Urbanism And Lent

Pleasurable things can also be constructive

I’ve written about this basic idea before, but because it’s the first day of Lent, I’d like to return to it here. I often think about the tensions within American anti-urbanism. How on the one hand, there’s the idea that cities are unpleasant (overcrowded, grimy, dirty, loud, dangerous, etc.) places to be in. But on the other hand, there seems to be an idea that cities are about fun or leisure and there’s something lazy about urban life.

As I put it recently, that whisper in your head that says, “Okay, this is fun, but time to get back to work.” I can really imagine, for example, saying to one of the NJ-to-NY commuter dads I knew growing up—I hear it in my best friend’s dad’s voice—“Europe has really nice cities,” and him responding, “Yeah, and they also work three days a week!”

And so the thing I wonder is, is urban life—life in close proximity with other people, less time spent in a comfortable car and more time spent out on foot, less private space and more public delight—whether so many Americans look askance at this because they don’t like it, or because at some level they want it but don’t think they deserve it?

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I wrote in 2021, when I was asked by Strong Towns to offer some thoughts on how cities should be adapting to the then-raging pandemic, that we could choose to view the pandemic almost like Lent:

It may be a very long time before cities see post-COVID traffic and vitality in their tourism and business districts. But most of the people who live in low- or moderate-income neighborhoods aren’t going anywhere. As painful as this crisis has been and will be for cities, perhaps there is a silver lining. Perhaps municipal governments can experience the COVID crisis similar to how how Christians experience Lent or Advent: a time of reflection and self-denial with an eye towards renewal. Perhaps we can get back to what cities really are, rather than what daytrippers and suburban commuters understand them to be.

It turns out by now cities are in pretty good shape vis-a-vis the pre-pandemic state, and the possibility that we were seeing a historic shift away from cities or urban-centric work patterns turned out not to really be true. But the deeper point I was making about Lent is that you can think of hardship or discomfort as opportunities to improve yourself.

This, I think, is how I reconcile those two elements of anti-urbanism. It reminds me of a book I reviewed, also during the pandemic, about “analog” life. The author, David Sax, uses the term “analog” to mean not just, you know, vinyl records, but the whole idea of tactility, physicality—life lived with real things in the real world, not mediated through computers and social media.

Sax used the phrase “beautiful discomfort” to refer to the frictional nature of getting up and going somewhere and spending time outside. And that’s exactly how I think about Lent—about a simplicity or even self-denial you impose on yourself, not to suffer but to grow. It’s analogous, also, to exercising. Or eating healthy food.

And I think of urban life as very much like this sort of thing. The discomforts or the privations of living in a little apartment and not being able to hop in your car whenever you want and go wherever you want—that’s a real discomfort, especially for someone who grew up that way. The feeling of being around people all the time can be overwhelming sometimes. I’m sure there are other “negatives.”

But the negatives are easy to feel, while the positives are harder to feel—or harder to discern and appreciate. I’ve never lived in a true city, but I spent a couple of years in Maryland, near D.C., which is much denser and more crowded than where we live in Northern Virginia now. All that time, I remember disliking the traffic. I remember being snobbish about the aging strip malls and old buildings. I never really even noticed, until I moved away, how much I actually appreciated being a walk or a 10 or 15-minute drive away from almost everything I needed and then some. I thought I was putting up with this place, and instead—without even knowing it—I was delighting in it.

This is what I mean when I say urbanism requires humility and self-awareness and gratitude. If you’ve ever changed your mind about something like this after the fact, you should consider—as I try to do now—that you may not really want what you think you want.

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Related Reading:

Parking Anxiety

Drive A Mile In My Shoes

What I Mean By “The Car”

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