Cities

In 1992, Brian Eno described the circumstances that led to his transformation from an art student to a musician as follows: "As a result of going into a subway station and meeting Andy (saxophonist Andy Mackay), I joined Roxy Music, and, as a result of that, I have a career in music. If I'd walked ten yards farther on the platform, or missed that train, or been in the next carriage, I probably would have been an art teacher now." 

This is the magic of what can happen in cities. Plato found Socrates in ancient Athens, Monet and Cezanne found each other in nineteenth-century Paris, and in the twentieth century, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd found each other in Chicago, Kurt Cobain found Dave Grohl in Seattle, and Matt Stone found Trey Parker in Denver. That chance urban encounter with Andy Mackay transformed not only Eno's life, but popular music has also been forever changed as well.  Is it any surprise, then, that on his latest release, Drums Between the Bells, Eno provides a picture of Sao Paolo, which he describes as "the most city-ish city in the Western world"?

What makes cities successful is not only that they attract scientists, architects, academics, and artists, the so-called creative class, but cities also bring them into proximity with each other and enable them to interact in rich, unexpected and productive ways. This can happen on public transportation or in high-rise apartment buildings and office skyscrapers, not to mention the myriad cultural events and intellectual happenings sustained by cities.

The Buddha taught the interdependence of all things, but in segmented, isolated suburbia and, in a different way, in rural settings, the vast, complex machinery of modern civilization is not always apparent. Separated from each other in detached, single-family homes, commuting in individual automobiles, and shopping in homogeneous and anonymous supermarkets and malls, the spontaneous chance encounters that enrich urban life are gone.  As with genetics, without the influx of new information, the cultural DNA becomes stale, and recessive traits such as xenophobia, intolerance, and conservativism come out.

In cities, the interdependence of society constantly manifests itself, sometimes bluntly and rudely, sometimes subtly and sublimely. We share our roads with the trucks that deliver goods to the market, the can hear the hum of machinery and the rattle and roar of transit and transportation, concerts and festivals occur in our parks, art graces our public space, and we can see the needy on the streets beneath the high-rise towers of the very wealthy.

Our world is a better place for the ideas and innovations that emerge from urban interactions, yet American public policies, such as highway construction, encourage leaving the city, and the reluctance to fund public transportation discourages urban renewal.  It seems that there's always money available to widen a commuter highway (which only encourages more people to drive on it), but never money for streetcars or rail.    

I live in Atlanta, which is going through a healthy re-examination of its urban assets.  While I live within the city limits, my home is one of those detached, single-family houses, partly made affordable by the income-tax deduction on mortgage interest, and I drive to work every morning in an automobile on interstate highways, oddly in the opposite direction from the urban center.

On the other hand, I live in close proximity to colleges such as the Atlanta campus of the Savannah College of Art and Design, and to Georgia Tech, Georgia State, and Emory University.  Emerging institutions such as the nearby Goat Farm and King Plow centers are attempting to push culture forward through comprehensive support of the arts.  The Atlanta Beltline and Peachtree Streetcar initiatives are far-reaching and innovative attempts at increasing the viability of public transportation in this automobile-oriented city.

The Buddha also taught that everything arises from conditions, and without the conditions of the sizable urban population, the intellectual gravity of the universities, and the cultural diversity of the city, there would probably be no Zen Center here in Atlanta, and I would likely never have discovered my spiritual practice.