Love Snow Patrol's new single "Take Back the City."
However, had the misfortune to be out with my 13 year old son in the east of our city last night, and it was a genuinely, distressing, if not frightening experience. Not the fact that I was out with my son, but what was going on around us.
Used to be out and about in the university area late at night over the week end and that was bad enough... but this was a different order altogether, with under-aged drinkers everywhere, pouring in and out of a local hostelry with jumbo sized bottles of wkd.
I detest this aspect of modern British cities. But we cannot give up on the city and flee to the suburbs, for social, economic and spiritual reasons.
Socially, we cannot abandon the young people involved as lost causes... that will reinforce the development of a social-underclass and sow the seeds of social disintegration.
Economically the city, properly designed and managed, is much more sustainable than suburban living.
Spiritually, we are inspired by the visions within scripture (Isaiah 58, Jeremiah 29, Revelation 21-2) of the city as a sphere of God's activity.
So let's take back the city...
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