European and North American City Centers Essay

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The role of religion in Europe must be taken into account, especially when comparing its city centers with those of NA. The fact that most European city centers are visually dominated by soaring steeples of cathedrals can be traced back to the role played by historic churches in shaping the nation’s culture. As a result, churches and especially cathedrals still have a place in the lives of contemporary Europeans even though the nation is incapable of controlling the beliefs and behaviors of its populace.

Cultural heritage in Europe is thus one of the key factors explaining the fact that its centers are dominated by cathedrals (Ostergren, 2011).

The Christian tradition is a vital element in the development of Europe, and its role in forming and reforming the nation’s way of life has been portrayed through its city centers. The Christian tradition has had a great effect on shaping all the aspects of the nation. Every part of Europe is predominated by Christian churches, with some having huge symbolic meanings. It is evident that almost all the larger towns in Europe are good indicators of increasing religious diversity. The populace of Europe has an ideology that if more churches are located around the city center, then more of the citizen’s will be tempted to attend (Ostergren, 2011).

This is due to the changing nature of church attendance in modern Europe. The nation’s Christian culture has changed from a “culture of obligation or duty to a culture of consumption or choice” (Ostergren, 2011).

This observable change in the nation has made the number of significant churchgoers to diminish, and church-going has become a matter of individual choice as shown in the statement, “I go to church (or to another religious organization) because I want to, maybe for a short period or maybe for longer, to fulfill a particular rather than a general need in my life and where I will continue my attachment so long as it provides what I want, but I have no obligation either to attend in the first place or to continue if I don’t want to” (Ostergren, 2011).

The fact that several things are occurring in Europe’s religious life can be accounted to the domineering number of churches all over the peripherals of its cities. This is in contrast to NA city centers, which are domineered by a central business district, auto expressway, a skyline marked by tall commercial buildings, and a few residents. In NA, churches have lost their ability to discipline the spiritual thinking of large numbers of its populace, especially the youth.

Concurrently, the range of spiritual choice is expanding both in and out of the historic churches. New forms of religion have emerged into NA from outside due to the movement of its citizens. Finally, most of the people arriving from the outside are creating a significant challenge to the place of religion in the city center.

Cultures of urbanism in NA city centers have a well-developed infrastructure to improve survival. The presence of auto expressways in the city can be explained using the culture of anti-urbanism, which makes the residents and especially the middle-class persons escape intense inner-city regions by shifting to the country side. More affluent residents of the Nation’s capital are moving to their rural homes due to the increased number of tourists, traffic jams, and crime in the city center, and this explains the phenomenon of few residents in the Nation’s capital (Macionis & Parrillo, 2006).

The above factors have increased the differences in the appearance of the two city centers. The characteristics of city centers can thus be based upon” urban form, land use, impacts, and density” (Macionis & Parrillo, 2006). It is therefore clear that the religious condition in Europe is and will remain idiosyncratic given the legacies of the ancient times.

References

Macionis, J., & Parrillo, N. (2006). Cities and urban life. New York: Lighting Source Inc.

Ostergren, C. (2011). The Europeans: Geography of People, Culture, and Environment. New York: Guilford Press.

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