tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6160916.post3769120559623196171..comments2024-03-06T04:31:53.093+11:00Comments on Just in CASE: City living, architecture and the gospelTrevor Cairneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10743409298855125040noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6160916.post-36432127282662484362009-02-10T22:37:00.000+11:002009-02-10T22:37:00.000+11:00Thanks Greg, as usual you've added some interestin...Thanks Greg, as usual you've added some interesting additional perspectives. You make several points interesting points, but one think that rings all my bells is the fac that like you I believe that the way we view family has become so narrow in western society. Families have become more and more fragmented and the importance of extended families has been lost. There is a relationship between our houses and the places we choose to live which says a lot about how we see family. Co-location of extended families is still common in some cultures but less so in Australia. Interestingly, we use more and more space for less and less people.Trevor Cairneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10743409298855125040noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6160916.post-49707431317137815502009-02-10T12:47:00.000+11:002009-02-10T12:47:00.000+11:00Thanks, Trevor, for another great post.Just one qu...Thanks, Trevor, for another great post.<BR/>Just one question of the many this topic raises concerns the effect our typical mode of living in a city like Sydney has on relationships between families living in an area, and between members of families. I am thinking especially of the plight of mothers with young children. <BR/>I tend to think the typical arrangement of “couples-living-with-their-two-point-five-children-in-separate-brick-boxes” is probably inherently inimical to the formation of community, and would even go so far as to say contrary to the way we humans were designed to live (how many of us have more than a (literally) nodding acquaintance with the people who live two doors down, for instance?). <BR/>God designed us for relationship, with him and with our fellow humans. There are many so-called traditional societies in which the latter point, at least, is practised in a way very different from the Western norm. I am thinking of some kind of clan/tribe/extended family/village arrangement, with different generations interacting, child care being seen as a job to be shared (mostly) among the women and even older children as a kind of group activity, as against our norm of one woman caring for her children, frequently isolated even from her own mother, let alone other family members and peers, and going slowly mad as she waits for her husband to get home from work to give her a break! This is turn provides many women with an urgent incentive to put their children into some kind of care as soon as possible so they can go back to work (and under the circumstances I find it hard to blame them, lamentable though the decision often is). <BR/>I find this kind of model decidedly unhealthy, and think there is the potential for enormous gains to be made in the quality of our relationships if our living spaces and arrangements started to be designed and formed with notions of supportive community in mind, instead of in response to career or financial advancement, and other imperatives that seem to place little importance on community and quality of relationships.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Greg TAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com