Urban Values, Urban Needs

By David L. Swain –

When the initial issue of The Urban News came into my hands I almost leaped for joy. It is not merely good but necessary to place high value on the role of the only true urban center of our largely rural community right here in the heart of Western North Carolina.

I did not, of course, realize this important urban reality back when I grew up in Asheville in the 1930s and ’40s, or even in the 1950s when I was away studying and working at universities. But my eyes–and my mind–were gradually being opened.

Working toward two degrees at Duke University in Durham did not shake my basic love of rural, and particularly mountain, life. Durham was a “tobacco town” and I was too busy trying to stay abreast of the academic challenge and the competition. Nor did working for two post-graduation years in Chapel Hill convert me to a strong urban appreciation. How could it? The Hill is possibly the most truly urbane community in the nation, with almost nothing of the crabby, drabby ethos of some large cities.

Still, my outlook would be radically changed, though slowly at first, when my wife and I accepted an offer to work at a Christian student center in postwar Japan. Just one year in the city of New Haven, Connecticut, for Japanese language study at Yale, was in effect my urban boot camp. But when my wife and I, along with our one small daughter, were sent to Tokyo in the summer of 1953, we were launched into life in the world’s largest city. We would never be the same again.

Of course, living in a huge metropolis where the language and, indeed, the whole culture, were wholly foreign, was like trying to survive in the eye of a storm. But we had a lot of generous and able help from the dozens of university students we met each month, as well as from university teachers and Japanese pastors. And in time I was invited to work with leaders in the Christian university professors’ organization, which led to a very fruitful working friendship with the nation’s top urban sociologist. He had earned his PhD degree in urban sociology at the University of Chicago and then undertook an ambitious study of Japan’s cities. He laid the groundwork of his career in a short volume titled The Japanese City: A Sociological Analysis (1963); then came his primary life work, Social Change and the City in Japan: From earliest times through the Industrial Revolution (1968). It was my privilege to be the English translator of both volumes.

Urban Values

So what, then, is the city’s main role in society? It is the primary means of mobilizing larger social energies to achieve primary goals in health, education and the economy. Or, to use another key term, cities are the primary place for implementing all proper political goals.

Our English term “politics” comes from the Greek word polis (for “city state”) and the term for political rule is oikonomikos (management of the household), from which we get our word “economy.” Thus, a good political system takes care of “all in the family.” And the kind of human community large and diverse enough to get all the key jobs done is, of course, the city.

Cultivation of foodstuffs and basic natural materials (e.g., lumber) can be handled by a variety of towns and even villages; cities need not have the large, open lands and forests needed for primary cultivation. But only cities can provide the wider range of human needs such as education, health care, transportation, and many more legal and technological functions. Put differently, the city is the center for planning and implementing two large areas of common life: the political and the economic.

Social Commitments

On the national scale, then, politics is the art of harmonizing political management of the whole economy, although, as the accompanying figure shows, there are varying degrees of independence of both the urban and the economic activity that fall “outside” the scope of national control; the degrees of independence will vary by nation and society. For example, if the rural economy is much larger than suggested in the figure, there will likely be a greater realm of freedom from central political control.

National & Social Circles

Likewise, a healthy society will make sure that a general education is available to all, though the degree of national control over the realms of science & technology, as well as literature & art, may be far less in a country as large and diverse as the United States than in a smaller, more cohesive nation.

Still, in some areas of, say, the South or the Midwest, the degree of overall control may be less. For example, science and technology must provide adequate water, electric power, proper roads and bridges, and less urbanized sectors might well depend more on local initiatives. For large cities like New York, though, the big city will assume the primary role for planning and management.

On the other hand, pressing national concerns can impose significant changes on regional and local societies. A good example is the Interstate Highway system. The idea, derived from the German Autobahn, was first proposed for the United States in the 1930s by President Roosevelt, and a feasibility study for national toll roads was undertaken in 1938. But it was President Dwight Eisenhower who, having seen the difficulties of moving war materiel efficiently on a national scale during World War II, pushed the idea to completion.

The needed routes were laid out by the Defense Department. The Interstate was not planned primarily for tourism!

Disparate, Competing Forces

The fact that power and wealth are concentrated in the great urban centers is well known. This does not mean, however, that power and wealth is evenly or equitably distributed among the population mass also concentrated in these centers. Quite the opposite is true: the higher the level of power-wealth concentration, the fewer the people who are actually in control. This is easily represented by inverting the control triangle so that the “A” point is uppermost. And if the two triangles are overlapped, there is an even clearer separation into privileged and disempowered sectors.

Urban Concentration & Control

Moreover, it comes as no surprise that this six-point triangle can be separated into two layers: a dominant dark upper side representing males, and the lighter, lower side showing the underclass role of females (as an overall phenomenon not necessarily found in individual homes and families, where the female often has the upper role).

There’s More …

In many societies around the world, the social distinctions represented by the triangles and circles may be enough. But readers of The Urban News will hardly need any prompting to see that the above set of social triangles needs yet one more critical representation. And it is easy to construct: just replace “male” in the figure below with “white”, and put “non-white” in place of “female.”

In both cases it is important to note that the “C” sectors are not physical places where marginalized peoples live. They are, rather, sectoral indications of displacement from power, and thus from control of power in society.

Of course there are exceptions, but they arise from special sources, such as exceptional strength of character or intellect. Even so, the general conditions still prevail. Asheville is a city, an urban center, and as such it is subject to all the forces and conditions described here.

It is my growing belief that social measures for leveling and correcting the injustices indicated are increasingly powered by moral forces working for change. And without doubt, an innovative force for change is now among us in the form of The Urban News. I am personally humbled and, yes, honored to have hope of playing some role in its informing and reforming work.

Asheville native David L. Swain earned his A.B. and Masters in Divinity from Duke University. For 40 years he lived and worked in Japan as a missionary with the United Methodist Church Board of Global Missionaries and was editor of The Japan Christian Quarterly. He has translated, wrote, or edited nearly a dozen books. Since his retirement to Asheville in 1993, he has taught a number of courses at the UNCA College for Seniors.