Posts by jh
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One of my points is that this “diversity” goal doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It comes on the back of mass migration and mass migration has fuelled a nasty real estate market which should have popped but (my opinion) is held up by future expectations of purchases from the rest of the world.
Why wouldn’t infill be related to population growth?Once Redcliffs was an unprepossessing fishing village, distinguished by a collection of modest fishermen’s cottages. Most have now dissapeared, replaced by more luxurious residences, and property values have escalated.
“It’s a standing joke that we’re being taken over by the Americans and British, who have taken advantage of the stronger property markets in their own countries and favourable exchange rates”
“I know an English couple who have summer here and go back to England in the winter”
“What other parts of the city have such nice walks?…
From a Local paper.
1990 – 1999
In the subsequent year however, there was still an over supply of property available and forced sales continued, generally to owner occupiers and South Island based investors. The cycle turned for the rise in early 1991, resultant in part from an optimism in falling interest rates, but to a greater extent through an increased enquiry/purchasing from off-shore – mainly in prime lake front, commercial and tourist accommodation property. These off-shore purchasers entering the market acted as a significant catalyst to recovery. In effect this period represented a “discovery” of Queenstown by the offshore market.http://www.queenstownproperty.com/queenstown_property_overview.html
Up the road in Queenstown, nature is in full flight.
Queenstown advertises itself as “The Adventure Capital of the World,” where you can bungy jump, heli-ski, jet-boat, or sky-dive. The confines of the modest town can no longer accommodate the throng of thrill-seekers. Soaring mountains still fringe the lake, but condos are creeping along the shore, a snake of traffic clogs the road into town, and Louis Vuitton has set up shop along with Global Culture, a clothes store.
If your idea of a holiday is a seething mass of cars and people, topped off by a cacophony of helicopters, Queenstown may be for you. Otherwise, it serves only as a warning of the perils of overdevelopment.
“Queenstown used to be nice, but it’s a mess, now,” Verduyn says, as we continue our trip down the Upper Clutha. “We don’t want to get like that.”http://www.boston.com/travel/articles/2004/11/07/new_zealand_at_a_crossroads/
New Zealand is the new Eden, its clean and green image the beneficiary of a public-relations windfall direct from Middle-earth. Americans are not just visiting the country in numbers unimaginable only five years ago—they’re immigrating, drawn by an arcadian ideal (never underestimate the pacifying effect of several billion sheep), breathtakingly cheap waterfront real estate, see-through fish-tank architecture, and an investment climate that, as one Las Vegas resort owner–cum–South Island winemaker puts it, makes New Zealand “the Switzerland of the South Seas.”
One of the most powerful forces in the shilling of the nation is Helen Clark, familiar to all Kiwis as Madame Prime Minister. In her book, there are no bad tourists, only ones with shallow pockets. And in a recent campaign that will go down in history, Clark aggressively packaged and promoted New Zealand as a place where Californians in particular, because of their relative proximity and the kinship in lifestyles, might consider putting down roots. “Active recruitment,” she called it, and some of the state’s richest residents signed up. Vive le marketing. -
Hard News: Diverse Auckland: are we…, in reply to alobar,
I don’t think the 80% figure is correct ,
net migration peaked at around 40,000 in 2003 ,
http://wikinewzealand.org/?cat=232 but overall population increased by around 78,000 , so even in peak years it was nowhere near 80%Yes I see I don't know how he arrives at that figure (he is talking about non-NZ citizens as a percentage of total population increase. But the presentation was for a Treasury/Reserve Bank Forum so you would have expected a cough or two if it was wrong?
In later paper he says:Figure 17 tells the story. The net outflow of New Zealand citizens fluctuates (with the New Zealand and foreign business cycle) but has been negative for several decades. The average annual outflow - around 0.6 per cent of the population over the last decade - is large by international standards. But it is now typically more than offset by the increasing number of net arrivals of non NZ citizens: from around 10000 in the period prior to the reforms, to something closer to 40000 per annum now. The difference makes a material macroeconomic difference; on average, for example, equivalent to around half New Zealand’s house-building in a normal year. As a share of population, the average net intake of non-New Zealanders is one of the largest anywhere; directly as a matter of policy choice.
The net inflow of non New Zealand citizens has accounted for around 80 per cent of average population growth over the last two decades.http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/research_and_publications/seminars_and_workshops/Mar2013/5200823.pdf
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Hard News: Diverse Auckland: are we…, in reply to Chris Waugh,
It was a quotation taken out of context and used to support a point the article quoted from did not support.
maybe I should have added that I didn't agree with his conclusion. He says (to repeat)
The fact is, humans were not designed to slip effortlessly in to a multicultural world. Our psychology has been shaped by millions of years of monocultural living in small relatively homogenous groups
but then concludes that we should ignore these feelings because multiculturalism is good. He makes a lot of generalisations ignoring such things as how we get to multiculturalism: do developed countries really need mass migration and who benefits; which narcissist decides to start the process in the first place; are their theories sound?
Here is a more relevant quote:
“The need of human beings to belong to and unite behind a common culture, institutions and values is part of human nature. This need is hard-wired because of its survival value during evolutionary history. It cannot be overcome by government policies and coercion aimed at its elimination.”
http://www.jeff-goodall.com/?p=3376
The wikipedia link is here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_multiculturalism
Frank Salter:Anglo Australians are a subaltern ethnicity. They are second-class citizens, the only ethnic group subjected to gratuitous defamation and hostile interrogation in the quality media, academia and race-relations bureaucracy. The national question is obscured in political culture by fallout from a continuing culture war against the historical Australian nation. Many of the premises on which ethnic policy have been based since the 1970s are simply false, from the beneficence of diversity to the white monopoly of racism and the irrelevance of race. The elite media and strong elements of the professoriate assert that racial hatred in Australia is the product of Anglo-Celtic society. But in the same media and even in the Commission for Race Discrimination most ethnic disparagement is aimed at “homogenised white” people
http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2012/11/the-war-against-human-nature-iii/
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Hard News: Diverse Auckland: are we…, in reply to Chris Waugh,
The fact is, humans were not designed to slip effortlessly in to a multicultural world. Our psychology has been shaped by millions of years of monocultural living in small relatively homogenous groups.
It wasn't cherry picking. I used that quote to demonstrate a precept of evolutionary psychology. His opinions of multiculturalism are his own.
Wikipedia criticisms of multiculturalism:Diversity and social trust
Harvard professor of political science Robert D. Putnam conducted a nearly decade long study how diversity affects social trust.[95] He surveyed 26,200 people in 40 American communities, finding that when the data were adjusted for class, income and other factors, the more racially diverse a community is, the greater the loss of trust. People in diverse communities "don’t trust the local mayor, they don’t trust the local paper, they don’t trust other people and they don’t trust institutions," writes Putnam.[96] In the presence of such ethnic diversity, Putnam maintains that
[W]e hunker down. We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us.[95]
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Hard News: Diverse Auckland: are we…, in reply to alobar,
I think this is less misleading
That's called cherry picking. It's like judging rainfall on one month.
Another issue is that we can't do much about natural increase but we can about immigration. National, Labour and the Greens are pro immigration (as far as I can tell) and I believe we have a media bias in favour of immigration (the BBC has admitted bias).
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/jul/03/bbc-deep-liberal-bias-immigration
A small % increase each year translates to a giant future amount.
I note the Department of Labour sites research that finds no evidence that migration effects house prices (whereas returning Kiwis do) despite strong correlations and international evidence to the contrary. Could there be an institutional bias? You would hope not. -
"Monocultural" Christchurch Two Views:
One thing he is clear about is that the demographic changes set to occur in Christchurch could transform the city infamous for its white supremacist National Front movement. While Christchurch does have small ethnic enclaves, hosting lantern festivals for Chinese New Year and Diwali festivals for the Indian community, the scale of the anticipated migrant influx is unparalleled in its history.
http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-massey/news/article.cfm?mnarticle_uuid=86EB3C7F-B375-B8DF-A111-53B3788C75E5Bold young men drove sheep on to the vast grazing runs to found pastoral empires and land owning dynasties. Out of the wealth from the squatters’ wool clips, and from wheat when the tussock was ploughed, grew a city of scholarship, grace and dignity” Professor Kenneth Cumberland Landmarks
So Christchurch is better for it's Asian Restaurants (and deregulation) and we have a sizable Asian community, but you can see the problems of population growth as you look at places like Mt Pleasant and the sprawling subdivisions.
Once you could say what a places job was ("a distribution centre for the farmland on the Canterbury Plain") now it is "ideas" and "growth is good" (people get new and bigger facilities), however, the gardens get smaller, the villas are bowled and boxes go up. Take out the sugar rush of immigration ( lobbying by a hungry construction sector) and what is left?
If the world was a level playing field and there wasn't a j shaped curve in world population with gross imbalances, I wouldn't be worried about immigration. -
Hard News: Diverse Auckland: are we…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Okay, fair enough, true for that period, but a little misleading.
I wouldn’t call a 20 year period misleading? The stat's myth buster seems like misinformation (deliberate)?
and I don't like this either:
Productivity Commision:
We recommend that you:
a agree to the inquiry selection process set out in Appendix 1
Agree/disagree
b agree that Commission’s second tranche of inquiries be selected on the degree that
they:
• are relatively uncontroversial given the desire to establish broad political support for the Commission
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/informationreleases/productivitycommission/pdfs/t2011-2000.pdfis that reasonable? Would you have an investigation into co2 and climate change on similar terms (or public health)?
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Hard News: Diverse Auckland: are we…, in reply to jh,
humans were not designed to slip effortlessly in to a multicultural world. Our psychology has been shaped by millions of years of monocultural living in small relatively homogenous groups.
That quote comes from here:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/44170.html -
Hard News: Diverse Auckland: are we…, in reply to Russell Brown,
No, it’s not obvious at all. Because your figure is false.
That figure came from here:
80% of our population growth in the last couple of decades has been the net inflow of non NZ citizens .
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/downloads/pdfs/mi-jarrett-comm.pdfIt’s also a nonsense given that the large majority of people even in Auckland, where most immigration is concentrated, continue to live in in low-rise suburban housing – the large majority of which was not built in the past 20 years. The idea that we’ve suddenly stopped gardening and keeping chickens because sections have shrunk is demonstrably wrong.
What about the number of infill houses and the size of gardens?
Apart from anything else, home vegetable gardens have been on the rise in recent years.
In 2007 when the financial crisis started there was a run on macrocarpa sleepers.
Also, the forecast increase of one million in Auckland’s population in the next 30 years is predicted to be largely composed of natural increase and internal migration. Not immigration.
Really?
The BNZ Chief Economist's view on the Auckland House Prices3. The government is explicitly aiming to grow Auckland’s population as a means of achieving “agglomeration” benefits for economic growth which accrue from high interaction amongst economic players.
http://www.davidwhitburn.com/blogs/auckland-house-prices-to-rise-over-10-in-2013/
Auckland’s main ethnic groups 2006
European and Other 60%
Asian 17%
Pacific Peoples 13%
Maori 10%
Source: Statistics New ZealandAuckland’s main ethnic groups 2021 (projections)
European and Other 48%
Asian 25%
Pacific Peoples 16%
Maori 11%
Note: These are based on individual
group projections so percentages will not necessarily add to 100 or relate to the
projected total population.
Source: Statistics New Zealand -
Hard News: Diverse Auckland: are we…, in reply to Chris Waugh,
The Maori case is used (wrongly) to justify a further colonisation of Pakeha: “you did it to them so it is only fair that it is done to you”
Really? First time I ever read anything like that.The words "second colonisation" were used in the documentary The Last Resort (by a Maori) if I remember rightly. In that case it was the globalisation of the property market (going hand in hand with an open door immigration policy).
The Maori were colonised - Maori were here first is often brought up to delegitimise compaints about mass migration.. And it’s utter nonsense. You can’t claim to be being colonised when you continue to hold all the power and privilege in society and your so-called colonisers are held on the outer
Kiwis are being excluded from the property market by the high cost of real estate.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/4622459/Government-policies-blamed-for-house-pricesFunny, because expats here in Beijing, including (perhaps especially?) East Asians like Koreans and Japanese, do exactly the same thing. In fact, I have even heard two white New Zealanders boast (yes, boast) about how many years they’ve lived in China without learning any Chinese beyond what they need to get between home, work, and the expat hangouts and buy beer and cigarettes. But tell me, please, why should people attempt to integrate when they are subject to racist vitriol simply because of the colour of their skin? The Asian immigration debate is especially ludicrous in NZ considering the first Chinese arrived in NZ long before my ancestors, yet I can walk down any street in NZ without anyone questioning my place in NZ society, and yet Chinese-looking people are asked how long they’ve been in NZ simply because of the way they look, even if they were born in NZ and speak only NZ English.
So the expats will be a majority in a few years?
I’ve heard that myself more than once. Worse, I think, is racists trying to justify their racism by saying “Oh, but everybody’s at least a little bit racist”. Again, not a strawman but something real people actually say. If you want to present a reasonable objection then please, by all means, do. So far you have not.
You don't like evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychologists say:
humans were not designed to slip effortlessly in to a multicultural world. Our psychology has been shaped by millions of years of monocultural living in small relatively homogenous groups.
We’re built to absorb our proximate culture at a young age and, in doing so, our identity and values galvanise. We then become less malleable, and we seek out others who share our values and cultural identity. This doesn’t mean we’re closed to new ideas, but there’s a tremendous inertia in shifting our more fundamental values once they’re established.
this creates a little bit of mischief for the left who mock "I'm not racist but..."
We absorb people into our group but dumping a whole population and foreign culture on us is a bit much. I'm talking about mass migration for the purpose of bringing cashed up property purchasers (on the right) and to achieve a multiculturalism (on the left).