Posts by Tom Beard
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I'm guessing you mean Cornerstone and their proposed development at Waimauku?
I'm not too familiar with Auckland region developments, but from what I can gather from a quick squizz at the website I'd say that the reasonable density and location on a railway line are good, but it's still greenfield development. It's better than the sort of "unrestricted" development that Pavletic & co want (i.e. ad hoc subdivisions), but I still think we need to develop the centre more intensely rather than spread even further out into the hinterland. I was thinking more of things like the Beaumont Quarter, though I haven't seen that first hand.
So I'm willing to concede that there are forward-thinking suburban developers (and that's what Cornerstone looks like it'll be - there's no mention of workplaces, so I'm guessing it'll be a dormitory "village") that are being held back, but there are a lot of things that need to be considered before allowing such a development.
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I think I have a bit of an idea what urban sprawl is, but surely it cannot (and will not) continue indefinately, for a whole bunch of good economic and environmental reasons, and that smart developers will (and some already do) recognise this.
It certainly can't continue forever, but when the factors that make far-flung suburbs unliveable (say, when petrol prices reach twice their current levels) really kick in, the social consequences could be devastating. It's true that "urban development [would] change to reflect the needs of a changing community", but you can't just shift houses around or build transport infrastructure overnight, which is why we need to plan for it now rather than waiting for the market to correct.
It all depends upon what you mean by "smart" developers. To my mind, the smart ones would be the ones who build high quality medium-density housing close to shops, amenities and public transport nodes. But from a purely financial point of view (and property developers aren't generally known for their altruism) the "smart" thing to do is make a quick healthy profit and move on. Property fortunes are made by looking maybe five years ahead, not the fifty or so we need to plan sustainable communities. That's why I have little faith in "unrestricted urban development" delivering intensity and diversity.
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Yeah, but the label could be a lot worse. Reading Grant's quote from the DomPost, I would hate someone to identify me as being part of something called, "middle New Zealand"!
Shudder! I guess that was part of Brash's mistake: he didn't realise that there's a considerable slice of the population to whom the word "mainstream" is a term of abuse.
Getting back to the main point, the reason I've harped on about suburbanism and "the Kiwi Way" is that I've heard from a very reliable source that National's "policy in waiting" on the environment includes a proposal to scrap all limits on urban development. Combine that with Key's misty-eyed memories of looking at a neighbour's house "where the fridge was full and there was a car in the garage" and I really don't get the feeling that his "kiwi way" includes plans for sustainable urban growth and quality public transport.
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tom, that visit to ten-buck-an-hour tauranga profoundly effected you, methinks
It certainly made me appreciate Wellington even more! But I spent 14 years in the 'burbs of Christchurch, and if it hadn't been for the proximity of the university and the fact that it was possible to cycle into town I'd have gone mad(der) long ago. Going back there now and seeing the subdivisions spreading across the plains (no doubt to Hugh Pavletich's endless delight and profit) sends shudders down my spine.
Not that Greater Wellington is completely immune. I've spent far too long at in-laws' places in Whitby to believe that. I'm sure they believe that they're in touch with nature: after all, look at all the golf courses! And then they grumble that the roads aren't big enough...
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I think King was right when he identified the emergence of the environmental movement as part of a developing sense of nationhood.
True. But there are also different strands of environmentalism, with different levels of emotional attachment to the land. There's the stereotypical hippy who wants to live self-sufficently in the midst of nature. Then there's what you could call the "urban greenie", who cares for the future of the planet, but doesn't necessarily have any desire to be among "nature" on a daily basis and sees the best hope for a sustainable future in compact cities with good public transport. That'll be me, then.
But I think there's a big, strand of New Zealanders who would claim to have an attachment to the land, and to "clean green NZ", but whose actions are anything but sustainable. Your stereotypical kiwi blokes and sheilas love the outdoors, and want to be a part of it. Thus, they have a big section in the suburbs or a lifestyle block, with a ride-on mower and a V8 for the drive to work. They'll tow their powerboat behind their SUV every weekend so they can enjoy nature by shooting it or catching it on the end of a line. They may even own a bike, but they'll strap them on the back of a Holden and drive to a mountain so they can ride down it, but they wouldn't dream of riding it to work. And they'll look at the central city and sneer at a new apartment block going up, saying "mate, how can you live amid all that concrete rather than in the healthy green open spaces?", without thinking that the apartment-dweller's ecological footprint would be a fraction of their own.
So, I've just admitted that a big chunk of NZ do have this sort of "attachment to the land", which seems to contradict my point. But I don't think it's as dominant as it was, and my fervent hope is that reality (in the form of oil prices and global warming), together with a steady inflow of people who don't have an allergic reaction to urbanity, will gradually change those attitudes.
The "paganus" idea, when translated into ture ecological awareness and action, could be a powerful force for good. But all too often it gets co-opted into the sort of "quarter-acre paradise" vision that helps sell McMansions and SUVs to a populace that claims to love the land while gradually killing it. Rather than promoting an attachment to "land sea & sky", perhaps we should respect the land sea & sky by leaving it alone, and instead celebrate a growing attachment to "place, life & people".
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Ooh, that's a bit harsh. If you read the full essay (the introduction to Great New Zealand Argument), I've cited evidence for the idea ... I think it's a valid observation
You're right, I should read your full essay before engaging in any more depth with the argument. It's certainly a valid argument that it's a thread that has run through our art and literature, but is that still the case?
Michael King and Keith Sinclair have made similar observations in more graceful prose than mine.
King's and Sinclair's formative years are a generation or two past now, and while NZ hasn't urbanised all that much more since then, the notion that we're essentially a rural people is becoming more and more of a myth. Myths, of course, have their own very deep reality, but is that a reality that we can or should hold onto when an "idealised feeling for the land" manifests itself through chopping that land up into quarter-acre blocks and paving the rest of it so that we can drive there?
attachment to the land is a recognised theme in our arts and literature
It's certainly a theme, and a strong one at that, but again, does it still apply as strongly today? There was, of course, the cultural nationalism movement at the middle of last century (McCahon, Curnow et al) which was a necessary stage to distance ourselves from the colonial centre, and that still features as a stereotype of what "NZ art" is or should be about. But hasn't recent cultural and artistic practice been more plural, more urban and more international than that? I started writing in the wake of people like Leigh Davis, and the idea of a poetry that engaged with global ideas and urban themes resonated far more with me than any amount of Brian Turner grizzled mountain-man crypto-spirituality.
Merc: I just get tired of certain people trying to draw me out on what makes me feel like a NZer, sort of a Toyota ad, research company feel to it
That's exactly the way I feel about it, and I'm sorry if my initial comment sounded harsh, Russell, but it's phrases like "a core part of what it is to be a New Zealander of whatever heritage" (from your comment, of course, not the full essay, so it may be a straw man) that rankle with me and make me feel excluded.
It's interesting that you mention the experience of ex-pats, because it reminds me of the couple of years I spent overseas a little while back. NZers asked me whether I missed all those big open spaces back home, and I had to answer no. The only thing that made me homesick was when flicking through a Soho record shop I came across Fat Freddy's Drop's "Live at the Matterhorn" CD. Not because I was a big Freddy's fan, but because it had a picture of the Bucket Fountain on it. It was that particular built environment that resonated with me: the streets, buildings, street art, bars and people that I missed (that, and decent coffee and roti chenai), not "land, sea and sky".
So, I guess I'm not a real kiwi. So, I'd agree that your definition has a lot of truth behind it, but I'd venture to say that while it's an accurate definition of what a NZer was, it doesn't fully describe what NZers (significant plural) are or will be. In the 1950s Pakeha needed a "New Zealand identity" in the arts, something to say that they weren't just English people lost on some distant islands. Perhaps what we need now is an understanding of the plethora of national identities that are now emerging.
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The phrase 'The Kiwi Way' is then deployed through the speech as a kind of veiled threat. Disagree with this proposition and you are denying the Kiwi Way. In that respect, it has the same hegemony as the Mainstream New Zealanders argument.
Exactly. Quite apart from any debate about what content may or may not exist behind the rhetoric (and it's easy to see that a phrase like "we believe in working hard and getting rewarded for it" is code for "tax cuts for the rich"), it's that same old Kiwi essentialism that gets me.
All that 8 tribes malarkey might be shallow, glib and as methodologically rigorous as a Deborah Coddington article, but I like one implication of what they're saying: there is no such thing as "the" Kiwi way. And I have to say that it's not only the right that's guilty of that: Russell's use of Keith Sinclair's "paganus" concept ("an attachment to the land, sea and sky seems a core part of what it is to be a New Zealander of whatever heritage. It's the thing we all (or nearly all) answer to.") seems almost as simplistic and "mainstreaming" as "the Kiwi way".
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Point taken: it's certainly possible to walk from the CBD to Ponsonby, or to Parnell or Newmarket, but it always seemed to me that no-one did. I lived in Grey Lynn and walked to the city at times, but people always looked at me oddly if I said I walked anywhere. Maybe things have changed in the last 10 years, and I guess it's as much about the circle of friends and cultural activities you move in as it is about the city itself: the people I knew were scattered everywhere, and walking around and bumping into them was inconceivable.
There are still a lot of things I miss about Auckland (St Kevin's Arcade, bits of the Vulcan Lane area, the cultural diversity), but I've never felt at home anywhere but Wellington or perhaps London. I don't think there are many cities in the world as small as Wellington that I could live in, and even if it's not a megalopolis like London or Jakarta, it feels a lot bigger than it should for its population. Now imagine Auckland's population and diversity with Wellington's compactness and concentration...
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London, I lived there for three years and know it well, has great physical beauty in places but often only street deep. The essence of London, and the part I actually enjoy the most exists beyond the tourist facade, away from Piccadilly, or even Soho, in places like Brixton or Mile End or Hoxton..you know, where the people live and exist and the day to day fire of the city comes from. These places are not always pretty, and they sprawl.
I agree with the first part, and what appealed most to me there is not what most people would call "beauty", but the messy everyday reality, the people, the mix of cultures, and the layers of history; and certainly in the sorts of places you mention rather than the cold orderliness of Whitehall. That's why I mentioned Spitalfields, as that was my neighbourhood for a couple of years not long ago. Not "pretty", but endlessly fascinating and to me, beautiful.
However, I can't agree that "places like Brixton or Mile End or Hoxton", while they go on for miles, "sprawl". You have to go a long way out of central London before you find anything like Albany, or even inner-city Auckland suburbs. Would that Auckland, or anywhere in NZ, have that sort of density! You say that "Ponsonby rolls into K Rd, into the city into Parnell and to me it seems like a continuous journey with thriving interacting organic communities in each direction", but I never felt them as that organically connected when I lived there: the lively bits were always separated by residential streets or light industry, and unless you were in a car, it wasn't exactly easy to "roll" between them.
But I guess there's the nub: to me, a proper city should be encountered on foot, or at least by good public transport, and any city that makes it almost impossible to live without a car doesn't count for me. I don't buy into the whole anti-Auckland thing either, adn I'm certainly not anti-Aucklander (I've much more in common with a flash Ponsonby or Vulcan Lane type than with a South Island farm boy), but I just loathe the thought of a place without a CBD (and the critical mass it delivers - that was my point) and that forces you into indivudal metal boxes just to live your life.
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I guess by "most bloggers" they mean "most political bloggers", which is a conflation that the print media seems to make quite a lot, since they don't think anything else is worth writing about. As you say, "most" bloggers write about their cats, or their holidays, or TV shows, or sports, or technology... In fact, there is at least as much variety of content among blogs as there is among newspaper columns, and at least as many professional and talented people writing them as there are working for newspapers.
By equating "blogger" with "opinionated political blogger", they're making the same mistake as assuming that newspapers consist of nothing but op-ed columns. Just think: if the print media consisted of nothing but columns by Karl du Fresne, Garth George, Rosemary McLeod, Frank Haden, Michael Laws ... shudder!