Sidewalks in the Kingdom

For 18 years I lived on a busy two-lane road in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. We had about 8 acres of land, mostly wooded and our house was a 17th century barn that was later renovated into a single-family home. My parents were ex-hippies. Our next door neighbors were an elderly couple who lived in the former farmhouse that our barn belonged to. My neighbors on the other side of our house were also an older couple. There were no sidewalks and playing on the street would have resulted in death, so much of my time was spent playing in the woods and in the backyard. Since most of my friends lived 20 minutes or more away from me, I would see them only on the weekends usually for sleepovers, since the parents didn’t want to drive late at night to drop someone off. The bus ride to school was an excruciating hour and a half long.

I never felt like I lived in the sticks or outside of civilization. There was a Starbucks, an Italian water ice place, a movie theater and a mall all within 10 minutes of my house. I could never walk any where on a road, but I didn’t really felt like I was missing out on anything. It was quiet for the most part and peaceful and a safe place to raise a family. My parents lived in a rough part of Washington D.C. for five years before moving to Seattle and then finally moving back to PA to settle down. They had had enough of long lines, high prices, insane traffic and the smog of the city. Compared to my cousins, who really lived out in the country, I was a city girl.

Unlike some of my annoying counterparts from the suburbs who pretended to act like they were from the ghetto and the streets, (the mean streets of Harleysville, PA no doubt) I liked going to Philly because of all the excitement and movement of the city. As I grew older, I would often go to New York City and explore the neighborhoods by myself. I went to college in Nashville, which some may be surprised to find out that it is in fact a real city and not just cowboys singing the blues in downtown saloons. Nashville is not a particularly rough city, but it has that “dirty south” feel and lacked some of the culture I had come to appreciate from Philly and New York. I almost never walked around in downtown Nashville because other than the tourist traps, there was not much to see.

Of the city, this is what I love the most. Architecture, both modern and historical, small coffee shops or street cafes, hearing different languages and being able to walk every where. If I walk around a mall all day, I feel extremely tired and sore when I get home, not to mention my eyes really hurt and I’m sick to death of all human beings. After walking around a city, I feel tired, but I also feel invigorated for some reason. Stimulated. Sidewalks in the Kingdom provides reasons why as Christians we should join the New Urbanism movement and reclaim our cities and towns to restore them to their original glory. As nice as that sounds, I have some problems with author Eric Jacobsen’s point of view and ideas.

First of all, I feel like he is living in an idealistic, retro, 1950’s-esq, down-home town. He speaks of being able to walk along the street and say hello to all of his neighbors, take his kids to the park and stop for ice cream along the way, claiming that this is a “traditional neighborhood.” He feels that he can connect to people on better levels by living close to them and building relationships. This is great, in an ideal, open, safe neighborhood. I can do this in my town as well. Jacobsen says on page 61, “the traditional city will provide many more opportunities for human contact and relationships than we find in the suburbs.” When I lived in a six story apartment building in Nashville, I spoke to my next-door neighbor a total of two times- once in the elevator and once when she came to see if my heater was broken too. The rest of my people on my hall, I saw maybe two or three times a month and only in passing. When I moved in, I made the effort to say hello to everyone on my floor, but with different schedules and padlocked doors, it made it impossible to get to know them. I’ve never felt lonelier than when I was surrounded by people all the time. Living out in the suburbs, I am much closer to my neighbors than to anyone I lived near in Nashville. I haven’t found that people are any friendlier in the city, in fact, I would go as far as to say it’s the opposite.

Second, I’ve researched Missoula, Montana, where Jacobsen resides. It has a population of around 60,000, which is twice the size of Norristown and almost half the size of Allentown. The author says that the way you can tell that you’re in a city is that “you tend to know” (page 76). Harvie Conn and Manuel Ortiz define it as "a relatively large, dense and socially heterogeneous center of integrative social power, capable of preserving, changing and interpreting human culture both for and against God's divine purpose." Missoula, Montana, according to the 2000 US census, has exactly 207 African Americans living there. There were 53,387 whites. The rest were Hispanic, American Indian, Asian or other. Now according to what Conn and Ortiz say, I wouldn’t consider Missoula to be the slightest bit diverse. To me, what is attractive about the city is the diversity it can bring. If I want to be surrounded by 53,000 white people, I’ll go back to Harleysville, PA. Although Jacobsen said he grew up in Seattle and spent time in San Francisco, which are major cities, I am not sure that he is really in the position to be telling Christians to move back to the city when he himself barely lives in one. He even admits that he lives in a desirable university neighborhood and would not feel comfortable moving his family to a dangerous urban environment (page 142). I compare this to basically telling us that we are selfish to live out the suburbs, that we should move back to the city and then gives us options for buying real estate in Rittenhouse Square.

As much as he claims that his ideas are not for the wealthy or elite, that is the feeling I get. I know that as a pastor, he’s not earning much, but compared to residents already in poor urban areas, they cannot relate to what he his saying. He speaks of buying from local businesses to support the domestic economy or “widening our perspective on economic decisions” (page 123). Sure you and I can afford to do that, but someone in North Philly depends on inexpensive, chain outlets like the Dollar Store or Safeway to help save them money. They can’t be shopping at Nancy’s Organic Foods. When discussing New Urbanism, he uses the community of Seaside, Florida as an example. This is a wonderfully planned community where public space is the most important thing and the sidewalks are made of bubblegum. The homes there are now going for $2 million. How on earth are people in poverty supposed to plan their neighborhoods around an example like that? How is even the normal, middle-class supposed to do that? Even if failing neighborhoods took the model of Traditional Neighborhood Design and managed to gentrify it into a soda-pop shop friendly zone, in time the real estate prices would rise dramatically and force all original residents to move away.

If this is done over and over, with suburbanites moving back to the city to reclaim the ideal neighborhood life, eventually the suburbs would turn into the city. Poorer residents would be forced to move out to the suburbs and start turning former McMansions into multiple family homes. After a couple of decades, people would be writing books about how we need to reclaim the suburbs and turn them into wholesome, friendly environments again. Not everyone can move to the city or there would be extreme overpopulation. On page 150, a quote from a police chief states that “Urban problems are not caused by poverty, but by extreme overpopulation.” Eventually, the suburbs will become urban areas as well, everywhere turning into a sprawl to rival Los Angeles.

What then, is the solution? The idea of mixed-income neighborhoods is a reoccurring theme in Jacobsen’s book. Again, very ideal. Unfortunately, zoning laws make it near-impossible to mix different housing types and add commercial venues into neighborhoods. And also, more unfortunately, most people aren’t open to living in a mixed-income area. Americans feel pride in being able to “work from the bottom up” and buy their family a big, cookie-cutter home and an SUV. Even most people who grew up in poor, urban areas dream of getting out of the city and moving into a huge house. Popular music and the media have glamorized the material lifestyle so much that kids are growing up with the dreams of making millions and buying lots of stuff. If the suburban sprawl and abandonment of our cities is to ever stop, our youth’s values have to change. Christian values and the mindset of middle-America have to change as well.

Architecture is one of the things that makes cities unique from each other. Older cities, with historical, landmark buildings from different eras are always the most interesting places to visit. Newer cities, such as Orlando or Phoenix, are pretty boring and lack visually stimulating architecture. We look at Europe and are amazed by the diverse buildings and architecture they possess. We think that they care more about keeping their culture and buildings sacred then we do. They’ve had a lot more time to perfect it- the US is still a baby. Also, it is common in other countries for the rich to live in the cities and the poor to live outside. London, Sao Paulo and Peru are all examples of where the rich live comfortably in the city and the poor are in the slums surrounding it. Why can the rich stand to live in the inner cities, when we Americans can not? Different priorities. In America, work is our number one focus and our reason for living. In South America and Europe, family and enjoying life takes prevalence. They will sacrifice living in an apartment in the city over a huge house in the country because then they can afford to have a vacation home or travel for two months out of the year. In America, having the huge house is the goal and vacations, family time and relaxation comes second.

Jacobsen lobbies for companies and governments to consider spending a little bit more money on developing buildings that add charm and pride to a city. It is hard to get excited about visiting a certain place or preserving a building if it is shaped like a concrete shoebox. Unfortunately, there are so many other problems in cities that require money that designing groundbreaking structures is not the highest priority. People want the most economical, sensible things in life (except when it comes to entertainment, go figure). If a city was to spend millions of dollars on a fancy council building, there would be an uproar. A place like City Hall could never be built today. Yet an eye was barely batted when the Linc was built. My parents almost left their church when they proposed a $5 million dollar expansion on their already gargantuan building. That could feed a lot of starving people. But not all companies will build the most boring and cheap building as possible and not all people will protest. People do need pride in their skyline. The modern, prism-shaped, glass building at the Amtrak station on 30th has added to the Philadelphia skyline and while everyone may not appreciate progressive architecture, (as told in The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand) it certainly catches your eye.

I think the key to renewing our cities and developing mixed-income neighborhoods that can grow and prosper without alienating anyone is to find a balance in your lifestyle. I’m not a fan of tract developments and identical, three-car garage homes in the middle of a field with no trees or sidewalks, miles away from the nearest grocery store. I think people’s priorities have shifted towards isolation and privacy, rather than community and friendship. People get enough breathing down their neck at work that they want to have peace and quiet when they come home. That is fine. The problem occurs when people isolate themselves and become anti-social, when the TV becomes their nightly hobby and going out consists of the drive-thru at Burger King. While I don’t ever want to live in a McMansion in the ‘burbs, I also don’t have children yet. The city is a fun and exciting place for a twenty-something, but unless you live in Missoula, Montana, chances are you don’t want your kids roaming around in the streets of Philadelphia, even if the streets are in Rittenhouse Square. And while it would be nice to get a group of friends to build your own utopian neighborhood where downtown is a lovely five minute walk and Mr. Jones will wave from his yard while raking leaves and the ice cream truck will go by playing La Cucaracha, that world is something of books and TV shows. Even when my grandparent’s lived in a so-called traditional neighborhood in the 1930’s, the world was not a better place, problems were just hidden better. Violence did not go on in the street, it went on inside the homes, behind drawn shades.

People’s personalities will determine how often they will reach out to other people, where they live will not. A next-door neighbor who lives in the home attached to you could ignore you for 20 years and the farmer 5 miles down the road could know the name of your dog. In order to reach out to people as Christians, we must go outside our comfort zones. Jacobsen is a pastor and probably fairly outgoing (from his writing and his stories I can tell he’s at ease with talking to strangers.) Therefore, his view on things comes from his personality. He loves the city he’s in and speaks to middle-class Christians in his book. I’m not sure if his ideas and perspectives will work for everyone or reach everyone, but he can attempt to open some minds and hope that people follow suit. Our cities are worth fighting for and to lose these treasures to a Sam’s Club and a world of cookie cutter homes would be a tragedy.