The recently re-branded Super City and its Super Mayor, Len Brown, have unveiled a vision, Auckland Unleashed, for the future of New Zealand’s largest city in which it’s made clear that a compact urban form is necessary for Auckland to compete in the global market, for it to attain the mythic status of ‘best city in the world’. According to Mr Brown, the use of the metropolitan urban limit (MUL) to contain the city’s physical growth will protect environmental values, concentrate infrastructure bringing efficiencies in costs and resource use, and will maintain “flexibility for the diversity and role of the rural area which serves and contributes to Auckland’s identity”[i]. Len Brown’s vision for people and place is accompanied by the interrelated concepts of an integrated approach to land use, development and transport networks, an ‘alignment of services between places of residence and employment’, and spatial and physical connectivity facilitating “opportunity through the freedom of movement of people, ideas, goods and services”[ii].
The Government takes a slightly more jaundiced view of the ability of regulatory instruments such as MUL to deliver the growth Auckland will undoubtedly need to accommodate the near-million additional people expected to flock to the metropolis over the next 40 years. In its recent position paper on urban form, the Government cites Auckland’s over-emphasis on MUL as a tool to direct growth as a significant deterrent to private investment in development opportunities. Perhaps more disturbing still is evidence to suggest that even when the private sector can be convinced to take the plunge and actually develop, the physical results do not always meet the expectations and needs of households and businesses.
For Government, the gloves are most assuredly off when it comes to ensuring that Auckland’s future economic potential is unleashed. The Super City is being strongly advised to cast off its regulatory corset and go for something distinctly more blousy: a spatial plan that allows for ‘well-planned expansion of the urban area beyond the existing footprint’, that generates a ‘more realistic mix of greenfield opportunities’, supports infill and targeted intensification in sub-regional centres, and results in a strong CBD. Naturally, this all sits quite comfortably with the Beehive’s companion vision for transport in which the growth in car travel is inevitable and new roads will proliferate; if you are feeling cynical, the ‘build them and they will drive’ approach to infrastructure planning.
What would our urban adventurer extraordinaire, Dan Koeppel, make of these two visions? Well, given that his modus operandi for exploration, for understanding and loving his urban environment, is predicated as much on the availability of mass public transport as it is on his penchant for metropolitan thrill seeking, my feeling is that Koeppel is more of a Brown man than a Key guy. In fact, Koeppel’s flagrant use of LA’s mass transit system, and the willingness with which he takes to his bike or legs to propel him round his urban playground could easily make him something of a poster boy for Brown during his Spatial Plan campaign. Indeed, such is the ‘alignment of services’ in LA that Koeppel was even able sell his car! Imagine….
Whatever your feelings about urban sprawl, whether you look forward to more of it or have got it all crossed that Smart Growth will come along to stop it in its tracks, the inescapable fact is Auckland already has quite a lot of it, not all of it is pleasant to look at or be in, and some of it is jolly hard to get to (unless of course you have a car and decent sat nav). Looking through the Koeppel/Brown lens, genuine, multi-modal connectivity and accessibility would appear to be two of the keys that could liberate our existing spatially besieged neighbourhoods, as well as unlock the potential of a range of urban futures. Certainly, there is considerable evidence emerging that increasing social diversity, an ageing demography, and the development of more sophisticated urban tastes are pointing towards what Professor Roger Lewis describes as a ‘more-urban existence’ of ‘walkable neighbourhoods’ and “sustainably designed communities characterized by diverse land uses and a broad array of civic amenities”. This population of new urbanites is burgeoning, and becoming increasingly fluent and coherent in expressing their wants and needs. According to Professor Lewis, their ‘close-to-home wish list’ includes
- Transit access;
- Plenty of shopping;
- Cultural, recreational and entertainment venues;
- Parks and playgrounds; good public schools;
- Health-care services;
- Job opportunities; and
- Affordable housing.
Professor Lewis may be writing from an American perspective, but keep your ear to the ground and I think you’ll hear many an urban dwelling Kiwi crying out a similar wish list to that of their cousins over the water. The question is: which vision is capable of delivering the connectivity Auckland needs to begin to join the dots of its currently disconnected, dispersed and disparate communities? In our next city-centric blog, we take a more specific look at the concept and practice of connectivity and walkability in urban centres around the globe, and ask what lessons Auckland’s Spatial Set could learn from these examples.
[i] People and Place, p.125.
[ii] People and Infrastructure, p.160.
