the future city of zion

On the 25th of June, 1833, the First Presidency sent letters of instruction to William W. Phelps, Edward Partridge, and the brethren in Zion, and enclosed plans for the future city of Zion and its temples. The first city plat was to be one mile square, divided into blocks containing ten acres each, except the middle range of blocks, which were to contain fifteen acres each. All the blocks, except those containing schools and public buildings, were to be divided into half-acre lots, four by twenty rods each. The dwelling-houses were to stand twenty-four feet from the street. The plat would accommodate from eighteen to twenty thousand inhabitants, and they would need twenty-five buildings for schools and public worship. These buildings would be temples, and none would be less than eighty-seven feet by sixty-one. There were to be no barns or stables in the city, but these were to be situated on lands laid off for that purpose, on the north and south sides of the settlement. The farms would be situated east and west of the city, but the tiller of the soil, as well as the mechanic, merchant, and others, would live in the city. “When this square is thus laid off and supplied, lay off another in the same way,” the Prophet wrote, “and so fill up the world in these last days” (Documentary History, Vol. 1:357).


Doctrine and Covenants Commentary by Hyrum M. Smith and Janne M. Sjodahl. Deseret Book. 1965. p.608

City Life

Streets, a garden,
A plot of ground - and its corpses.
To die - no, to live.
How urbane, that eternity!

Upright, marble stone.
The names of other people.
Immortality
Preserves its aftermath.

And what about that grief?
A plot of ground knows nothing
Of partings.
Where is death?

The city seethes
All round the graves.
A similar peace
Floats far and wide.

Now joined
By a common neglect,
The living and the dead
Crowd together


~Jorge Gullén (Translated by Charles Guenther. Roots & Wings: Poetry from Spain 1900-1975. Hardie St. Martin, Editor. Harper & Row. 1976. p.121)

I am sick of the roar of cities
And of faces cold and strange,
I know where there's warmth and welcome
And my yearning fancies range
Back to the dear old homestead,
With an aching sense of pain,
But there'll be joy in the coming
When I go home again.


Anonymous. Marion G. Romney: His Life and Faith by F. Burton Howard. Bookcraft. Salt Lake City. 1988. P.24

I am a man not given to cities, nor the crowded walks of men. I like the long winds upon my face, the stirring of miles of grass bending before the wind, the cloud shadows upon the plain, the lure and lift of far hills.


Louis L'Amour. Mojave Crossing by Louis L'Amour. 1964. P.90

It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.


Graham (character played by Don Cheadle in Crash, the 2006 Academy Award winner for Best Picture - written and directed by Paul Haggis)