| Description |
Some recent articles have approached the City of Zion in a spirit bordering on nostalgia, finding in Nauvoo not only the antecedents of later ideas in urban planning but also a near-ideal synthesis of rural and urban life. While this view says a great deal about our own dissatisfactions with modern urban conditions, it is far narrower than Joseph Smith's own vision of his ideal city. Even in Nauvoo at its height in 1844 (which with 11 ,000 inhabitants was larger than Chicago), life was much more rural than urban. But the City of Zion was not just an idealized NeVI England village. It was more than a city planner's plat with a temple as its center. It was a literal and physical kingdom. It was the New Jerusalem, and it drew its theological support from the sacred history of the children of Israel and from the daily revelations of Joseph the Prophet. It was predicated, both physically and metaphysically, on the imminent return of the Lord himself. |
