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Urban pride can prevent many ills of urbanization
By Daniel A. Bell and Avner de-Shalit |
April 6, 2012, Friday
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WHAT is the big story of our age? It depends on the day, but if we count by centuries, then surely humanity's urbanization is a strong contender.
Today, more than half of the world's population lives in cities, compared to less than 3 percent in 1800.
By 2025, China alone is expected to have 15 "mega-cities," each with a population of at least 25 million.
Are social critics right to worry about the atomized loneliness of big-city life?
True, cities cannot provide the rich sense of community that often characterizes villages and small towns. But a different form of community evolves in cities. People often take pride in their cities, and seek to nourish their distinctive civic cultures.
Pride in one's city has a long history.
In the ancient world, Athenians identified with their city's democratic ethos, while Spartans prided themselves on their city's reputation for military discipline and strength.
Of course, today's urban areas are huge, diverse, and pluralistic, so it may seem strange to say that a modern city has an ethos that informs its residents' collective life. Yet cities do have such an ethos.
Consider Montreal, whose residents must navigate the city's tricky linguistic politics. Montreal is a relatively successful example of a city in which Anglophones and Francophones both feel at home, but language debates nonetheless dominate the political scene - and structure an ethos for the city's residents.
Civicism
Paris, on the other hand, has a romantic ethos. But Parisians reject Hollywood's banal concept of love as a story that ends happily ever after.
Their idea of romance centers on its opposition to staid values and predictability of bourgeois life.
In fact, many cities have distinctive identities of which their residents are proud. Urban pride - what we call "civicism" - is a key feature of our identities today. This matters in part because cities with a clear ethos can better resist globalization's homogenizing tendencies.
Cities with a strong ethos can also accomplish political goals that are difficult to achieve at the national level. China, the United States, and even Canada may take years to implement serious plans to address climate change.
Yet cities like Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province; Portland, Oregon state, and Vancouver, British Colombia, take pride in their "green" ethos, and go far beyond national requirements in terms of environmental protection.
Urbanization is blamed for a wide variety of modern social ills, ranging from crime and incivility to alienation and anomie. But, by infusing us with their unique spirit and identity, our cities may help to empower humanity to face the most difficult challenges of the 21st century.
Daniel A. Bell is professor of the arts and humanities at Jiaotong University, Shanghai, and professor of ethics and political philosophy at Tsinghua University, Beijing. Avner de-Shalit is dean of social sciences at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Copyright: Project Syndicate/Institute for Human Sciences, 2012.www.project-syndicate.org. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.
Today, more than half of the world's population lives in cities, compared to less than 3 percent in 1800.
By 2025, China alone is expected to have 15 "mega-cities," each with a population of at least 25 million.
Are social critics right to worry about the atomized loneliness of big-city life?
True, cities cannot provide the rich sense of community that often characterizes villages and small towns. But a different form of community evolves in cities. People often take pride in their cities, and seek to nourish their distinctive civic cultures.
Pride in one's city has a long history.
In the ancient world, Athenians identified with their city's democratic ethos, while Spartans prided themselves on their city's reputation for military discipline and strength.
Of course, today's urban areas are huge, diverse, and pluralistic, so it may seem strange to say that a modern city has an ethos that informs its residents' collective life. Yet cities do have such an ethos.
Consider Montreal, whose residents must navigate the city's tricky linguistic politics. Montreal is a relatively successful example of a city in which Anglophones and Francophones both feel at home, but language debates nonetheless dominate the political scene - and structure an ethos for the city's residents.
Civicism
Paris, on the other hand, has a romantic ethos. But Parisians reject Hollywood's banal concept of love as a story that ends happily ever after.
Their idea of romance centers on its opposition to staid values and predictability of bourgeois life.
In fact, many cities have distinctive identities of which their residents are proud. Urban pride - what we call "civicism" - is a key feature of our identities today. This matters in part because cities with a clear ethos can better resist globalization's homogenizing tendencies.
Cities with a strong ethos can also accomplish political goals that are difficult to achieve at the national level. China, the United States, and even Canada may take years to implement serious plans to address climate change.
Yet cities like Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province; Portland, Oregon state, and Vancouver, British Colombia, take pride in their "green" ethos, and go far beyond national requirements in terms of environmental protection.
Urbanization is blamed for a wide variety of modern social ills, ranging from crime and incivility to alienation and anomie. But, by infusing us with their unique spirit and identity, our cities may help to empower humanity to face the most difficult challenges of the 21st century.
Daniel A. Bell is professor of the arts and humanities at Jiaotong University, Shanghai, and professor of ethics and political philosophy at Tsinghua University, Beijing. Avner de-Shalit is dean of social sciences at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Copyright: Project Syndicate/Institute for Human Sciences, 2012.www.project-syndicate.org. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.
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