c. 2007 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) My adjustment to being a resident of New York City, as opposed to a frequent visitor, began with donning the New York Yankees cap my eldest son gave me at a welcome lunch.
That wasn’t a small adjustment for a longtime Boston Red Sox fan.
Next adjustments were picnicking in Central Park past sundown, shopping on Broadway at 9:30 p.m., and buying groceries in amounts small enough to be hand-carried five blocks.
The biggest adjustment, and most surprising, has to do with space. I had thought I was leaving wide-open spaces and coming to congestion. In a way, the opposite turns out to be true.
New York is every bit as congested as people think. With 67,000 residents per square mile, Manhattan is the most densely populated county in the U.S. Midday in Midtown is a madhouse. The New York Times recently calculated that livestock being trucked to market are afforded more space than riders on the Lexington Avenue subway line.
But the city just feels more spacious to me. No longer is my travel defined by the 88.5-cubic-foot interior of a car hurtling a few feet from other 3,000-pound missiles. Now I walk on most outings, sometimes dodging other pedestrians but mostly striding freely. The reservoir in Central Park feels as open as any lakefront.
We didn’t move here for the purpose of downsizing. Small just becomes inevitable when housing costs eight times more than it does back in North Carolina. But as I adjust to a study that is barely one-fourth the size of my former study, I don’t feel hemmed in, because so much is happening outside my 12th story windows.
In fact, we have reduced our housing allotment to about the size Americans took for granted in 1950, when the typical house provided 300 square feet per occupant, as opposed to the 800 square feet per occupant of houses built in 2005. The house of my childhood felt spacious enough, and so does this apartment.
On balance, Americans continue their movement from cities to suburbs. But there are signs the tide is turning. Cities like New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Atlanta report an accelerating influx of what a University of Virginia study called “singles, young professionals, empty nesters and baby boomers.” Growth in income and housing values in 22 cities now outstrips their suburbs.
People come because of shorter commutes, more time spent outdoors, less reliance on cars, more activities and less time spent getting to them.
I know from recent trips to Omaha, Neb., Des Moines, Iowa, and Knoxville, Tenn., that smaller cities are experiencing the same move-to-downtown trend.
City life has a culturally spacious feel to it. More languages being spoken, more music being played, more worship spaces of every type. Relations aren’t always easy _ churches, sad to say, can be a tinderbox for ethnic squabbles imported from former homelands _ but the flavor of diversity is unmistakable.
I am intrigued by New York’s surprisingly spacious feel. The quest for open space has defined America from its beginnings. I wonder if the new “frontier” for space might lie where we least expect it: in cities that force us outdoors, onto our feet and among diverse people.
My question now is where religion fits into this. Familiar paradigms like neighborhood parish and suburban campus don’t fit well in the wide-open city. When people get onto their feet and into the crowd, they will hear God’s “still, small voice” in fresh ways.
(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest in Durham, N.C. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus: 100 Questions People Want to Ask,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)
DSB/RB END EHRICHA file photo of Tom Ehrich is available via https://religionnews.com.
