play, shopping and traveling, entering into intimate relationships and ending relationships, giving birth and facing death.
3. Seen from the perspective of any individual urban dweller the social city is made up of family and friends, acquaintances and complete strangers. These relationships can be seen as a series of concentric circles, radiating outward with the most intimate at the center.
4. The social city is the crucible where the essential issues of human life are tested.
The limitation of layers
I should say that this rather simplistic separation of a city into three layers is only a convenience for exploring our “lived world” by locating particular places in an appropriate layer or environment. In real life, though, these layers as we experience them are often intimately interrelated. For example, a particular building (the built environment) may take on a unique significance because of the community that gathers there (the social environment) and its location in the middle of a park (the natural environment).
The City as a Spiritual Environment
In our ongoing process of urban formation I would contend that we can also come to see the city as a spiritual environment. When we look upon our experience of urban life through three lenses—the lens of justice, the lens of beauty, and the lens of community—we can sometimes glimpse a reality that transcends what we experience through our senses alone.
What can emerge as we reflect upon the city using the lenses of beauty, justice and community is a vision of a city as it is intended to be, a city informed by that love story that lies at the heart of creation.
“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” — First Letter of John
In this vision of the city we find:
The city as a place to be celebrated and savored.
The city as a place where bonds of compassionate connectedness are formed between people.
The city as a place where each person is seen as having sacred worth.
The city as a place where every urban dweller can become a creator of beauty, a worker for justice and a builder of community.
Engaging the City
We pursue this “spiritual” vision of the city as we learn to navigate the city in new ways, as we make discoveries that challenge as well as inspire us, and as we commit to becoming agents of transformation.
Other Perspectives posts: Intersection • Initiation
