Cities are for People

Earlier this summer I was involved in talks that could up the ante from our college, in conjunction with the diocese, in relation to urban theology. One of the things I've been thinking about since then is the need to bring together thinking about environmental matters along with the inherited concerns of urban theology (planning, poverty, resources, crime, transport, health etc). So this article was a good reminder of why it is important to add ecology to the list. WorldChanging: Cities are for People: The Limits of Localism: "Cities offer a lot of environmental benefits, at least compared to the alternatives. There are many reasons this is so, but they all spring from a fairly basic fact: cities are built for people. Lots of people, densely packed, sharing resources. Innovations that encourage or take advantage of that density are likely to make cities more sustainable. And innovations that undermine density have a lot of work to do to overcome their inherent environmental disadvantages."
Off the top of my head, this seems to implicate a robust theology of the Powers and some interesting engagement with the Babel story etc. Then we need to weave in issues to do with development along with the more recent thinking about ecotheology. I hope to do some more reading on ecotheology with a clear eye on how it plays out in relation to the City. But the questions at the heart of this article are the kind that we need to be able to engage with theologically.