released 2/1/2013

In this Anthology, Ken Myers interviews seven guests — architects, geographers, and historians and clergy — about the nature of good urban environments, about how loving our neighbors can and must take shape in how we order the material aspects of shared life. The conversations on this Anthology give particular attention to how the New Urbanist movement has challenged the dehumanizing effects of modernism in urban design. 

James Howard Kunstler opens our eyes to the “mutilated urbanism” of so much of America’s built environment. On a more hopeful note, architect Jeff Speck introduces New Urbanism’s response to that critique, and Richard Moe describes the Preservationist Movement’s maintaining of old neighborhoods. After a summary segment from architectural historian Vincent Scully, Philip Bess elaborates on the natural law framework within which New Urbanists are operating, while David Harvey describes the impact of the automobile, and the unwitting destruction of truly private as well as truly public spaces. Pastor Eric Jacobsen closes with a discussion of a proper Christian understanding of human flourishing, and challenges the Church to lead the recovery of healthy community.

(100 minutes)

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Theologian Craig Bartholomew observes that global culture is structured so as to increase spending and consumption; that is, it’s built like a commercial mall. Neglect of the meaningfulness of embodied engagement with the world beyond commercial activity has caused modern men and women to forget that “One of the glories of being human and creaturely is to be implaced.” Early in his book, Where Mortals Dwell: A Christian View of Place for Today, Bartholomew laments the “fatal tendency in modernity to privilege abstract, scientific knowledge over everyday experience as the path to the truth about the world.” Because modern culture has tended to deny or obscure concrete aspects of our creatureliness, we are suffering what many have called a crisis of place. Bartholomew ends by reflecting on the incredible fertility of Scripture’s view of place.

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