Sipping on a mocha made by an true Italian is wonderful experience. I sit here watching this Italian family get their cafe ready for another day of business. All around me are images on the walls of mountain ranges, boats, and canals from Italy. The funny thing is I’m sitting downtown Tucson in the middle of the Sonoran Desert at Caffe Milano.
If I have to say there’s one newspaper or magazine that I read each issue with eager anticipation it is the Downtown Tucsonan. Through this I keep up on downtown events, new businesses openings, revitalization progress, and so on. When I find a good event I love to bring the family down. There’s so much up and coming here whether it be the construction of One North Fifth apartment lofts to the growing Mercado District on West Congress (west of the freeway).
This is all part of the “New Urbanism” phenom at hand. We know that the pace of urbanization continues to accelerate and along with that is the idea of making cities a better place to live which in my opinion is right where the church can come in to play. “NEW URBANISM promotes the creation and restoration of diverse, walkable, compact, vibrant, mixed-use communities composed of the same components as conventional development, but assembled in a more integrated fashion, in the form of complete communities. These contain housing, work places, shops, entertainment, schools, parks, and civic facilities essential to the daily lives of the residents, all within easy walking distance of each other. New Urbanism promotes the increased use of trains and light rail, instead of more highways and roads. Urban living is rapidly becoming the new hip and modern way to live for people of all ages.”
As I process and think about what it means to renew the city I can’t help but think that God is already at work. There is so much going on with things like the new urbanism where the church // Christians can tie into to be part of molding and shaping cities.
