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urban

Why the city can kill you

by Lon on February 9, 2010

dark unlit city

Continuing the last few posts on “God’s bias for the city”, “why cities matter” and “why Toronto matters“; much of what makes cities great is also what makes cities dark and depressing.

Cities amplify the best, but also the very worst, of humanity.

City centers are fueled by individual self-interest.  Everybody goes to the city to  ‘get’ something – career, education, entertainment, money, power, sex, etc.

Population density in cities with limited resources and limited opportunities creates a competitive and tension filled culture.

The pace of the city makes people less compassionate even when they may want to be, ie.  “I can’t stop to help that person because I’ve got to get somewhere to get something.”

Cities are deceptive. In the words of Jay Z and Alicia Keys Empire state of mind – “These streets will make you feel brand new, The lights will inspire you”.  The problem is that while the city may be alive, that doesn’t mean you are.

The busyness of cities prevents us from stopping, reflecting, and asking questions like ‘why’ until we’re completely broken and miserable.

Cities are dense with living beings that refuses to connect with one another.  ie. I can be nose-to-nose with another human being crammed in a gloriously life-filled subway and we can completely ignore each other.  This chips away at our humanity daily because we know something’s not right.

The diversity in cities naturally brings with it conflicting interests and cultural clashes.  Not only does the fringes of culture collide, but those who are already oppressed, are condensed into tight spaces which creates an even more volatile environment.  People can be ticking time bombs.

Cities thrive on anonymity.  Relationships become transactions and we further dehumanize one another.

Cities export evil. Cities inherently create, magnify, and propagate culture.  When it’s bad, it’s bad for everyone.  ie. how cities of the west have led the cycle of work-to-excessively-consume lifestyle now seen as the pinnacle of living for those in rural, village, suburban communities.Cities often displace wildlife and native cultures (we name our neighborhoods and streets after what we’ve destroyed ie. shady oaks, parkway forest, etc.)

Whether it’s for more affordable housing or an easier lifestyle – cities build up towards high-rise apartments.  The living-in-a-box-in-the-sky infrastructure (that I currently live in) disconnects our relationship to the land and creation.

Cities can become empires.  Empires oppress neighboring cultures, serve only the privileged few, and have an insatiable need to always expand and conquer.

And the list goes on.  While murder rates are actually dropping in many cities compared to rural areas, cities can cause a death you’re not even aware of because it’s so broadly accepted.

With all that being said, cities are crucial and strategic to our global future.  We need people in the city, especially those who want to seek the good of the city.

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Why Toronto Matters

by Lon on February 4, 2010

Continuing my last couple posts on “God’s bias for the city” and “why cities matter” some thoughts on why the City of Toronto matters.

Toronto is the most ethnically and culturally diverse urban area on planet earth. Half of its citizens are visible minorities.

You can find glimpses of the entire world in one city.  Over a 140 languages and dialects are spoken.

Toronto is formed and shaped by the people of the globe – half of the population is foreign born.

Toronto is a model mosaic city.  Ethnic enclaves are everywhere.  Every city on the planet has a china-town, Toronto has at least six and counting.

Approaching 6 million people in the Greater Toronto Area it is the fifth largest metropolitan area in North America.

Toronto is geographically a hub to America.  Within a 100-mile radius of Toronto a quarter of Canada’s population resides here, as well as 125 million Americans or roughly 40% of the U.S. population.

Richard Florida who wrote “Rise of the Creative Class” describes Toronto as being one of the most creative cities and is on set to be “a world leader in innovation and prosperity”

Yet 550,000 people live below the poverty line and it’s getting worse.

Toronto’s leading sectors include finance, business services, telecommunications, aerospace, transportation, media, arts, film, television  production, publishing, software production, medical research, education, sports, sustainability, and tourism industries.

Toronto is undergoing massive renewal and gentrification – creating a city in flux with new needs and opportunities

Toronto hosts over a thousand various festivals a year, with some of the largest in the world including Caribana, Nuite Blanche, Pride week, and the international film festival

Toronto is a city of the future. The world is increasingly becoming more diverse and more urban as Toronto already is.  If you can make something work in Toronto you have the potential for modeling and leading it for the rest of the world.

Your thoughts? I’d love to hear why your city matters to you.

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Why the city matters

by Lon on January 28, 2010

As a follow up to the previous post God’s bias for the city, here’s some thoughts on why the cities are strategic to anyone who wants to make a global impact.

Cities are both magnets and magnifiers.  People from surrounding areas are drawn in and everything they do is amplified and ripples back out.

Increased density means there’s people like you there.  People you can connect with and people you compete with.

Increased diversity means there’s people completely unlike you there that you’ll need to learn to work with and from.

Density and diversity cultivates, if not forces, innovation and change

Cities are where the fringes of culture converge – the poor and the rich, the skater and the geek, etc.

Cities are where people are at.  As of 2007 the world reached a demographic tipping point where more people live in urban environments than rural.  Nearly all population growth going forward will be in cities.

Cities are educational hubs where new ideas and creativity are highly valued.

Cities are media hubs that broadcast the human story.

Cities shape and create culture for the masses downstream.  Where the city goes, the culture goes.

Your thoughts?

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God’s bias for the City

by Lon on January 25, 2010

Photo by Diez

Just as God has a clear bias towards the poor, the scriptures also reveal that God’s heart leans towards the city.

From Genesis God calls for humanity to be fruitful and multiply. Not simply to reproduce (otherwise Jesus would’ve done a terrible job with this mandate), but to cultivate life in the widest sense – to create culture, to steward over creation, to develop civilizations, and ultimately cities.

Even the ‘garden of eden’ carries with it the idea of a lush park by a palace. A place dense with life near a kingly residence. Seeds of a future city.

God doesn’t allow his people to remain agrarian, and calls for ‘cities of refuge‘ to be made. Cities with leadership, government, jurisdiction, so that people might find safety and progress could continue without ongoing tribal warfare.

In Jeremiah 29 God calls for his people to seek the good of the city. Not to necessarily conform to the city, or to leech off the city, but to be rooted in the city. We are to be city builders.

The Apostle Paul planted churches from city to city because he knew that if he captured the heart of the city, the gospel would flow out from the city centers into the surrounding regions. It’s interesting to note that it seems the smallest unit of the church was referred to as an entire city – ie. the church of Ephesus, Philipi, etc.

God reveals his ultimate vision for humanity in Revelation as ‘a holy city’ descending from heaven. Pieces of Eden like the tree of life and rivers are still there, but it’s wrapped up in a city filled with life. Heaven’s like an urban jungle.

I’ve always loved this quote by Ray Bakke – “If you don’t like the city, you won’t like heaven”

These are just a few snapshot thoughts that could be unpacked a lot more.
Your thoughts?

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movein.to

by Lon on March 31, 2009

movein-conference

Some friends of mine have an awesome vision of incarnating Christ into the neighbourhoods of Toronto.  They’ve been researching hard and have identified 25 of the poorest and most unreached patches in the city, and are asking for people to literally move-in, and be the church in these neighborhoods.

They are holding their first conference May 8th-9th to cast the vision and are praying for 2,000 people to participate.

Pray, join, invite others, and find out more more at http://movein.to/

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Linking Arms, Linking Lives

by Lon on March 4, 2009

linking-armsLinking arms How can urban-Suburban Partnerships transform Communities?

Is it even possible?

Linking Arms, Linking Lives is by several community development heavy weights like Ron Sider, John Perkins, and Wayne Gordon. I’d say the book is more than a good start on this rapidly emerging issue.

Too often I read books that seem to speak to completely different audiences in the suburbs and in the urban core, but these folks are really well acquainted with how the two fields are crossing over with the suburbanization of poverty.

It’s a fairly practical book if you’re looking to just get going or move forward with partnering with ‘the other side’. One great tip is there warnings of not jumping the gun and trying to partner through brand new contacts. Start small and begin with existing relationships.

Also for us to not allow inequality to define the relationship. On both ends, whether urban or suburban we need to be able to answer the profound question of “I need you because…”

They also warn deeply entrenched urban folks to humbly listen to suburban insights, and to not allow “the oppressed in you, become the oppressor”.

One practical innovation was their example of Lawndale Community Church’s Christmas project. Rather than handing out a bunch of gifts and toys to families, they created a store where everything was on sale at 10% of the price. This allowed parents to choose and purchase their own gifts for their kids and to be able to say with dignity, ‘I got this for you’, it wasn’t simply a handout.

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Baby Invasion

by Lon on November 1, 2008

From a recent issue of Toronto Life:

Hipster parents are clogging cafes with their king-size strollers and inflicting their unruly toddlers on the childless masses. Is grown-up space a thing of the past?

What do you think?  Has baby idol hit your city?

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Homeless in Toronto…

by Lon on August 13, 2008

I was out from 2am-7am yesterday feeding the homeless.  A new good friend and I handed out 150 sandwiches and 200 bottles of water.  Was there something better we really could have been doing with our time?

You can read a bit more about homelessness in Toronto in this report from the city itself.

Reports vary in terms of how homelessness is measured, some say 4,000 others say 40,000 homeless individuals.  Either way there’s only enough for about 3,000 people in shelters.  And imagine those winters.

Even the ‘middle class’ are being driven out of the downtown core with gentrication and skyrocketing living costs.

What’s an individual in a big city like Toronto suppose to do about all of this?

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