Urban Spirituality: Need for Connectedness and Communication

Modern urban planning seems to neglect taking into account the inner resources of individuals while designing a sustainable urban life. In rethinking urbanisation, spirituality must be seen as an integral part of the human connectedness in the context of urban lifestyles. Current study considers spirituality as part of our individual wellbeing- and questions whether argues that the concept of spirituality and the need for human connectedness should be taken into account while planning a more sustainable urban life. Here we focus on the issue of human connectedness and explore how urban lifestyle redefines our communication and spiritual needs. Though the material aspects of urban life cannot be underestimated, we argue that a more holistic approach is needed to achieve inner and outer sustainability in creating more harmonized lives. Our findings show that spirituality not only encompasses human connectedness but also reveals such human needs as belonging, safety, transcendence and communication, which are by nature intertwined. In this study, we take a bottom-up approach in exploring the spiritual needs of urban dwellers and how those needs present challenges in their daily lives, and in discussing the significance of means of communication in creating connected lives. We then suggest that urban spirituality is mediated through a number of innate needs, and challenged in the urban context via materialistic, relational, moral and transcendental means. Designing a qualitative approach, semi-structured in-depth face-to-face and telephone interviews were held with 47 participants who were government officers employed by the Presidency of Religious Affairs of Turkey. All participants fulfilled the criteria of receiving early training in spiritual care and counselling