An Urbanising World

An Urbanising World
The United Nations Report on Human Settlements 1996
Oxford University Press. 559 pages. £18.99
ISBN 0 19 823346 9

I have been reading a book that I hope may inspire many of us to 'venture all' (William Carey's words) for the kingdom of Christ. An Urbanising World is not a gripping read and unlikely to be a best-seller, but it can awaken us to the vast spiritual needs of our world.
It is the report of the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements held in Istanbul in June 1996 and is basically a snapshot of a world that is urbanising at an accelerating rate. Like it or not, we live in a world in which more and more people will live in cities, and this poses a great missionary challenge to us as Christians.
An Urbanising World begins by putting the process of urbanisation in its global context with particular reference to the impact of economics and rapid population growth in the developing world. It then moves on to looking in more detail at the major world regions. The resulting picture is one of great diversities. Cities are remarkably rich and complex places and no two are the same. Any mission society working in a specific region should consult what this report says about the cities where it is working.
The report then turns to social, environmental and governmental issues. There is considerable space given to housing, infrastructure, land use, transport, planning, finance, etc.. The latter part of the report is not exciting, but even a cursory reading gives a good idea of the complex issues. Surprisingly, the report gives little space to discussing religious and cultural factors in the make-up of cities. This is a serious flaw. Can Calcutta or London or Cairo be properly understood without taking into account the impact of the religious beliefs of their citizens? The report reflects the secularised outlook of the professional international bureaucrats who wrote it. Let me highlight some key issues.

Cities' key role in national life and development

Contrary to the impression many people have, cities make a very positive contribution to national life. News about cities always seems to be bad news - crime, drugs, poor education, corruption, etc.. But cities both historically and today enhance the life of nations. They are centres of business, education, art, science, technology, etc.. In the developing world, nations that urbanised rapidly in the past 20 to 30 years are economically more advanced today. Christians need to remember this.

Cities need good government if they are to prosper

For various reasons, cities around the world have all too often been badly governed, resulting in decay and decline. Where cities have strong and creative leadership, they often prosper. Christians need to be concerned. We cannot complain about urban decay if we do not get involved. New York City pastor Tim Keller calls us to 're-neighbouring' and, in so doing, seek to retake cities for Christ.

Cities are not growing quite as fast or to quite the size that many had predicted

A few years ago, many cities in the developing world were expected to grow to populations of 30 to 40 million people. For a number of reasons - economic, social, political - this has not happened, although there are some enormous cities. The largest city in the world is Tokyo with a population of 25 million, followed by New York with 16 million. London, which in 1900 was the world's largest city, now ranks 23rd with a population of just over seven million. Smaller cities are growing. Britain today is 89% urbanised.

Cities are difficult to define

What is a city? The great cities of the ancient world would only be small cities today. Strictly speaking, London is the square mile of the old City with a village population of some 5,000 souls, but when you include all the boroughs of the old Greater London Council, the population is 7,335,000.
Cities serve different functions. Some cities gain their importance from being national centres of politics, business, education, etc., like Madrid or Milan. Other cities, such as London, Paris or New York, are 'global' and have an importance reaching far beyond their borders. Still others focus on industry (Sheffield, Essen), technology (Reading, Munich), education (Oxford, Padova) or tourism (Venice, York). Some cities are gateway cities, such as Liverpool or Miami. Others (as London), combine many of these functions well.
As cities have grown, 'edge-cities' have developed. These are urban concentrations that, while dependent in some measure on the core city, have a life of their own, e.g. Croydon and Slough.

Cities face enormous challenges

One of the biggest problems facing cities is poverty. In the developing world, poverty is of monumental proportions. In some cities, a substantial percentage of the population live under the poverty line: 58.2% in Bangladesh, 37.1% in India, 37.7% in Brazil. Significantly, the percentage of the population living in poverty is greater in rural areas which indicates why people migrate to cities. Closely related to the problem of poverty is that of mass migration. In many cases (Bombay, Lahore, Mexico City, Shanghai), hundreds of thousands of people are arriving every year. This puts enormous strains on the infrastructure. Housing, sewerage, education, transport, water supply, etc. are simply inadequate. On the edge of many cities, large slums develop. To make matters worse, many cities in the developing world have seen central government expenditure on cities decreasing in recent years.
Another great challenge to cities is homelessness. The report estimates there are 100 million to one billion homeless people worldwide.

Cities in the West are becoming increasingly international

Over the past 30 years, the main cities in Britain have become very multicultural. No longer is there a typical Londoner. (In East London where I live, the traditional Cockney is now a minority among a mosaic of other cultures.) Also around the world there are something like 100 million refugees of one kind or another. A growing international professional class also moves around the world for education and work. Obviously churches in cities have to adapt to this internationalising of their mission field.
The world will only be evangelised when its cities are evangelised. Cities are the frontier of world missions. Paul understood this - do we?
We must, however, respond biblically and intelligently. Paul's approach to the great city of Athens gives us some clues on this (Acts 17.16-34).

1 Understand the city

While Paul waited in Athens, he walked about the city and sought to understand it. For obvious reasons, unlike the UN report, he was interested in its religion (v. 16, 23). We need to seek to understand our cities. Reading this report is one way to do so on the broad scale, but equally we can do research in our local libraries about the social composition and problems of our cities. When I recently did this in the Tower Hamlets Library, I was amazed at what I found. For example, I discovered that Tower Hamlets has the highest number of single men in Britain. There are some 50,000 Bangladeshi Muslims in Tower Hamlets, almost a third of the population. It is estimated there are 10,000 artists living in inner East London, the highest concentration in the world. What does all this say about the mission of my church? It would be piously suicidal to pretend that the area was like it was 20, 50 or 100 years ago and that nothing needed to change.(1)

2. Develop a strategy for the city

In Athens, Paul followed his normal strategy in urban evangelism (for that is what most of his work was). First, he went to the place where there were people who had some biblical foundation (the synagogue) and then he went to the places where the pagans were (the marketplace and Areopagus). We need a similar strategy today. Of course, our particular circumstances are different, but our overall approach is basically the same. We need church-based evangelism and we need to get out to where the pagans are. This requires some hard and prayerful thinking. Churches need to work together. One of my main concerns is that classically evangelical churches in inner London (many of which are small and struggling) pray, consult, strategise and work together to evangelise our city. No one church can do everything itself.

3. Like Paul, we need to take action

Paul did something about the great city of Athens; he began to preach Jesus and the resurrection and we must do the same. The gospel is the only answer to the deepest needs of the world's cities. We must do everything we can to make it known. At East London Tabernacle, in addition to traditional methods (door-to-door, etc.), we have been experimenting with small group evangelism (Christianity Explained), discussion groups in pubs, special events for non-Christians, targeted evangelism for specific groups such as internationals and young people.
Amid all the brokenness, loneliness, aggression, ugliness and pain of our cities, churches should be places where God's grace and peace can be experienced. And some of us, dear readers, should seriously think about moving into the inner cities. Are you nearing retirement age? Why move to a coastal resort only to join a church full of people like you, when you could have a retirement full of excitement and adventure in the inner city? Churches need the gifts and skills of retired elders, deacons and workers. The same applies to people whose children have grown up or who do not have any children or who are single. Why follow the evangelical bandwagon to the suburbs? (2)

Notes

1. If you would like further reading on urban theology and mission, the following books may be helpful:
Roger Greenway, ed., Discipling the City, Baker, 1992;
Raymond Bakke, The Urban Christian, MarcEurope, 1983;
Roy Joslin, Urban Harvest, Evangelical Press, 1982 (still the British classic in the field).
The journal Urban Harvest, published by Westminster Theological Seminary in the USA and edited by Harvey Conn, is well worth getting.

2. I would be happy to speak with anyone on this subject. I can be contacted at East London Tabernacle, Burdett Road, London E3 4TU (0181 980 6125, E-mail: KenBrownell@compuserve.com).

The United Nations Report on Human Settlements 1996