The Only Remedy for City Troubles

NO, THE remedy for big-city troubles is not more money and give-away programs. That kind of “help” has only hastened the cities to their ruin. It does not reach the underlying problems. Municipal leaders have too often come to “look upon the ghetto as a walled enclave into which some money can be tossed to keep it quiet,” writes Sol Linowitz, president of America’s Federal City Council. “That view can only invite disaster.”

Then what is the remedy? Well, the experts say that some fundamental changes are needed. “[Municipal] bonds may help us avoid a financial crunch,” says Mr. Linowitz. “But we won’t have dealt with the central problems of our cities until we have learned how to devise another kind of bond one that will bind people together . . . in mutual trust and respect.”​—New York Times, October 25, 1975.

Additionally, a recent conference of several hundred prominent scientists, scholars and others at Houston, Texas, suggested another basic change. A number of the experts, it was reported, urged that, to avoid a “gloomy, catastrophic future . . . people should be given the incentive to return to rural areas from huge urban centers and be employed in smaller, more labor-intensive tasks.”​—U.S. News & World Report, November 3, 1975, p. 88.

But how soon do you think most city dwellers will ‘learn to devise bonds of mutual trust and respect’? Or, can you imagine the majority of business, industry and city folk willingly reverting to a less production-minded, convenience-oriented way of life? Even if political leaders should attempt such innovations, they would be stymied by forces beyond their control. Is the kind of farsighted leadership and power that it would take to make such far-reaching changes anywhere to be found?

Superior Direction Needed

Well, consider the Source of earth’s marvelously balanced and complex natural cycles. These cycles function flawlessly when men do not tamper with them. Is not the power and intelligence behind these obviously successful systems just the kind of direction that humans and their cities sorely need? That One can bring success to the human condition as well, because He is “the Former of the earth and the Maker of it, . . . who did not create it simply for nothing, who formed it even to be inhabited.”​—Isa. 45:18.

There can be no question that earth’s Maker designed it to be a happy, comfortable home for its inhabitants. However, they have rejected the Creator’s standards and veered from patterns of life that harmonize with his creation’s natural cycles into ever more artificial life-styles. But how can these seemingly “locked in” big-city patterns of living ever be changed?

Well, since the big-city way of life is part of a worldwide system of things that does not work, the only remedy is to replace it with a global system that does work for the benefit of all. Man’s Creator has purposed such a new system of management with the kind of farsighted leadership and power needed to make it a success. The Bible calls it the “kingdom of God,” and it is carried on by means of his Son Jesus Christ.​—Mark 1:15.

But such directing of earth’s affairs from heaven will obviously not be welcomed by either present power-hungry heads of state or proud city governments. That is why the Bible says that the Kingdom, for which we pray, “will not be passed on to any other people.” Rather, “it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms” before it successfully takes charge of earth’s affairs. Dan. 2:44.

A New Way of Life

Thus God’s kingdom will make a clean sweep of all vestiges of this failing system’s way of doing things. So differently will earth be managed that Bible prophecy pictures the changed human society then as being like an entirely “new earth.” It says that “death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”​—2 Pet. 3:7, 13; Rev. 21:1-5.

We can be sure that among former causes of outcry and pain that will pass away are the giant metropolises that jam people into row after row of multistoried concrete apartments, robbing them of sunlight, fresh air and privacy, and surrounding them with noise and irritation. Though we do not know the extent to which community living will prevail for that “new earth,” we do know that it will never again be allowed to become a source of oppression. There are some indications of this from God’s past dealings with humans.

After the earth was cleansed by the flood of Noah’s day, God repeated his original statement of purpose for humans on earth: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth.” Later on, that purpose was tested when men chose instead to concentrate in a big city. “Let us build ourselves a city,” they said, and “make a celebrated name for ourselves, for fear we may be scattered over all the surface of the earth.” God registered his disagreement with that way of doing things by taking actions that did scatter the would-be big-city builders “over all the surface of the earth.”​—Gen. 9:1; 11:4, 8.

Additionally, the inspired law that later governed the nation of Israel had provisions that were not encouraging to big-city living. Any person living in the small, unwalled settlements of Israel who sold his house, perhaps due to economic need, always had the unchallengeable right to repurchase it. And if the seller was unable to repurchase his home, it reverted to the family anyway when the Jubilee year came around every fifty years. On the other hand, those living in the larger walled cities retained the right of repurchase for only one year, after which the new owner held all claim to the property. Thus the more rural location was advantageous.​—Lev. 25:29-34.

In view of such expressions of God’s viewpoint, a more agricultural way of life will no doubt predominate for the soon-to-be-realized “new earth.” Bible prophecy portrays the kind of existence that God can provide in these words:

“They will certainly build houses and have occupancy; and they will certainly plant vineyards and eat their fruitage. . . . The work of their own hands my chosen ones will use to the full.”​—Isa. 65:17, 21, 22.

Then, too, even the attitudes of people will reflect their new environment and its righteous governing procedures when God ‘makes all things new.’ Mutual trust and respect will prevail, “for the earth will be filled with the knowing of the glory of Jehovah as the waters themselves cover over the sea.” This is the only true remedy for today’s troubled big cities.​—Rev. 21:5; Hab. 2:14.

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God’s kingdom will make a clean sweep of this failing system, transforming the earth into a global paradise