The Changing Face of the City

In North America, when you talk about "urban ministry," everyone often thinks of work among the homeless, the urban poor, or in justice ministries. All it takes is one look at our bibliography here at the Center for Urban Ministry Training to see the weight given those ministries. Just this week, however, numerous articles and blog posts have come across my desk(top) describing a significant trend in urban demographics. In July, The Wall Street Journal published a story detailing the end of "white flight" from cities and the growing conflict between urban minority populations and returning whites. This week, Andy Crouch pointed blog readers to a New Republic story titled, "Trading Places." Alan Ehrenhalt describes a "demographic inversion" taking place where immigrants and minorites are moving to the suburbs while affluent suburbanites move to the inner city. Finally, an insert in the Louisville Courier-Journal recently declared that demographic shifts and growing diversity in the suburbs requires "new thinking" on the part of city leadership and citizens.

There is not doubt that the face of the city is changing. Downtown renewal, high gas prices, and a growing fascination with city life is drawing people back to urban centers. So, what does this mean for ministry? Will suburban church planting twenty years from now look like inner-city ministry today? How does the move toward "vertical" living in the rapidly sprouting high rise condos of mid-size cities affect our methods of church planting and evangelism?

That's the direction this blog is beginning to take. My own school is asking those questions as are many others. A presentation at the recent gathering of the National Association of Multi-Housing Ministries and Congregations included a session on affluent condominium dwellers. An initiative in Atlanta is seeking partners and trying to answer the questions raised by this demographic shift -- a shift that is small now but could grow rapidly.

Stay tuned...