How open are people in the church to hearing a new urbanist vision?
What do you sense? There’s a fair amount of openness. I’ve found that a lot of people will see the point, “Yes, it would be nice if we could live a bit closer together and have daily interaction as people.” That’s the kind of town in which they grew up. But I get skepticism when Christians respond, “We can’t just turn back the clock. This is how it is and we can’t change things.” You sound a little “communitarian” to people when you start to talk about new urbanism, public spaces and relinquishing some of our individual rights to do whatever we want with our properties for the common good. There’s a bit of a suspicion among Americans in general and American Christians in particular over sounding too socialistic. Dream with us, Eric. What role do you think creative Christians could play in the future of new urbanism and in efforts to re-make neighborhoods for human effectiveness? Christians bring a lot of experience with living in cities and understanding urban people. Christians could
