Shadow Cities
is all part of the
Global City
complex
networking
research—
enabling
precise
strategizing
and mapping
of an emerging
shadow cities
network.
Shadow Cities
provides a research
base for the next 35
years of church
planting in the
slums, affecting
over 3 billion
people.
Let’s look at this
TED video
Key Issue: The Strategic Nature of Slums in Global Cities
Based on Robert Neuwirth’s “Shadow Cities” talk
1. What do you think is Neuwirth’s main point?
2. How should we think about these things as Christians today?
What are the implications for relief and development?
3. How does this make you think about the “good life”?
4. What opportunity do you see here for the global progress of the
gospel?
Key issue—a few implications
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
The Church is God’s plan; so progressing the gospel through
evangelizing key “shadow cities,” establishing churches, and training
leaders is the starting point.
Once movements of churches begin becoming mature “benefactor
communities” in these shadow cities, God’s relief/development plan
can go into full swing.
These “shadow cities” are based on the household social structure
and are prime for the progress of the gospel.
Our relief/development strategies will come alive when we work
through movements of churches rather than through large Western
NGOs and governments of developing countries.
Over the next 35 years, “shadow cities” are about as strategic as you
can get.
These movements of churches, and their emerging benefactors, in
partnership with Western churches, and their emerging benefactors,
pave the way for enormous partnerships.
Out of this has emerged a new
strategy—actually just a logical
extension of the existing global
city/urban center strategy.
Key issue in the growth of the Church in the next 35 years:
squatters, slums, shanty towns
Today – 1 in 6 billion live in slums.
In 2030 – 2 of 7 billion will live in slums.
By 2050 – 3 of 9 billion will live in slums.
It is obvious that this should be a major focus of church
planting.
Our first step—Mumbai:
• Mapping church-planting movements between now and July.
• Meeting with key church-planting movements in Mumbai in
July.
Shadow Cities—2050
Shadow Cities (Global Slums) are the key to world
evangelization between now and 2050.
Whereas Global Cities themselves serve as the
foundation, the long-term success is rooted in a
Global Slums strategy.
Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, a New Urban World by Robert Neuwirth (Routledge,
2005)
“The Global City and the Global Slum” by Saskia Sassen, in Forbes, 3/22/2011
Shadow Cities—2050
Here is the logic:
1. One billion of the six billion people today live in slums; by 2030 two billion
of seven billion will live in slums; by 2050 three billion of the world’s nine
billion will live in slums.
2. Global cities—a complex network taxonomy for mapping globalization—is
the modern day “Roman road,” thus key to understanding how to build
complex network strategies consistent with “the way of Christ and His
Apostles,” which is illustrated in the “Complex Mapping of the Early
Church.”
3. Global Slums in the Global South are emerging around Global Cities that
are key to understanding the global network of slums and its informal
economy, which will contain almost all of the global population growth
between now and 2050.
Ibid. Neuwirth, pg.
“The Early Churches: From Simple Church to Complex Networking” by Jeff Reed
Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy, by Robert Neuwirth (Pantheon Books,
2011)
4. These Global Slums are reshaping the concepts of territory, authority, and
rights in much the same way that modern nation-states reshaped the
medieval feudal states. They will lead to a whole new set of global
assemblages—known as Global Cities or Global City States—probably
not unlike the model that has emerged in Singapore.
5. These Global Slums are and will continue to be ripe for the gospel and
must be central to any global strategy for the progress of the gospel
through church-planting movements. In fact, they will emerge as the
cities of the future.
6. Robert Neuwirth, in Shadow Cities, labels these Global Slums as
“shadow cities” and demonstrates that they are not communities of urban
decay and despair, but are actually emerging cities governed by hope and
are forward looking.
Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, by Saskia Sassen (Princeton,
2006)
Here is the logic:
7. In the shadow of our Global City 2025 strategy is an emerging Global
Slum 2050 (Shadow Cities’) strategy for leadership development and
church planting—a strategy that by 2050 will lead to a modern day,
Global South Apostolic Network, which will once again, as in the
Early Church, turn the entire world upside down—thus leading to a
transformation of the Global City . . . or the return of Christ.
Our first step—Mumbai
• Meeting with key church-planting movements
in Mumbai – Mumbai Christian Directory 2012
• Mapping of church-planting movements
2013-2016
Prototype BoP mutual investing projects
“Competency Cohort” sponsorships – 2013 2016
By fall of 2016
Mumbai “Shadow City” Prototype This will be our first “shadow city” prototype that will sit as
the “proof” of this amazing strategy. Our prototype will
include the following:
10 D. Min; $50,000 ($5,000 each)
100 M. Min; $500,000 ($5,000 each)
1,000 B. Min; $500,000 ($500 each)
10,000 BILD Institute; (built in)
Shadow Cities 2050 - $868 million - $39 per leader
Global Slums – Antioch School (starting point as network
hubs)
20,000 D.Min. – $400 x 20,000 = $8 million
200,000 M. Min. – $300 x 200,000 = $60 million
2,000,000 B. Min – $200 x 2,000,000 = $400 million
Global Slums – BILD Institute
20 million Grassroots LM I-III Certificate – $400 million
($20 x 20,000,000)