Religion and the City

This chapter provides an introduction to some of the conceptual issues raised by the study of religion and the city. It identifies four broad meta-questions that frame this interdisciplinary field of study: the nature of the relationship between religion and the city, the challenges of reconciling the plurality of religious experience and the need for a general definition, the question of a single urban process, and the ongoing importance of the “region” as an analytical lens. The chapter argues that greater attention to these meta-questions would provide one strategy for expanding conversations and collaborations across multiple disciplinary and methodological approaches.