Introduction

I've created this blog to catalog my personal exploration into urban planning and community. Any advice, criticism, or comment is encouraged. All thoughts are in process.

For the last few years I have grown to appreciate the power of the built environment. Those streets and buildings, parks and coffee shops that I had walked in and out of all my life have been gradually transformed from neutral background noise into thickly moral elements. The way what we believe is mapped out onto the places we live has fascinated me. I have degrees in philosophy and theology, but I have been eager to find something a little less ethereal and a little more practicable. Maybe this is it.

A good city means an environmentally sustainable, socially rich, economically diverse, and fundamentally humane city. I want to imagine how a city could be organized in such away without drifting off into an untenable utopian fantasy.

Missoula will figure heavily throughout, not only because it happens to be where I live but also because living here has been a major catalyst for my interest in urban design. I also have a particular interest in examining what role urban churches have in forming good cities. What are some practical ways that churches can seek the welfare of the city?

The wonderful book Sidewalks in the Kingdom by Eric Jacobsen is somewhat of a departure point for this exploration. The ghost of this book will be wandering around each of the posts, poking it's head into whatever topic is at hand.