Professor Philip Sheldrake

Caitlin Morrissey

When Greg and I use the term the DNA of Cities in our work, it’s our starting point for thinking about authentic or unique identities in cities and how cities sort of accumulate or inherit their unique traits. What does the DNA of Cities mean to you?

Philip Sheldrake

Well, I just thought a bit about that and I thought, DNA in general is something about the sort of genetic material in each of us that helps us or basically makes us the person we are. I was thinking, well, what is it that makes any given city, each city – London for example, or Cambridge or wherever – feel distinctive? Well, not just feel distinctive, but be distinctive. And I jotted down that I thought first of all, it has to do with design, layout, structure, physical structure of the place. It also, of course, very importantly, has to do with human interaction and communication. And of course, the design of a city and the ability of people within the city to communicate effectively obviously relate quite strongly to each other. I mean, I think the old style street, neighbourhood, whatever it is, in many places has really disappeared. I mean, London’s such a big place that it can be quite impersonal. I mean, we’re quite fortunate that we do have some neighbours who we actually engage with, which is good. So design, human communication and interaction.

I think history plays a role as well. The way a city actually is, is partly to do with its past. We don’t kind of reinvent a city every single second. I mean, we are where we are because of where we were yesterday and where we were a century ago and so on.

And the other thing about the DNA is that it has something to do with the particular strengths of a given city, but also to do with its limitations. So you’re kind of aware, you know, London has a great deal of richness because it’s so plural, but on the other hand, it’s got limitations. One of the limitations is that it can be very impersonal. And a lot of people don’t find it easy to actually build community.

So design, human communication, history, and the strengths and weaknesses of a particular place, or strengths and limitations anyway. Does that make sense?

Caitlin Morrissey

Thank you for getting us started there. You mentioned that we don’t recreate cities every day, but we build upon the past and the history shapes the present and it will shape the future. And this sort of leads to ask, from a theological or a spiritual perspective, how you would approach understanding the way that cities evolve? And what does spirituality or theology or religion tell us about how cities shape people from an individual to a collective level?

Philip Sheldrake

Yeah, that’s a good question. I think I prefer the word spiritual perspective. It’s more broadly based and it leaves space for a greater variety of approaches. What does it say about the way particular city or cities in general evolve and how cities shape people both individually and collectively? I think first of all, if you like, theologically or spiritually, it offers a moral vision and a spiritual vision versus a very negative assessment. So by a moral vision, I mean it suggests, if you like, values or virtues that we would like to cultivate. And maybe which we ought to start thinking about in relationship, not just a family life and how families enable their children to develop some kind of value system, but also schools. I mean, the trouble is, I think so many schools these days are so strapped by, you know, mechanical stuff they’ve got to do to pass exams or to fulfil statistics or whatever it is, that the old approach to trying to create a certain kind of person to enable the students in the school to become people who actually have and seek to live out certain values. I think that’s kind of unfortunately got pushed to the side a lot of the time. So I think it offers a moral vision and a spiritual vision.

And what do I mean by that? Well, I think basically, moral visions and spiritual visions basically are ways of humanising people or enabling them to humanise themselves. And I think also from a spiritual theological perspective, you want cities to be hopeful places, places of hope with potential as well as challenges. And I think also I would say particularly in the current climate of our current western world, they should hopefully be enabled to become spaces of reconciliation as opposed to places of alienation. So for me, a sense of the sacred enriches the life of a city or can enrich the life of the city versus the absence of that. And that I think builds up a sense of belonging and the proper sense of the word and raises questions about-- well, I think one of the things about cities is that in the best possible sense, they underline the fact that to be truly human is not just about being individualistic, but also about being collective. Thinking in terms of being part of a wider whole. Yeah, and obviously different religions have somewhat different visions. But I think one of the things that I feel very strongly about is it should push back against anxiety. It should help social cohesion. It should lead to inclusivity. And also, I think very strongly, it should also help to shape social justice. That’s my view.

And therefore for me, theology, spirituality, whatever you like, offers a vision of a city or cities in general as essentially public spaces characterised by-- well, what one writer described as the ‘constructive interaction of strangers.’ So we’re not just mixing with people like us or people we already know, but we’re always meeting strangers and interacting with them and hopefully constructively. So that’s, I think, what I would say in terms of a sort of spiritual perspective. Does that make sense?

Greg Clark

Philip, it makes a lot of sense. And thank you so much for articulating it so clearly. I want to ask you just to say a little bit more about that final statement, this idea of the ‘constructive interaction of strangers.’ Is there some particular value in interacting with strangers in a constructive way that’s different to interacting with people who you already know in a constructive way, and if so, what is it?

Philip Sheldrake

Well, the thing is for me, Greg, you know, the essence of a city as opposed to a little village is that it’s not just in terms of size, but it’s essentially plural. It contains a whole range of different communities who have to interact with each other. And that’s particularly thinking in terms of London. It’s an international city. So you’ve got people of very different ethnicities, different religions or no religion, different, I hate the word social class, but you know what I’m getting at. And for me, the good city, a good city is what enables, not for those differences to disappear, but for us to learn how to interact with them in a constructive way, to offer something to people who are different from us, but also to receive from them something which makes me, “oh, right. I never thought like that before. Oh, that’s a very, yeah, that’s interesting”. Or “I’m finding that person very challenging or that group of people very challenging. Why is that? Why do I feel threatened by it?” Or “do I see some potential to grow in a way that I hadn’t thought of before?” So interaction of strangers, I view as hopefully something that’s very constructive.

Caitlin Morrissey

I just wanted to ask Philip because we have the opportunity to speak with you. If we take a very long view at this, how you see spirituality evolving in relation to the demographic shift towards people living in cities. How have urbanisation and spirituality evolved in relation to one another?

Philip Sheldrake

I mean, I think, well, one way I would look at that is that in the past, I think people thought of spirituality in very individualistic terms. I do my meditation or I do my whatever it is you do. But essentially, it’s about my own personal development. Whereas I think what being in a city does is force you to think much more collectively and socially. And so I think for me, whatever you mean by spirituality has become much more a social thing. You know why I say I think an essential part of contemporary spirituality is shaping a social identity, enabling people to actually engage with otherness. Not to simply view otherness as a threat to my spiritual life. Ah-ha! No. Spirituality is in the end, well, certainly from the point of view of Christian religion is very much a collective, communitarian, social thing, or it should be. But I think in the past, it was tended to be viewed very individualistically. You dug your own hole and you climbed into it and that was that.

Caitlin Morrissey

Thank you so much, Philip. We would also like to talk a little bit about how a sense of place and place identity or what a sense of place and place identity adds to our human experience. So I thought this might be a good part of the conversation to ask you about those, about the relationship between the sense of place and our human experience.

Philip Sheldrake

Well, yeah, I think a sense of place for me is to say, you know, when you’re living in a city or in your district, your street, wherever it is, it isn’t just a kind of a thing. You know, it’s not just a mechanic. I mentioned that cities are partly shaped by design and building, but in the end, a sense of place is being able to identify with where you live, where you exist, where you work, and your own identity is shaped by that. So I think place is about being rooted rather than rootless. It’s being located rather than being displaced. It’s being in a somewhere rather than a nowhere in particular. For me, that’s what I think a sense of place is. It’s about, you know, embracing a particular somewhere and allowing yourself to be shaped by that rather than saying, well, we exist nowhere in particular, just, you know, just there we are.

Place identity for me is a space that’s more than just shaped by its environment, physical environment, but it has the capacity to be remembered and also to evoke within us what is most precious to us. That’s why I use the word rooted rather than rootless. Located rather than displaced.

Greg Clark

Philip, this may be obvious to you, but in case it’s not to our listeners, this sense of place and connection that you’re describing that evokes these responses in us, how is that good for us individually or good for us collectively? What does it lead to apart from that feeling of some kind of benign association? What does it mean in terms of human or social evolution?

Philip Sheldrake

Well, I think, well, what I hope it does is enable us not only to live alongside others, but to live with in a much more sort of positive sense of embracing others. And through that to enable not only myself, but you and all the people whom I’m connected to, to help shape a better, a different and better world. I mean, that’s in the end what I think it’s about.

So for me, that’s why I said being rooted is not just being rooted in a physical. So not just because I’m in this street, I’m in this house rather than that house, but I’m actually enabled to help to reshape the kind of world we exist in by our interaction with each other and by actually committing myself to that.

Greg Clark

So I want to check that I’ve understood because with a podcast like this, it’s really good to be very, very clear. I think you’ve said something very important about how a place can enable a sense of belonging between a person and the place. A sense of belonging between that person and all the other persons who are in that place. That has the effect of reminding people of the depth of human nature. That can lead to a sense of belonging with one another despite differences and that can lead to solidarity of various kinds—

Philip Sheldrake

Good word. I like that word, solidarity.

Greg Clark

Yeah. So solidarity in action towards the collective good but also towards the good of the planet, the place and nature and other things. Is that right?

Philip Sheldrake

Absolutely. I was just going to throw in and say that I think one of the things we mustn’t lose touch with is our natural environment. I mean, we live quite close to the River Thames and you walk along, you’re aware that actually, dare I say it, that some of the water companies are pumping sewage into the river. It’s a convenient way of getting rid of rubbish and that’s absolutely so anti-environmental. And I think creating the good city, the good place is also not just about the people in it, although that is important, obviously it is, but it’s also about the environment. I mean, we live in a period of climate change, of challenge, physical, natural challenge. And I think we’ve got to learn to actually take our natural environment much more seriously.

Caitlin Morrissey

Thank you so much, Philip. This has been so fascinating to listen to your perspectives on these questions. What would be your starting points for thinking through the individuality or the uniqueness of cities? Where would you begin to look?

Philip Sheldrake

Well, that’s an interesting question. You could say, well, because I started my life as a historian, my first instinct would be to say, well, look at the history of a place, it’s roots, you know, where does it come from? What kind of events has it been through that have shaped it and reshaped it and continue to shape and reshape it? So that’s one starting point. If I think about London, I mean, London is a very large city. If I think about Cambridge, where I’ve got links as well, there’s a danger there of limiting it all to the university. And of course, there are a lot of people living in Cambridge who’ve got absolutely nothing to do with the university. If you only start thinking about Cambridge in terms of, ‘oh, you mean, you mean the university?’ No, no. The university is part of a city that is bigger than itself. You could say universities had a big role in shaping what Cambridge has become, but it isn’t the only thing. And there are plenty of people living in Cambridge who’ve got nothing to do with the university.

So I think it depends which city you’re talking about. But I think starting with origins, history, what a particular city’s gone through. I’m just thinking of people who remember The Blitz in London, the kind of the effect of the war and what that did. So I think I’d look at history as an important thing.

But I’d also look at the kind of the social environment and the fact that London is a very, very plural place. It’s something I would take very seriously as part of its individuality. It’s a global city. People from all over the world, massively different backgrounds, you know, come together in a particular physical and environmental place and faced with the challenge of building some sense of society and community, shared life, yeah.

Caitlin Morrissey

Thank you so much, Philip. And so the final question on my list is to ask you if you’d be able to tell us about a city or cities that are meaningful to you or to your work.

Philip Sheldrake

Ah, well, I live in London, so I’m going to have to say London is one of them. I partly work in Cambridge, and so I’m going to have to say Cambridge is another city that means something to me. But Susie, my partner, her family, although she was born here, well, also in London too, but her family are originally Italian and particularly from the city of Florence. And so we’ve gone to Florence quite a few times together and spent time there. And I think that the sort of extraordinary history of Florence, it’s a great historical city in European culture. I mean, the art, it’s a city of art. I mean, there’s all sorts of things about Florence. But yeah, I’d say Florence is quite important to me as well.

Without being rude in terms of the United States where I go and work periodically, probably the city that I enjoyed-- well, the two cities I enjoyed most are San Francisco and Boston. I always found New York rather difficult because if you think of London as being big, you think of New York as being extraordinarily difficult, at least I think. Yeah, but I think Boston. I spent a year in Boston. And San Francisco. I spent an academic year in San Francisco and really enjoyed that. So those are places that are meaningful to me.

Greg Clark

Philip, I’ve got five questions that have fallen out from what you’ve said. One of the things you’ve said really clearly, and I’m so pleased to hear it coming from your perspective is that cities have a very particular social purpose. They have this purpose of really introducing strangers to one another and creating the context in which strangers might collaborate and do all sorts of things. So what makes one city better at doing that than another city? What are the ingredients of the city that really bring strangers together in those kind of socially productive ways?

Philip Sheldrake

Ah, that’s a difficult question, Greg, really. Thinking in terms of London, I think one of the things that makes it possible is an effective transport system that enables you to get around the city and meet up with people in other parts of the city and for them to come and meet you. So you’re not, as it were, trapped in your street or trapped in your district or whatever, but you could, you know, move more broadly.

Greg Clark

Wonderful. And you won’t be surprised to hear that I absolutely agree with that. I think it’s all about the shared systems and the shared spaces and places and all of that. Another point that I think falls out from the really fascinating things you’ve been saying, which I think is about neighbourhoods. You mentioned schools, which I thought was very interesting. And you mentioned how people in streets, you know, bump into each other or parks or communal spaces.

Does this idea of the humanising city that you’ve been describing, does it have a particular locus at the neighbourhood level, that level of, you know, the streets around the place you live, or is it bigger and broader than that from your point of view?

Philip Sheldrake

I think it’s bigger and broader than that, Greg. I think, well, it depends. Sometimes it’s got to do with-- well, let’s be brutally frank about it. It’s got to do with age. It’s also got to do with economics. Do you have the ability to use public transport and get around and move away from your street and move away from your particular district or not? So there’s all sorts of factors involved. But I think, well, I say, think that the material is there here-- well, for example, in London, to stretch across the city to people who live quite a long way away and in very different kind of environments. And that’s what I think is really very positive about it.

Greg Clark

In a way then that leads to my third question, which is about, you know, leadership. Some of the ingredients that you’ve already mentioned, like a transport system, of course, are a consequence of certain kinds of leaders deciding that there will be a transport system which is accessible or affordable for everyone.

Philip Sheldrake

And putting the funding in.

Greg Clark

Yeah, putting the funding in, for example. Have you had a chance to think about, more broadly, what is the leadership requirements of this human city in which strangers can find each other and reconciliation is possible? I’m sure there are many types of leadership, is that something that you’ve had a chance to think about?

Philip Sheldrake

Well, it’s interesting you said that, Greg, because right now, if I’m going to have another writing project, it’s going to be on public leadership. What makes the good leader? What makes the good leader?

Greg Clark

I’m holding in front of me a copy of The Spiritual City by Philip Sheldrake, Theology, Spirituality in the Urban published by Wiley Blackwell, but you’re holding in front of you your new book I think which is…

Philip Sheldrake

Yes, ‘Civility: Cultivating Public Virtues’ with OUP. And the final chapter is basically addresses the word, how do we cultivate public virtues or values, you know, whatever they are? And I had to think quite a lot about that and I settled on two things as important. One was school education. How we develop school education and what we do through school education. And finally, public leadership. Now I wrote a few pages on that. Yeah, but I think I’d probably like to go on because the very last couple of paragraphs I called ‘Leadership in Contemporary Perspective’. And there’s a bit of me would like to actually do some more work on that. Because I mean, without getting too contentious, there’s a lot of stuff I would want to question about contemporary public leadership. And I’m not just thinking about it in this country, of course. I’m thinking of a lot of my American friends got very upset by the –without being too political – the results of their election. And what kind of quality of public leader have we got? And I don’t want to get into too much politics here, but let’s put it this way, I was hoping for some really constructive forward movement. Trouble is I’m getting a little bit disappointed. But that’s my problem.

Greg Clark

Yes, and you’ve already used this sort of polarity between alienation and reconciliation, and I suppose that those are two principles that one could apply to judging whether public leadership is moving in the right direction. Plenty of alienation to be seen at the moment, I suspect.

Philip Sheldrake

There is. Well, and also you look at any of the Western European countries. I mean, the polar-- one of the things that is very worrying about public leadership is the way that countries have become very, very polarised. You’ve got the new right, and it’s extreme right, which is sort of taking over a number of places.

Greg Clark

Yeah. I want to switch tack now, Philip, and ask you a little bit about religion for a minute. And say that obviously there are multiple faiths, as you’ve already described. I’m keen to know whether you think that there are different perspectives on the city and the value of the city that emerge from different religious perspectives. That’s kind of part one of the question. And then part two is whether you think there’s any special role for the cities that are key cities in various religions. I’m thinking of Rome and Mecca and Varanasi and other cities like that. Are they important places in your way of thinking? But let’s start with the multi-faith perspectives. Are there different views of the city historically in these different religions that you think are important?

Philip Sheldrake

Well, there are some. But there’s also a remarkable degree of interconnection. Because I think in the end, good religion basically is about shaping a healthy, spiritual, and good collective environment. So I think the cities that relate to different religions-- I mean, there are obviously differences because they’re cultural differences apart from anything else. But I think there’s also a lot of interconnection. And I think in the end, I think there is a shared vision of the human city. There are going to be variations of a theme, but I think the fundamental theme really is very much the same.

Greg Clark

Great. And what about those particular cities? You know, people would find it strange if we had a conversation with you about cities and spirituality and we didn’t mention Jerusalem or Mecca or Varanasi or others. Do they play any particularly important roles that you perceive?

Philip Sheldrake

Well, in the sense that they’re the inspiration points. I’m thinking just in terms of London, right, for important communities within the greater community of London, whether they are actively religious or not, they’re shaped by religious backgrounds, their parents, their grandparents, whatever. And those basically connect to a lot of these major spiritual centres. Obviously, I know Rome, but then, there’s, you know, you can go all over the place. I mean, I’ve not been to Mecca, but I have been to Varanasi. Because I studied in India for a year. And I’ve also done some interreligious dialogue work, particularly with Muslims. So Christian-Muslim conversations have been very interesting. Very challenging, but very interesting.

Greg Clark

Wonderful. We’re on this sort of human population growth curve that despite declining birth rates in the west or in the global north Actually, the human population growth curve is still heading towards about 10 billion people by about 2080 with about 90% of them living in cities. So more of humankind cramming into denser and larger cities on a finite planet.

How does your sense of the human city, the humanising city, relate to this idea of population growth? What’s important for us to understand as we create that planet of cities and we become a dominant urban species, as it were?

Philip Sheldrake

That’s a very challenging question. That’s a very difficult question. Yeah, I’m not sure. I’d have to think a bit more about that question, actually. You know, some people would simply say we need to limit the human population. You know, we need to-- but that’s not quite as simple as that, I don’t think. Yeah, we’re less and less dispersed and more and more--

Greg Clark

Concentrated?

Philip Sheldrake

Concentrated, thank you. Yes, that’s the word I’m looking for. Yeah, that’s right. I’m not sure I’ve got a ready answer to that. It’s something I think about quite a lot, but yeah.

Greg Clark

I mean, I’d love to talk about this with you again because it does seem to me that unless we’re going to have some kind of population management strategies, i.e. reducing the rate of human births, we are heading for those 10 billion and all the UN projections indicate as much. Interestingly, it’s going to come sooner than we thought and we’re going to have a peak at 10 billion rather than 11, they say, other things being equal.

So it occurs to me that your core idea that cities are places where we need to learn to live with one another in ways that are reconciliatory rather than alienating is obviously a hugely important idea. And your comments about the kinds of leadership that requires and the kinds of places that requires, I think are really apposite. So the big question is whether we can learn how to do more of what you’ve been describing? And whether you think that generally that there is a movement to create more human cities? Perhaps we could end with that thought. What do you think about that?

Philip Sheldrake

I mean, I think that’s a very important question. I think it’s a very challenging question. My big thing would be to say, how do we make that question much more central for people? Because I think if I’m allowed to say, I think a lot of people just don’t think like that. I mean, they just, they live from day to day. They don’t necessarily think about, you know, the implications of their life or the life of people they live with or work with. Well, it’s a bit like what I was talking about, how do you cultivate public virtues? School education, public leadership. How do we get people to think constructively in the way you were talking about?

Greg Clark

Well, we’re looking for answers, aren’t we, together here? Philip, it’s been a very rich conversation. I noticed that the word God hasn’t appeared at any point. Do you think that that’s important or not important?

Philip Sheldrake

Well, yes, of course I do, but as long as it doesn’t provide an escape hatch. You know, God is not an escape hatch to sort of say, okay, leave that load of rubbish behind, come and be united with me. And that there are people who I think do think like that. And personally, I think that’s very unhealthy. So yes, if I am in favour of religious sensibility and if I’m open to the possibility of there being God, I don’t want it to just be an excuse to escape.

Greg Clark

I think that’s a brilliant final statement.