Posts by Sacha
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Paul Williams,
resources must flow into the poorer areas where people currently are without transport and can't get the basics.
I asked myself over the last few days where the free public transport service for those suburbs is? Seems pretty elementary when supermarkets are not nearby and many don't own cars.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Emma Hart,
I thought, if there is more you can do, why the fuck didn't you guys do it last time?
This week, you're going to start seeing an awful lot of anger coming through from people down here.
And let's hope it's directed at the right people - the ones whose priorities in dismantling ECan and imposing Brownlee's will via CERRA were always about access to cheap irrigation water for the region's farmers rather than urgent action to make broken suburbs habitable.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Emma Hart,
I think you'd have a tough time getting people down here to agree that the Cathedral shouldn't be rebuilt. It's sad. We need a symbol of hope. Yes, we also need some kind of monument, but that's the building that symbolises our city.
It will be rebuilt and strengthened to be safe, no matter the cost.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Ross Mason,
Napier picked up the previous decades architecture style. Anyone got any ideas on what might constitute the previous couple of decades 'style"? Of course in this day and age - no longer quite so tied to Europe - we might like to consider our own.........I wonder what that might loo like
Something like the Telstra Pacific Events Centre in Manukau shows one distinctly local response. Not that it would be right for Christchurch necessarily.
This is an opportunity to look firmly *forwards*, to build a city that our children will find of value throughout their lives (and won't mind still paying for). That means addressing sustainable land and energy use (and peak oil). Not holding my breath that the current lot will get that, however. More cheap concrete boxes and car-clogged streets, I fear.
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Classical economics is weak, often perverse. The poor person starving and the rich person hungry both have similar needs, but one is priced out of the market immediately.
This is why prices are poor expressions of preferences - rather than perfect ones as stupid economists like Mr Crampton assume - in anything other than an egalitarian society.
Well put, George. To me, it's trying to impose a simplistic fantasy world onto our messy one. Which no doubt makes some people feel more comfortable and relaxed, but at quite a price for everyone else.
They are asking a vital question: If there's a fixed amount of resources, how do we distribute it?
Which is a *political* question. Situations like this show just how inadequate economists can be as substitutes for a political process. Especially neolib ones who don't really believe in such things unless it's about how to protect their own property. Treasury's likely influence over this government's response is worrying.
Others think more broadly, sure. But the global financial crisis has demonstrated that prevailing models are generally anaemic and conveniently exclude the social and long-term costs discussed here.
If there's not enough, *someone* will have to miss out.
Funny how the answer often seems to be "poor people" as if wealth somehow endows folk with a moral entitlement to a bigger share. That's what I find most offensive about spoilt little pricks from Act on Campus suggesting that pricing things out of reach is a 'rational' solution to anything.
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Russell Brown,
by popular demand -- well, Sacha
the power :)
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Rod Oram casts an economist's eye on the opportunity for proper city-building that this disaster presents.
We must think of earthquake proofing as an investment, not a cost. The same applies to inspiration. Widespread destruction in central Christchurch gives its people a remarkable opportunity to conceive and build a city that is even more beautiful, liveable and sustainable.
Yet, judging by New Zealand history – Napier excluded – we'll race to build a cheap, rather shoddy centre that's barely fit for the short-term. We'll tell ourselves we can't afford to do better.
But we've got to invest for the future. Given the world's rapidly rising human population, burgeoning cities, stresses of climate change and ever-scarcer resources, energy and water, the whole nature, form and technology of cities is changing in revolutionary ways. If we fail to adapt our cities and towns, we will drastically weaken the quality of our lives, and our competitiveness in the global economy.
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Christchurch will remain its very attractive self, in character and defining factors such as its historic street grid. But it will find new expressions of those, which will be uniquely right for it, and appropriate for the new global reality. In doing so, Christchurch will become truly sustainable. It will make resilient its presence on the Canterbury plain, it will greatly enhance its economy, and it will lift the spirit of its people. This is not the task of the city. It is the task of the nation.
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
RNZ's system is pretty much automated. Having said which, I have no idea how an item from about 1pm gets filed under a 5pm show's listing. Still, found it in the end.
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Emma Hart,
Thanks to Sacha for managing to find it for me.
Only took me all arvo - the blighters had buried it well.
I thought you spoke most eloquently
As always.
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Matthew Poole,
as we well know, political discussions in PAS tend to veer toward the disrespectful.
And please remember that the next time you're tempted to link to something overtly political. One of our moderators is caught up in the quake but I'd like to think we are all responsible adults here.