The Challenges for Neighborliness amongst Suburban Sprawl
One of my passions as a church planter is to think more deeply about how the church can better inhabit our communities. I want our church to arise out of and serve our community here in Carol Stream. Community describes our life together within the church. That is internal community. Community is also where our church lives together with our neighbors. That is external community. And both matter. We must be intentional about both. Or else our mission will lose something vital--the real, embodied presence of Jesus Christ in our neighborhood.
I am convinced that many suburban churches struggle or fail at evangelism because they are not that living presence of Jesus in their various suburban neighborhoods. Outreach then feels and looks artificial. It becomes programmatic, assigned to a few church leaders or passionate lay people. It is not the living reality of who a church is. And unbelievers instinctively feel it.
But the context of suburban life is itself a huge obstacle to being that living presence. I am also well aware how we in suburban America confront certain challenges in doing community well. One significant factor, I believe, is so-called suburban sprawl. It is an intentional design of city planners to give the suburbanite maximal discretionary space for his/her individual life. And it creates obstacles for the church's mission.
In this post, I explore the challenge posed by suburban sprawl to the mission of the church. In future posts, I want to offer alternative visions for what might be instead. Specifically, here, I consider how suburban sprawl poses significant challenges for neighborliness.
I believe sprawl was born because modern American suburban planners thought they were giving people what they wanted or needed (or both). We wanted or needed our own little acre (or half- or quarter- or eighth-acre, or whatever) for a single-family home. That home was (is?) a signal feature of the American dream. And the easiest, most efficient way to plan for vast expanses of such homes was to group them all together, side-by-side, street-by-street, neatly into their own communities. Thus, the birth of the subdivision. Then connecting subdivisions would be vast stretches of arterial roads to deliver residents efficiently to and from work and play, shopping and home. (Today these roads have often grown into large, 4- and 6-lane divided highways, clogged by commuter traffic every morning, noon and night!) Note how everything along those arterial roads is zoned for commercial and (light) industrial purposes--the supermarkets, department stores, restaurants and places of employment suburbanites needed. Maybe you can find some multifamily housing along those busier arterial roads, but almost never a single family home. Those belong--only--in subdivisions.
For example: Where I live, the streets all pretty much run in straight, parallel lines. (The flat topography of Illinois wars against curves of all sorts.) So subdivisions of single family homes are sliced and diced at right angles, east-west and north-south. There is very little commercial or industrial real estate within (easy) walking distance. What there is, though, are large traffic arteries within a couple blocks of each home, ready to take us to commerce or industry--as we so choose. With very few exceptions, to take care of creaturely needs or comforts, you must drive. In fact, in our immediate neighborhood, we have no sidewalks, so if we walk anywhere we must walk in the road, contending with cars!
In one sense, it is a grand ideal: the home is a peaceful reality cordoned off from the hectic of commerce and work. It is a refuge, a safe haven--my own 'personal castle,' as it were, from the hubbub of contemporary life. My home, my very own personal retreat center!
But those expanses and those roads, they also cut me off from my neighbors. The roads that slice and dice my neighborhood slice off one family from another; they dice a community into atomistic units which rarely interact with one another. And those same arteries that carry me miles away from home for work, food and fun? Their very existence means I have little or no on-going personal relationship with my workplace, with the stores or storekeepers who might provide my food, or with the places where I have fun. They are isolated from, external to my neighborhood. That isolation seems to reinforce the assumption that they exist only for utilitarian purposes.
To be fair, our sprawl could be worse. We are delighted that in our neighborhood (aerial picture above) there are two nice parks within an easy walk. The Illinois Prairie Path is a little less than a half mile away. Our beloved bowling alley, Wheaton Bowl, is also only a block from my house. (We drive that distance, however, for two reasons, one very much based in sprawl: first, bowling balls are heavy and second, we would take our lives in our hands trying to cross a busy, four lane artery to get there!) Save for these conveniences, we would be afflicted even worse by suburban sprawl.
In general, sprawl is our reality. I cannot realistically shop for dinner or clothing or other goods by walking. I have to include usually at least 30 minutes of travel time (there and back), holed up alone in my car, when I do go out. At least. And I have little or no incidental contact with folks in my surrounding neighborhood, except for maybe people within a block of my home.
The challenges for neighborliness--that art of living together well with whomever happens to be next door--are pretty clear.
First, we do not enjoy enough shared spaces. As a result, we might not even know our neighbors because it takes an effort to overcome the distance. I learned this lesson the hard way. I still feel ashamed about it. We did get to know our next door neighbors to the north of us when, some years ago, we first moved in our neighborhood. They were a kind, elderly couple who loved to see our infant son. A few years later, during one of those brutal midwest winters, we lost touch with them. We did not see them outside for several months. And when we were back outside, I did not notice until months later that I had not seen the husband for a while. Yes, he had passed away and I did not even know it until months had gone by. If you live in suburban America, you must make an intentional effort to know your neighbors because you can go weeks and months without even seeing them. That distance and lack of shared space is a challenge to neighborliness.
Second, we do not have enough shared experiences. Consider this contrast: Living in multi-family housing puts people in closer proximity to one another. There is a greater shared reality--a shared experience of life in the same building. In urban contexts, neighbors are more likely to shop at the same stores or eat at the same restaurants because they are within a certain walking radius from where they live (and driving is sometimes impractical because of parking). In both multi-family and urban contexts, there are more shared experiences rooted in shared place. Let me be clear: I am not romanticizing living in an apartment complex or in an urban neighborhood. The point is rather to show this: how the single-family suburbs are more isolated than two alternative modes of living. So suburban isolation is a challenge to neighborliness because you and your neighbor have less of life to connect you.
The final challenge is a bit more speculative, but here it is:
Third, I am convinced that the distance and isolation of the suburbs create a false sense that neighborliness is itself optional. The suburbs school us in certain individualistic assumptions about ourselves and our neighbors. If you do not have to know your neighbors, and if you have even relatively few common experiences, why should you bother to care about them? I'm not saying you wish ill upon your neighbors. No, that would be far too 'unnice' for most Americans. Rather, I think we often blissfully go through life ignoring them. Again, probably not with a hostile or unfeeling heart. Rather, the distance and isolation of American suburb makes it far too easy for us go about our merry, self-absorbed way without our neighbor ever really entering the picture.
As a consequence, we do not even bother with the question which Jesus wants to bother us with: Who is my neighbor? What do I owe her or him? (Luke 10.25-37) Of course, Jesus's answer in that passage is the parable of the Good Samaritan. And basically, that parable removes any doubt about who our neighbor is (or is in God's eyes): our neighbor is anyone and everyone whom we meet. Jesus insists that you do not choose your neighbors as much as you encounter them along life's way. And when you do, you should be prepared to be a good, caring neighbor to all. What do I owe my neighbor? Compassion: We should help bear our neighbor's burdens. Care for them with a generous, self-denying concern.
Let me put it bluntly: being a good neighbor--according to the Jesus way--is the mission of the church! It is the mode in which we should be making disciples wherever we go. But if the suburb atomizes neighbors from one another--if it keeps us from sharing space, experiences and life together--how do we live differently in the suburbs? That's the subject for future posts!
I am convinced that many suburban churches struggle or fail at evangelism because they are not that living presence of Jesus in their various suburban neighborhoods. Outreach then feels and looks artificial. It becomes programmatic, assigned to a few church leaders or passionate lay people. It is not the living reality of who a church is. And unbelievers instinctively feel it.
But the context of suburban life is itself a huge obstacle to being that living presence. I am also well aware how we in suburban America confront certain challenges in doing community well. One significant factor, I believe, is so-called suburban sprawl. It is an intentional design of city planners to give the suburbanite maximal discretionary space for his/her individual life. And it creates obstacles for the church's mission.
In this post, I explore the challenge posed by suburban sprawl to the mission of the church. In future posts, I want to offer alternative visions for what might be instead. Specifically, here, I consider how suburban sprawl poses significant challenges for neighborliness.
I believe sprawl was born because modern American suburban planners thought they were giving people what they wanted or needed (or both). We wanted or needed our own little acre (or half- or quarter- or eighth-acre, or whatever) for a single-family home. That home was (is?) a signal feature of the American dream. And the easiest, most efficient way to plan for vast expanses of such homes was to group them all together, side-by-side, street-by-street, neatly into their own communities. Thus, the birth of the subdivision. Then connecting subdivisions would be vast stretches of arterial roads to deliver residents efficiently to and from work and play, shopping and home. (Today these roads have often grown into large, 4- and 6-lane divided highways, clogged by commuter traffic every morning, noon and night!) Note how everything along those arterial roads is zoned for commercial and (light) industrial purposes--the supermarkets, department stores, restaurants and places of employment suburbanites needed. Maybe you can find some multifamily housing along those busier arterial roads, but almost never a single family home. Those belong--only--in subdivisions.
In one sense, it is a grand ideal: the home is a peaceful reality cordoned off from the hectic of commerce and work. It is a refuge, a safe haven--my own 'personal castle,' as it were, from the hubbub of contemporary life. My home, my very own personal retreat center!
But those expanses and those roads, they also cut me off from my neighbors. The roads that slice and dice my neighborhood slice off one family from another; they dice a community into atomistic units which rarely interact with one another. And those same arteries that carry me miles away from home for work, food and fun? Their very existence means I have little or no on-going personal relationship with my workplace, with the stores or storekeepers who might provide my food, or with the places where I have fun. They are isolated from, external to my neighborhood. That isolation seems to reinforce the assumption that they exist only for utilitarian purposes.
To be fair, our sprawl could be worse. We are delighted that in our neighborhood (aerial picture above) there are two nice parks within an easy walk. The Illinois Prairie Path is a little less than a half mile away. Our beloved bowling alley, Wheaton Bowl, is also only a block from my house. (We drive that distance, however, for two reasons, one very much based in sprawl: first, bowling balls are heavy and second, we would take our lives in our hands trying to cross a busy, four lane artery to get there!) Save for these conveniences, we would be afflicted even worse by suburban sprawl.
In general, sprawl is our reality. I cannot realistically shop for dinner or clothing or other goods by walking. I have to include usually at least 30 minutes of travel time (there and back), holed up alone in my car, when I do go out. At least. And I have little or no incidental contact with folks in my surrounding neighborhood, except for maybe people within a block of my home.
The challenges for neighborliness--that art of living together well with whomever happens to be next door--are pretty clear.
First, we do not enjoy enough shared spaces. As a result, we might not even know our neighbors because it takes an effort to overcome the distance. I learned this lesson the hard way. I still feel ashamed about it. We did get to know our next door neighbors to the north of us when, some years ago, we first moved in our neighborhood. They were a kind, elderly couple who loved to see our infant son. A few years later, during one of those brutal midwest winters, we lost touch with them. We did not see them outside for several months. And when we were back outside, I did not notice until months later that I had not seen the husband for a while. Yes, he had passed away and I did not even know it until months had gone by. If you live in suburban America, you must make an intentional effort to know your neighbors because you can go weeks and months without even seeing them. That distance and lack of shared space is a challenge to neighborliness.
Second, we do not have enough shared experiences. Consider this contrast: Living in multi-family housing puts people in closer proximity to one another. There is a greater shared reality--a shared experience of life in the same building. In urban contexts, neighbors are more likely to shop at the same stores or eat at the same restaurants because they are within a certain walking radius from where they live (and driving is sometimes impractical because of parking). In both multi-family and urban contexts, there are more shared experiences rooted in shared place. Let me be clear: I am not romanticizing living in an apartment complex or in an urban neighborhood. The point is rather to show this: how the single-family suburbs are more isolated than two alternative modes of living. So suburban isolation is a challenge to neighborliness because you and your neighbor have less of life to connect you.
The final challenge is a bit more speculative, but here it is:
Third, I am convinced that the distance and isolation of the suburbs create a false sense that neighborliness is itself optional. The suburbs school us in certain individualistic assumptions about ourselves and our neighbors. If you do not have to know your neighbors, and if you have even relatively few common experiences, why should you bother to care about them? I'm not saying you wish ill upon your neighbors. No, that would be far too 'unnice' for most Americans. Rather, I think we often blissfully go through life ignoring them. Again, probably not with a hostile or unfeeling heart. Rather, the distance and isolation of American suburb makes it far too easy for us go about our merry, self-absorbed way without our neighbor ever really entering the picture.
As a consequence, we do not even bother with the question which Jesus wants to bother us with: Who is my neighbor? What do I owe her or him? (Luke 10.25-37) Of course, Jesus's answer in that passage is the parable of the Good Samaritan. And basically, that parable removes any doubt about who our neighbor is (or is in God's eyes): our neighbor is anyone and everyone whom we meet. Jesus insists that you do not choose your neighbors as much as you encounter them along life's way. And when you do, you should be prepared to be a good, caring neighbor to all. What do I owe my neighbor? Compassion: We should help bear our neighbor's burdens. Care for them with a generous, self-denying concern.
Let me put it bluntly: being a good neighbor--according to the Jesus way--is the mission of the church! It is the mode in which we should be making disciples wherever we go. But if the suburb atomizes neighbors from one another--if it keeps us from sharing space, experiences and life together--how do we live differently in the suburbs? That's the subject for future posts!
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