Anatomy of a Neighborhood

The neighborhood is where we find a full life
grounded in what God intends for our lives.
Neighborhoods are about people,
about relationships,
and about community.

I think I won the gold medal. It was a bright August day, and I had just completed the ultimate up-and-under-flip off the laundry pole. A crowd of three cheered in sheer awe of my skills. I knelt down to receive my medal, and then I stood tall. I threw back my shoulders. I had just won the gold medal for the first and only known Neighborhood Olympics on Palmer Street. I think the only reason I took the gold at age nine, if my memory serves me right, could have been because I coerced a vote from my friends on the block. I’m unsure of the details.

What I do remember is how much I loved training for basketball season in the driveway, as onlookers stood pumping their gas across the street at the Shell station. I loved knowing many of our neighbors up and down our block. I loved those community moments when neighbors helped each other by shoveling snow or mowing the grass, going the extra mile to bless someone else. I loved the neighborhood parade in July, and the ice sculpture contest in the cold winter months. And I enjoyed the high school kids who came from all over metro Detroit to cruise up and down our suburban streets, showing off the latest low-riding, stereo-thumping systems known to mankind—or so it seemed. There was never a dull moment. Looking back, there were many neighbors who isolated themselves on our block, and there are aspects of life on Palmer that could have been much different, I’m sure. And yet I enjoy those favorite moments that I still cherish all these years later. Every neighborhood is meant to be a wholesome place where children grow up and seniors can thrive with their families, and yet I share a deep concern that many of us are now disconnected from our neighborhoods. We’re often unfamiliar with how our lives overlap and relate to each other. Like a t-shirt I recently spotted showing the entire Michigan mitten (hand) reading, “We’re all Detroit.”

What is the anatomy of a neighborhood? What makes up the body of a community? Many traits of a neighborhood are like a skeleton, outlining the physical framework of a given community. Streetlights carve a path of direction for walkers at dusk and dawn, facilitating a sense of solidarity, as our streets and homes are marked with warmth and togetherness. Light opens the darkness. And yet the voice of Jane Jacobs calls forth in wisdom, inviting us to a collective responsibility saying, “But unless eyes are there, and unless in the brains behind those eyes is the almost unconscious reassurance of general street support in upholding civilization, lights can do no good (1).”

Or I wonder about the spirituality of sidewalks. I recently met “Chef Sonya” along the streetscape where her infamous storefront sits, The Sweet Auburn Bread Company. She invited me inside and served me a sweet potato muffin, as we began to share our stories and dreams together. Sidewalks can serve as a catalyst for community life, a path directed to the heart. Urban planners and developers are keen on broad sidewalks if they are planning with community in mind. Sidewalks, especially wide walkways and short crosswalks, the kind that allow for multiple neighbors to pass each other simultaneously, are simply wonderful. Jacobs states, “Streets and their sidewalks, the main public places of a city, are its most vital organs (2).” And the psychology of our neighborhood self-talk is enhanced when we choose open windows over barricades, open-slatted over privacy fences, while opening our shades as a sign that our lives are open to those around us.

The anatomy of a neighborhood seems to include homes, of course – old historic homes, apartments, and everything in-between. Homes where hospitality is extended, when neighbors open their door as a living refuge. Homes where we can be fully ourselves. Homes where the people of Community Life Church in South Atlanta are raising up “lighthouses” on multiple streets, hosting house gatherings as neighbors come together to share life. Whether spread out or laced with thick density—homes, row houses, and cul-de-sacs outline the skeleton, the anatomy of a neighborhood.

Over the years, I’ve seen first-hand how the tip of a Guatemalan volcano, the African shoreline of a forest in Cameroon, or the South China Sea naturally serves as God-given landscaping. And in many neighborhoods here and abroad, in areas where pockets of poverty run deep, the resilience of neighbors take hold of the beauty sprouting up in abandoned lots neglected by slumlords, pristine rose bushes planted by caring neighbors, and grand old trees that stand tall with pride. Even when a community is environmentally excluded and left to carry all of the “not-in-my-backyard” (NIMBY) traits such as prisons, tow yards, recycle plants, toxic waste plants and land fills, a neighborhood still stands with beauty. Beauty is only partially interpreted among the elite and powerful, while the fullness of beauty is most beautiful in the trenches, in the places where mainstream society is not looking. Does God quietly unveil the most cherished attributes of our neighborhoods to those who are seeking, suffering, and enduring?

Neighborhoods are often made up of playgrounds and parks, winding paths, schools, churches, mosques and synagogues, businesses and gardens. When designed well, the walkability of a neighborhood will naturally lead toward connecting people, facilitating opportunity for life-on-life interactions in ways that seem effortless—where people naturally jump, play, eat and run. Maybe gathering places are the delight of a neighborhood.

Neighborhoods are everywhere, and we must learn to see our ‘hood with new eyes. I spoke at a university church a while back. We began dreaming together about seeing their campus as a transitional neighborhood. Dorms become homes. Campus buildings become blocks. Students are actually neighbors, eventually transitioning to another neighborhood in just a few short years. Rather than preparing for the future, let’s learn together how to love our neighbors now, seeing our neighborhoods with a fuller vision.

And when neighborhoods catch a vision for beloved community, a dream displaying God’s heart from the beginning, geography becomes a shared playground demonstrating that we can raise our children together, laugh together, and learn from one another. Diverse, multi-ethnic, and ever-changing are all characteristics of the anatomy of U.S. neighborhoods in this era: city, suburban, and rural areas are increasingly sharing common traits that are transferable to many of our communities.

Healthy neighborhood veins show clear signs of spiritual vitality, economic strength through local investment, a good pulse rate in our schools, environmental stewardship, solid city services, including access to reliable transportation, and shared leadership among neighbors. At the core, it seems that the anatomy of a neighborhood is much more than a skeleton outlining physical traits. Any neighborhood can display beautiful gathering spaces, well built homes, and freshly manicured lawns. After all, some of our country’s most troubled neighborhoods are among the wealthy, where abuse, neglect, broken families, and loneliness plague those wrapped in the chains of materialism and spiritual poverty. We all need healing grace.

Simply put, we need to get to the “heart” of what makes up our neighborhoods here and abroad. We must reach down into the soul, taking a step back from the fullness of our busy lives to explore the trueness of a neighborhood. The neighborhood is where we lay down to sleep, attend a weekly service, send our children to school, or go to work. The neighborhood is where we find a full life grounded in what God intends for our lives. Neighborhoods are about people, about relationships, and about community.

The heartbeat of our communal anatomy is found in our neighborhood narratives. The Scriptures speak of the older teaching the younger, like Adopt-A-Grandparent of FCS Urban Ministries, “Celebrating Wise Women.” We have so much to learn from our elders who have gone ahead of us. I think of our dear friend, Miss Mary, who has lived in our neighborhood for nearly sixty years. She exudes a grace and love for God like few I’ve ever known. She’s connected. She knows her story, and how our neighborhood narrative overlaps with the larger story of God’s movement. She understands that history and story informs the now and not yet. There are many “Miss Marys” of our world, and we must learn to listen first about what’s happened before we assume what’s happening. Remember what assuming does?

It seems God is calling us to re-discover the essence of how neighborhoods are foundational to life. Viewing life through a neighborhood lens could alter the way we see and live for years to come. Here Jane Jacobs invites us into a fuller picture, “We must first of all drop any ideal of neighborhoods as self-contained or introverted units (3).” As we understand how our neighborhoods are connected, we find that we need each other just as God intended from the beginning. What would happen if we sought to know every aspect of our neighborhood narratives? What if we explored our neighborhoods like a cherished jewel, viewing the story of our communities from multiple angles? How would this change our understanding of life, of family and “church?” I often wrestle with questions that seem to lead to more questions. And so I’m writing as a fellow learner, longing to hear God’s voice, imagining a living church movement focused on the roots of her origins.

Jesus walked the urban streets, reclined and dined in homes, listening to the stories of those who were hurting. And I’m hungry to learn from those who have gone ahead of us, practically demonstrating a long-term love that honors the dignity and culture of people, empowering the poor through give-and-take friendships over demeaning handouts, sharing the good news of God’s restoration of all things broken. I pray God awakens you and I for the one life we’ve been given. I pray that the anatomy of the living church, the body of Christ, will re-discover the anatomy of her parish.

God takes geography seriously.

By Nate Ledbetter

Source: The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs

1. P.42 – The uses of sidewalks: safety
2. P. 29 – The uses of sidewalks: safety
3. P. 114 – The uses of city neighborhoods