NEIGHBOURHOOD LIFE: Take One, Pt III (HL)

We have noticed some things about contemporary urban experience that help ground our thinking about the neighbourhood as a place for spirituality and mission.

First, we are a thoroughly urbanized people. Our prolonged exposure to the intensity of the urban environment has rubbed off on the ways we relate to each other, most especially in our neighbourhoods. The urban markers of size, density, heterogeneity and commercialization have all impacted on the ways we encounter those in closest proximity. Psychologically, we negotiate a constant dance between our human desire to connect and our equally human need for personal territory and space. Contemporary neighbourhood relationships reflect this. When it comes to connecting with those who live next door, we are as fraught with hesitation and reserve as we are with the inclinations to know and be known.

Talk about your “dance of distance and intimacy with your neighbours” with a friend.

Second, the daily experience of community is now more about networks than place. For the average urbanite, community is now a complex web of relationships, each strand sustained through constant movement from one place to the next and through the placeless technologies of cell phone, email and Internet. In the vast majority of cases, community has very little to do with those who live next door. If once upon a time our ancestors depended upon the neighbourhood for community, we no longer do. Life has changed; the neighbourhood no longer has the community playing field to itself.

Draw on a piece of paper the relationship connections that are in your life. Use a yellow marker to highlight the neighbourhood connections.

Third, where neighbourhood connections do thrive, it is often in contexts where residents share significant factors in common: things like life stage and lifestyle, family life and children, ethnic or religious affiliations. There is no doubt that natural human clustering plays an important role in neighbourhood life for many people, most especially in those places where residents attest to a high degree of community.

What kind of affinities do you experience in your neighbourhood?

Fourth, the dominant suburban values of refuge and privacy make the nurturing of neighbourhood communities an incredibly challenging task. What’s more, the evolution of suburban design, both in house and streetscape is an indication that these inclinations are only deepening. Getting to know the neighbours feels more and more like negotiating a psychological and physical obstacle course.

Have you moved across the barriers of refuge and privacy to get to a neighbour? How was that experience?

Fifth, the impacts of urban zoning—through which the daily contexts of life are ever more defined and separated—and the auto-dependence of our way of life make the nurturing of neighbourhood connections less necessary and even more difficult to sustain. While the advent of the personal automobile has enriched the possibilities for daily activity, it has also made connecting with those next door a perpetual game of hide and seek.

What do you do when you are lonely?

Sixth, just as we are overwhelmingly urbanized, so we are incredibly mobile, sustaining a level of transience and movement that few generations in history can match. This bent to constant relocation makes investment in particular places both less likely and more difficult. The implications for our basic capacity for neighbourliness and the long-term well-being of our neighbourhoods are serious.

What’s the story of transience on your street and in your neighbourhood?

When these realities are placed side by side, it is clear that engaging the neighbourhood is a challenging endeavor. There is no doubt that making connections in the local ‘hood requires a level of intentionality and focus unequaled in the past.

We have our work cut out for us.

Is it worth it?
And is it really necessary?

On both counts, yes, and most especially for those of us committed to the Christian faith!

Are you convinced?