The Spiritual City by Philip Sheldrake

Buy it from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers 

There was much that I liked about this book, and it felt right to be reading it while I was in New York, in the context of a prime example of “the city” as we now encounter it.

While the arguments for taking the City seriously as Christians were well made what seemed to be missing was how to actually deal with the City of the 21^st Century. It is clear that many of the thinkers who used here lived in cities whose populations were counted in hundreds of thousand rather millions and scale is key to the functioning of communities. Also we have to take into account the differences between our infrastructure rich “western” cities and many of the vast cities in other parts of the world where significant proportions of their populations live without access to effective infrastructure, be that transport, sanitation, utilities etc, and therefore their participation in any common life of “the City” is difficult.

While we were in New York we when to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) which among its exhibitions would currently showing one on Architecture in Latin America from 1950s to 1980s. Its focus was on the planned urban developments, including its completely new Cities such as Brasilia. Much of this work seemed to run counter to the ideas that Sheldrake was putting forward. Urban planning of that era in the UK is generally derided and an equivalent exhibition for the UK would likely be dominated by a catalogue of grand follies and relief at visions that were never realised. This was not the tone of the MoMA exhibition – it seemed to be looking back with positivity.

One of the quotes I particularly liked follows on from this “Stories are more than descriptions. They take ownership of spaces, define boundaries, and create bridges between individuals. The narrative structure of local communities enables people to shape the world that surrounds them, rather than be passively controlled by it.” (p109) It is key that local communities have the opportunity to describe themselves – too often poorer communities find that it is only the (negative) descriptions of others that are given validity – we might recall the post-War “slum clearances”, where many now talk of the strength of the communities that was lost in the move to new housing estates and tower blocks – call it “slum clearance” or “destruction of community” the lens you use determines what you will see.

While another quote “Memory is redemptive in that only by handling the past constructively are we able effectively to shape the present and name a future that we may aspire to.” (p122) hints at the reason why much urban regeneration fails, too often it involves wiping the slate clean and trying to start completely afresh – leaving whatever is created soulless and without roots. Better to work with the past, being adaptive and reshaping.

Whatever the city is, it will always be a melting pot – however much those with “power” might try to regulate and sanitise the population there will be places beyond their reach – with so much life in the city there will always be some that is overlooked – and perhaps it is in those overlooked places that the greatest creativity is found.