The Great Divide (Sept/Oct 2004)

It has been called by many names throughout recorded history, developing and taking shape, as the story of humanity unfolds. It is the city, the metropolis, the urban village, the stronghold of art and violence, depravity and compassion. For those of us who live in modern urban areas, their continued growth and form have profound effects upon our psyche and spiritual development.

Flashback. Way back, ten thousand years or so, to the days of "primitive" man, and our hunter-gather roots. Here we find the birth of social organizations. After thousands of years of evolution, the form of community structure that survived the test of survival of the fittest was that of the tribe. Despite all of its cultural quirks seemingly strange belief structures, the tribes of indigenous people had something that our modern cities lack. A real sense of belonging and togetherness among its citizens. Today, the primary symptom of today's cities is that of alienation, loneliness, and isolation. Old tribal instincts take shape in the negative actions of gangs and cults, because there is nothing in our capitalist world that promotes community as a value. It is every man for himself, and selfishness and greed are the staples of success. Since the agricultural revolution, humans have decided it is better to take things into their own hands, and manipulate nature to get what they want, instead of going with the flow and taking things as they come their way.

While this has done much to fuel the advancement of technologies, it has actually served to degenerate the emotional relationships between mankind that our survival as a species depends upon. Today's metropolitan areas are designed with business in mind and business only. As the saying goes, "All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy." Not much has changed since the days of the first attempts at civilization, if anything our sense of ascetics has declined. Now instead of architecture infused with culture, we have bland rectangles, made of metal, brick, and concrete, reaching towards the vacuum that is the American Dream. The same problems that faced the cities of the Greeks and Romans still plague us today. Overcrowding, waste management, water and food distribution, crime and poverty. These are still issues that we deal with on a day to day basis. Nothing has really progressed, it just shifts form with each passing generation, forever searching for utopian organization, without ever hitting the nail on the head.

Maybe we're too self absorbed, or maybe we've just forgotten where we came from. The simplicity of living close to the land, and close to each other. Close to death and life, and close to ourselves. Most importantly, we've forgotten the idea of community, and how it really feels to belong to something greater than ourselves. It is time to redesign our cities to promote reliance on each other and social interaction, and stop the compartmentalization and materialization of our spirits. This doesn't mean we need to don a loin cloth and spear, it only means we need to open ourselves up to the reality of our interconnectedness to all things. We need a rethink of the basic structures of civilization, and in the process we may succeed in reinventing ourselves.

-Jason M Glover

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