According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 80.7 percent of Americans lived in urban areas as of the 2010 census. That’s actually up from 79 percent in 2000. A relevant question might be just what constitutes “urban.” For example. I serve a congregation that is technically suburban by virtue of its geographic location, but its two-mile distance from Detroit (making it an inner ring suburb) causes us to experience many of the same issues as the central city. Any way you cut it, our community is very much a part of the urban reality; we are, for all intents and purposes, an urban congregation that happens to be located in the suburbs.
Early in his term, President Obama established the Office of Urban Affairs, expanding upon an articulated urban policy in the Clinton years. Anybody over 50 remembers the committed urban agenda as part of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society initiative. Republicans have never said much about urban policy, which makes me wonder how this current presidential campaign could possibly be as close as some say it is. That’s another story, however.
When it comes to support for public education, neither President Obama nor Gov. Romney are on the right path in my humble opinion. Obama seems to back public charter schools while Romney is in favor of subsidies for parents to send their kids to privately operated schools. Both approaches ignore the root of the urban plight: concentrated poverty. Moving poor kids from their indigenous inner city neighborhoods does nothing to address that issue.
The prophet Jeremiah had some things to say about prospering where God has put God’s people. In the aftermath of the Babylonian siege, Yahweh speaks through the prophet and declares: “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you [into exile], and pray to the LORD on its behalf; for in its welfare you will have welfare” (Jeremiah 29:7, NASB).
I do not mean to suggest that we should view our cities as places of exile, but I do know something of the concentration of poverty (leading to concentrated crime) in such places. And unless we begin to embrace the entirety of our urban communities–city and suburb–entire states,and indeed our whole nation, suffers. A real commitment to the health of public schools and good public transit goes a long way toward encouraging the sort of community consciousnesses that is so lacing in America today.
Fact is that neither party is talking about poverty in this campaign. It seems to me that is where we need to begin a serious discussion.
Raising Basileia 