City Evangelization

It was the growth of modern industry from the late 18th century onward that led to massive urbanization and the rise of new great cities, first in Europe and then in other regions, as new opportunities brought huge numbers of migrants from rural communities into urban areas.  

It was a major shift of technological, socioeconomic, and cultural conditions in the mid 18th century and early 19th century that brought about the usually called “Industrial Revolution” and with it the modern industrial city. It began in Britain and spread throughout the world. During that time, an economy based on manual labour was replaced by one dominated by industry and the manufacture of machinery. It began with the mechanization of the textile industries, the development of iron-making techniques and the increased use of refined coal. 

The development of all-metal machine tools in the first two decades of the 19th century facilitated the manufacture of more production machines for manufacturing in other industries. 

      
                                                     Model of the spinning jenny.

           The spinning jenny was one of the innovations that started the industrial revolution.

 Trade expansion was enabled by the introduction of canals, improved roads and railways. The introduction of steam power (fuelled primarily by coal) and powered machinery (mainly in textile manufacturing) underpinned the dramatic increases in production capacity.       

                                                          A Watt steam engine.                                                      

                      The steam engine that propelled the Industrial Revolution in Britain and the world.

     
                                     A replica of the early locomotive of 1829 in England. 

The invention of railroads reduced transportation costs, and large manufacturing centers began to emerge, thus allowing migration from rural to city areas possible. 

Besides machines and engines, the large scale production of chemicals was also an important development during the Industrial Revolution. Gas lighting revolutionized urban life and working schedules. 

The first gas lighting utilities were established in London between 1812-20.  They soon became one of the major consumers of coal in the UK. Gaslighting had in impact on social and industrial organization because it allowed factories and stores to remain open longer than with tallow candles or oil. Its introduction allowed night life to flourish in cities and towns as interiors and street could be lighted on a larger scale than before. 

In this way, the modern industrialized city was born. However, it looked more as a mass of working people rather than a community of human persons.

Cities during those periods of time were deadly places to live in, due to health problems resulting from contaminated water and air, and communicable diseases.

Manchester, England (“Cottonopolis”), pictured in 1840, showing the mass of factory chimneys. 

The German artist Philipp Jakob Loutherbourg the Younger depicts the English city of Coalbrookdale at night, 1801.    

The negative external effects of city life soon showed the ugly side of modern living. Because cities caused more interaction with more people than rural areas, thus a higher probability to contracting contagious diseases was evident. Although many inventions such as inoculations, vaccines, and water filtration systems contributed to lowering health concerns, fundamental problems of city life remained.  

The high concentration of people also created traffic problems and higher commuting times, causing less time to be spent on more valuable activities.Crime rate became another grave concern in the cities. 

In terms of social structure, the Industrial Revolution witnessed the triumph of a middle class of industrialists, businessmen and professionals such as lawyers and doctors, over a landed class of nobility and gentry. 

Ordinary working people found increased opportunities for employment in the new mills and factories, but these were often under strict working conditions with long hours of labour dominated by a pace set by machines. However, harsh working conditions were prevalent long before the industrial revolution took place as well. Pre-industrial society was very static and often cruel, child labour, dirty living conditions and long working hours were just as prevalent before the Industrial Revolution. 

Living conditions during the Industrial Revolution varied from the splendour of the homes of the owners to the squalor of the lives of the workers. Poor people lived in very small houses in cramped streets. These homes would share toilet facilities, have open sewers and would be at risk of damp. Disease was spread through a contaminated water supply. Conditions did improve during the 19th century as public health acts were introduced covering things such as sewage, hygiene and making some boundaries upon the construction of homes. The conditions for the poor improved over the course of the 19th century because of government and local plans which led to cities becoming cleaner places, but life had not been easy for the poor before industrialization. However, as a result of the Revolution, huge numbers of the working class died due to disease spreading through the cramped living conditions. Chest diseases from the mines, cholera from polluted water and typhoid were also extremely common, as was smallpox. Accidents in factories with child and female workers were regular. Dickens' novels perhaps best illustrate this; even some government officials were horrified by what they saw. Strikes and riots by workers were also relatively common.     

                              A young “drawer” pulling a coal tub up a mine shaft.

Modern cities are known for creating their own microclimates. This is due to the large clustering of hard surfaces that heat up in sunlight and that channel rainwater into underground ducts. 

Garbage and sewage are two major problems for cities, as is air pollution coming from internal combustion engines (public transport). The impact of cities on places elsewhere, be it hinterlands or places far away, is considered in the notion of city footprinting (ecological footprint).  Although modern cities presented so many serious problems, the urbanization phenomenon grew and it is still growing rapidly. There has also been a shift from cities to suburbs, perhaps to avoid crime and traffic, which are two costs of living in an urban area.

Megacities are a product of this rapid urbanization.   

Megacities are usually defined as a recognized metropolitan area with a total population in excess of 10 million people. Cities with a population over 20 million are often called hypercities. 

In 1800 only 3% of the world’s population lived in cities. By the 20th century’s close, 47% did so. In 1950, there were 83 cities with populations exceeding one million; but by 2007, this had risen to 468 agglomerations of more than one million. If the trend continues, the world's urban population will double every 38 years, say researchers. The UN forecasts that today’s urban population of 3.2 billion will rise to nearly 5 billion by 2030, when three out of five people will live in cities. 

The increase will be most dramatic in the poorest and least-urbanised continents, Asia and Africa. Surveys and projections indicate that all urban growth over the next 25 years will be in developing countries. One billion people, one-sixth of the world’s population, now live in shanty towns, which are seen as “breeding grounds” for social problems such as crime, drug addiction, alcoholism, poverty and unemployment. In many poor countries overpopulated slums exhibit high rates of disease due to unsanitary conditions,malnutrition, and lack of basic health care. By 2030, over 2 billion people in the world will be living in slums. Already over 90% of the urban population of some poor countries live in slums. 

In 2000, there were 18 megacities, such as Tokyo, Mexico City, Bombay, Sao Paulo and New York City. Greater Tokyo already has 35 million, more than the entire population of many countries. 

Experts forecast that Asia alone will have at least 10 hypercities, those with 20 million or more, including Jakarta (24.9 million people), Dhaka (25 million), Karachi (26.5 million), Shanghai (27 million) and Bombay (with a staggering 33 million). Lagos has grown from 300,000 in 1950 to an estimated 15 million today, and the Nigerian government estimates that city will have expanded to 25 million residents by 2015. Chinese experts forecast that Chinese cities will contain 800 million people by 2020.

Marxism was essentially a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. According to Karl Marx, industrialization polarized society into the bourgeoisie (those who own the means of production, the factories and the land) and the much larger proletariat (the working class who actually perform the labour necessary to extract something valuable from the means of production). He saw the industrialization process as the logical dialectical progression of feudal economic modes, necessary for the full development of capitalism, which he saw as in itself a necessary precursor to the development of socialism and eventually communism. 

When Marxism became the ideology behind the great revolutions of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, as in Russia, China etc. the Church was identified as enemy and was persecuted. 

Secularization generally refers to the process of transformation by which a society migrates from close identification with religious institutions to a more separated relationship. It is also the name given to a general belief about history, namely that the development of society progresses toward modernization and lessening dependence on religion as religion loses its position of authority. 

In a secularized society, the various aspects of economic, political, legal, scientific and moral fields become increasingly specialized and distinct from one another.

Practical example of secularization could be, Harvard University (like many other institutions), which changed from a predominantly religious institution into a secular institution (with a divinity school now housing the religious element illustrating differentiation), or the shift in provision of social services from churches to the government.  

Other examples could be the authority of the secular government to emanate laws (about freedom of religion, family life, divorce, birth control etc, which are in direct opposition to religious tenets.

Both Marxism and Secularism postulated that the modernization of society would include a decline in levels of religiosity. Religion was described as belonging to a primitive form of society, which had to give way to the modern, scientific, secularized stage. 

History has proved this prediction wrong.  

Nearly everywhere we look in the world today, we witness an unanticipated resurgence of traditional religion. The renaissance of Islamic culture and politics, the rebirth of Shinto in Japan, the appearance of powerful Jewish, Hindu and Christian “fundamentalisms” in Israel, India and the U.S. all these have raised important questions about the allegedly ineluctable process of secularization.  

Historical facts have proven that it was Marxism, after it became the state religion that needed to be secularized. The same phenomenon has happened in all countries where an ideology or religious belief has gained power. 

We can say that secularization is not everywhere and always an evil. It can prevent powerful religions or other ideologies from acting on their theocratic and dictatorial pretensions. Secularization can allow people to choose among a wider range of worldviews.  

Today, in parallel fashion, it seems obvious that the resurgence of religious fundamentalism in the world is not everywhere and always a good thing.

The truth is that both religious revival and secularization are morally ambiguous processes. Both can heal and destroy. Both can become either the bearers of emancipation or the avatars of misery, or some of each.

We could say that in the economically developed capitalist countries, secularization tends to take a cultural form. It challenges the hegemony of traditional religious world views, calls human beings to assume their rightful role in shaping history, and opens the door to a pluralism of symbolic universes. In the poor countries, however, secularization assumes quite a different expression. It challenges the misuse of religion by ruling elites to sacralize their privileges, and it enlists the powerful symbols of faith into the conflict with despotism.