Challenges from Urban Cultures On the Relationship Between Spirituality and the Contemporary City

This book offers a multidisciplinary perspective on the relationship between spirituality and the contemporary city, starting from a thought of Pope Francis claiming the need for a renewed look at the periphery among the current challenges for urban cultures. It gathers contributions describing different strategies for urban renewal and to develop the city of the future. They take into account aspects from architectural design, political science, economy, theology, ethics, anthropology, and philosophy. Based on the italian workshop "Sfida delle Culture Urbane - Svelare la Spiritualita` dei Luoghi" (transl. "Challenges from Urban Cultures - Discover the Spirituality of the Places"), held on November 5-6, 2021, in Parma, this book provides readers with a fresh perspective on the meaning of city, city as a community and as a place, and on strategies to develop suburbs besides city centres, and to foster integration, and participation.

INTRODUCTION CHAPTERS.- Reflections on the city.- Urban Perichoresis. The generative dance of scientific cultures For a shared glossary of spatial concepts between Christianity and urban science.- POLITICAL SCIENCES.- Place in which a presence is revealed. Notes on the urban dimension of Pope Francis' thought.- THEOLOGY.- Small theology of the city.-CIVIL ECONOMY.- For the return to the civitas, the city of souls: the lesson of the pandemic.- ETHICS.- A reading in tension between ethics and space.- LITURGY.- “Where will I fix my dwelling?” (Isaiah 66:1) To imagine new liturgical spaces in our cities.- ANTHROPOLOGY.- «Blessed are the placemakers, for they shall be called the children of God» Weaving ties, building places.- PHILOSOPHY.- “Being on the boundary”: the periphery as a laboratory.- ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN.- The begging peripheries between fragility and beauty.- On the streets among the people.- Challenges from Urban Cultures. Communities of the Future.- Appendix.- Notes for an Urban Agenda.- Edge’s notes.