Local Governance, Amalgamation, and Productivity: Is Bigger really Better?

So much for savings from amalgamation
Burgeoning wage costs at Auckland Council are no surprise. They are not an unexpected outcome given that consolidation of local councils generates additional organisational tiers, calls for more managers, and demands greater attention to internal coordination and bureaucratic processes.

I noted a couple of years ago that the costs of Auckland's super city, established in 2010, were already outrunning the combined costs of the eight councils it replaced: 

the operating budget for Auckland Council in 2012/13 is $2.8 billion compared with the collective 2008/09 operating expenditure of the eight councils identified of $1.95 billion (see Royal Commission Report Appendix B). Spending growth of 45% (or $721m) in 2009 dollars compares with just 8% inflation between 2009 and 2012. Transition costs alone can’t explain such a jump - the Royal Commission suggested that at most transition would cost just $60 million a year for four years.

Expansion, ossification, and eradication 

The prediction that employment costs would increase was not so much insightful as stating the obvious. Quite apart from the evidence of diseconomies in over-blown municipalities, anyone who watched the decline and dismembering of New Zealand’s largest corporates in the 1980s and ‘90s could see it coming. Some of our largest companies (Watties, Fetcher Challenge, New Zealand Forest Products, Waitaki NZ Refrigerating, and Carter Holt Harvey) went through a sequence of slow growth, consolidation, and ultimately dissolution. Different parts were downsized, sold off, or shut down and assets stripped as the quest for productivity gave way to the struggle to survive.

Councils are not immune to the conflation and ossification that come with size. But before we predict the unwinding of Auckland Council we need to ask if high costs are simply a response to growth. 

The analysis

To explore this we analyse trends in local government employment relative to population using Statistics New Zealand Census population and employment data (2000 to 2013).

There are limits to this analysis. To really understand why a single council is costing Aucklanders more than those it replaced requires in-depth analysis. It needs to account for changed practices, changes in the mix and levels of services, changes in funding practices, and so on. Nevertheless, the analysis below helps raises serious questions regarding the costs and benefits of amalgamation.

City hall slimmed down? Yeah right
There was a slump and then a jump in local government jobs in Auckland after the new council was formed (Figure 1). So much for trumpeting job cuts in 2010! This was simply a transitional aberration. This is even more obvious when we compare shifts in jobs with shifts in the population local government serves. Local government employment grew ahead of population in Auckland continuously to 2010. Then, after the dip associated with transition to single council, jobs took off again, vaulting way above the already worrying medium term trend.

 

Figure 1: Changes in Population and Local Government Jobs: Auckland, 2000-2013

Benchmarking Auckland against the Rest of New Zealand
Growth in local government employment also grew faster than population across the rest of New Zealand . Table 1 shows this using 2010 as a benchmark date. It also shows includes changes in jobs per thousand residents – a surrogate for labour productivity: the higher the ratio the less productive local government employment is.

While Auckland’s population grew by 22% between 2000 and 2010, council jobs grew by 65%. This means it took 35% more people to administer local government relative to the population in 2010 compared with 2000, which suggests an annual average “productivity decline” of 3.5%. And that figure increased after consolidation, by 21%, to 7% a year. 

 

Table 1: Indicators of local Government Growth and Productivity

 

Local government productivity in Auckland declined by 35% (as measured here) between 2000 and 2010, but by only 21% across the rest of New Zealand.  This divergence increased between 2010 and 2013 when Auckland's productivity fell by 38% over just three years, while it fell by only 1% in the rest of New Zealand. 

While the measure of productivity is crude, the growth of council employment relative to population raises a fundamental question: where do the gains from amalgamation actually lie?

The productivity mix
Among sectors that can be identified from the statistics as providing local government services administration apparently experienced the biggest decline in productivity over the past three years (Figure 2). Front-line activities like public transport, museums, the zoo, and gardens actually lifted their productivity between 2010 and 2013. These gains may reflect demand rising ahead of population and employment as well as from operating improvements. However, recent gains follow falling productivity earlier in the decade. And gains in public transport have been on the back of plans and investments made before the 2010 reforms.

In fact, earlier gains in the water and drainage sector halted after 2010, while productivity in solid waste services has gone backwards. Given that these are sectors with generally stable technologies and predictable demand, this outcome is of some concern. But it is more worrying that local government administration, has apparently fallen behind the delivery of local services.

Figure 2: Shifts in Productivity by Local Government Activity

Benchmarking against other centres

A comparison of productivity scores for 18 New Zealand cities ordered from largest (Auckland, 1.5m residents in 2010) to the smallest (Upper Hutt, 41,000 residents) shows that size has little to do with performance (Figure 3). 

 

Figure 3: Comparing Changes in Productivity Across Cities

Moreover, from having the lowest score going into 2010, Auckland's index was bettered by eight councils just three years later. These included Porirua, Gisborne, Nelson, Hastings and Whangarei, among the smallest of the country’s cities. In fact, Auckland was the 16th worst performer between 2010 and 2013.

The index used here has its limits. Population is not necessarily the best measure of demand for different services. Comparison may be influenced by the different mix and quality of services offered by different councils. If nothing else, though, the comparison raises questions over how far and why consolidation should be promoted elsewhere.

So what does this mean for future amalgamations in New Zealand?
In 2012 I suggested that it was too soon to tell how the

Auckland experiment was going. A couple of years on I wonder how long we have to wait to see any fiscal or economic benefits. There is no evidence that consolidation has improved productivity. The other, less tangible benefits claimed for it - speaking with one voice being the obvious one – appear to have come at a significant cost.  This is being reflected in charges to ratepayers and the rate of increase in indebtedness.

Whatever the reason for these results, the Local Government Commission should be wary of emulating the Auckland experiment elsewhere.  This includes Wellington where there is considerable political momentum behind proposals for council consolidation. Amalgamation is a perceived solution to issues of local governance that may be more imaginary than real, a solution that we may not be able to afford.  It appears that Aucklanders are already paying the price.

The Costs of Consolidation - Watching a Slow Train Wreck

The perils of Thinking Big
Creating a single city to administer Auckland’s local affairs was always going to be an expensive exercise.  Efficiencies were possible, but by no means guaranteed, and unlikely to exceed the increase in costs.  As decision making becomes more centralised, it becomes less sensitive to the needs of those it is meant to serve.  Auckland is well down that track.  And announcements of cut-backs around the Mayor’s latest budget – and the coincidence of ever-expanding rates and debt – highlight the fallacy of chasing efficiency by creating large administrative and governance structures that become remote from the community.

Administrative efficiencies?  It doesn’t appear so

Let’s revisit that prognosis.  First, administrative efficiencies are not guaranteed by consolidating councils as the tiers of administration build up and channels of communication proliferate (along with opportunities for miscommunication) in a large council. The need for internal alignment begets managers and higher employment costs, impedes external alignment, and slows processes. Its interesting that according to Statistics Auckland local government employment in February 2013 was 38% higher than in 2010.  So much for the much heralded reduction in jobs.

Technical efficiencies – for whom?

Second, consolidating councils suggests that technical efficiencies can be pursued by way of economies of scale from consolidating the delivery of some local services like supplying water, maintaining roads and road corridors, and looking after parks.  But not if competition diminishes, labour markets are diluted, and monopolists (council owned or otherwise) come to dominate local services and utilities.  All too often possible technical gains from consolidation in the slow-moving, predictable, and unchallenging market for local government services get captured by the suppliers in higher wages, fancier buildings, glossier PR budgets, and bigger dividends, not the public. Increasing costs suggest that something like this is happening in Auckland.

Misdirected spending?  Too right

Third, there is a risk that the consequences of inefficient resource allocation will have further reaching effects in a large council than a small one. 

A local council investing, say, $30 or $40m in what may become an under-utilised sports stadium, for example, is less damaging than a larger council spending many more millions on super projects or major infrastructure of doubtful merit.  The risks of getting it wrong and the regrets from doing so are much higher.  A council with a larger revenue base may be subject to less fiscal discipline than a council with a small one.  It may favour larger “regional” projects with lower pay-back than the same sort of resources allocated to more,  smaller local projects.

And region-wide projects are likely to be subject to greater debate and scrutiny if they impact on multiple local councils areas than if they are conceived and delivered without the same level of debate by a large single council.  The delays and deferrals associated with contestability by constituent councils in a region may deliver better outcomes than the full-steam ahead approach of a single agency.

So is Auckland still on track?

Unfortunately, Auckland has been hit by a triple whammy. Council employment has been growing.  The costs of utilities and services have been increasing.  And the city is getting itself into some debatable capital commitments, lifting long-term liabilities. 

The central rail link is one of these.  And even as council costs continue to rise, it seems that this uber-project is sacrosanct.  Yet the case for it is constructed on highly debatable assumptions about where we might live and where we might work 10, 20, or 30 years hence. 

All aboard?
We are assured, though, that planned stations will double the number of people with access to the rail. Let’s think about that.  For a start, these stations are planned mainly in inner city areas already well served by bus and with relatively high public transport patronage. 

 

Further, even assuming that passenger numbers double as a result of better connections in 2013 that would have lifted rail commuters by 9,500 to 19,000.  According to Census figures this would be equivalent to just 4% of private transport users in 2013 (a gain of 2%) and less than 60% of the 33,000 bus users. 

There is a limit to the possible gains because of the rail focus on the CBD where already one third of commuters use public transport.  In 2013 another 13% walked or biked to work.  That’s a pretty good penetration rate of non-car modes.  Spending $2-3bn is not going to lift it significantly.

 

All at what cost???

And I’m not sure that the bill for the rail link will stop at $3bn.  Large, complex projects have a habit of running over time and budget.  The estimates for this one keep changing, highlighting the uncertainty and consequent fiscal risks around it. 

Given an uneconomic investment to start with, we are faced with raising funds elsewhere.  The taxpayer has already been lobbied, and now we are looking at alternative taxes (or tolls) simply because we know that charging users for the true cost of services is a fast track to running on empty. 

As well as additional charges on ratepayers and commuters (whether on public transport or in cars) we will further ramp up city debt.  Alongside the resulting interest commitments will be a raft of recurring costs – operations, maintenance, and depreciation – which we know will never be met by users.  This is a very real threat to a fiscally sustainable Auckland.

The CBD: going for bust

On top of all that, the rail connection is justified primarily as a service to the CBD, where much of the Council’s planned capital spending is already concentrated. But only 2% of the city’s population actually lives there, and 12% of its workforce works there.  The residents tend to be young, often immigrants, and transient.  The employees tend to be better paid and potentially more mobile than many of their counterparts in the suburbs. 

This vision of a city defined by its CBD raises major resource allocation questions for Auckland.  The CBD is the geographical choke point of the Isthmus, a regional bottleneck.  It is an area of ageing infrastructure, reclaimed land, and high building densities served by arterial roads that are increasingly congested, with critical roads subject to occasional inundation. 

I note that the driver of this singular vision, the Mayor, was elected into office by only 24% of eligible voters, or 17% of the population.  That, I would expect, should lead to a more measured approach than one that seeks a place on the world stage with a strategy that calls for sacrifices from the many to pander to the gratification of a few.  The CBD is already a great place to visit, but how much more must we mortgage as a community to pursue this particular vision. 

The risks grow 

To sustain the vision of a city defined by its CBD we are cutting back on the quantum and quality of works and services that have a more direct impact on the majority of Aucklanders. Deferral of drainage works for example, reduction of maintenance of our suburban corridors, a failure to expedite completion of critical roads not focused on the CBD, or a lower level of care of suburban parks and reserves are all more likely to impact on most Aucklanders on a daily basis. 

Can a strategy of spending, growing indebtedness, and increasing rates to finance the nice-to-have, me-too adornments (and liabilities) of much bigger cities really offset the reduction in the liveability that will come from cutting back on the basics while boosting the long-term cost of living in Auckland?

Planning on a Wing and a Prayer

Shaken beliefs
The Minister for the Environment’s submission on Auckland’s proposed unitary plan is only a surprise insofar as it was a long time coming.  The development gap resulting from relying heavily on residential intensification to cater for growth, the contradictory nature of the heritage provisions, the equity issues raised by backing off intensification in more desirable middle class suburbs, and the procedural challenges raised by over-complicated overlays all point to a plan that will make Auckland a lot less liveable for many more people.

And a history of artificially driving up the price of land for employment by rationing it in the hope that demand can be met by higher densities looks like being compounded by unrealistic rules that will further boost the cost of investment in Auckland, prejudicing output and productivity.

These are just a couple of examples that reflect the increasing unease expressed from various quarters over the proposed plan.

The historical record
The problem is not so much that the unitary plan is deficient in one or two areas and can be patched up by an amendment here and there.  The two deficiencies cited are critical in their likely impact on Auckland’s development (or un-development as the case may be). The more fundamental problem is the expectation that one plan will miraculously resolve Auckland’s development issues.  How did we reach this station?

It’s a belief that goes back in time, and has spread throughout the land.  It was first articulated about 15 years ago with business lobby Competitive Auckland suggesting that development was impeded and competitiveness undermined by having seven territorial councils, and seven different district plans.  Worse, these councils were regularly at loggerheads with a regional council which intruded on their land use mandate as a means of fulfilling its environmental responsibilities, with development mired in an unwieldy and litigious planning process as a result.

This belief that eight fiefdoms was seven too many was codified through the deliberations of the regional council-sponsored Metropolitan Auckland Project in 2006.  An international panel was invited to work through the plethora of documents assembled for that project, and explored the cross currents behind it by talking with key figures.
 
The panel decreed that One Plan for Auckland should pave the path ahead, over-riding differences in development within the region, in its physical and human geography, and in the contrasting and often conflicting ethnic and cultural values as these influenced local plans and practices. 

The reformation
The government then summonsed a Royal Commission to enquire into options for Auckland’s supposedly fractured governance.  As a result of its deliberations the Commission delivered an intelligent design for the super city, declaring that the only way to the fulfilment of one plan was with the one true council, a council that must be directly responsible for the fulfilment of its edicts across the land.

This was endorsed in a more grounded fashion by central government, in an act that effectively reversed the logic behind the 1989 local government reforms.  These had been based on the principle that transparency is served by separating responsibility for regulation from responsibility for operations, and the crafting of environmental rules from the practice of development.

The same reforms promoted modest amalgamation as the basis for administrative efficiencies, carefully avoiding the diseconomies and loss of local democracy associated with super-sized councils.  Operational efficiencies could be sought through the provenance of quasi-commercial council controlled organisations for service delivery.
 
The 1989 model did not set out to suppress the controversy and debate that naturally surrounds contentious development.  Indeed, in the seeds of administrative competence it sowed the capacity to articulate and debate differences and potentially moderate outcomes improved, potentially lifting the quality of decisions.  

The Conceit of Goliath

Internalising conflict in ever-bigger, centralised organisations like Auckland's super city does not resolve it.  Rather, it hides it, and allows dissonance to grow – as many now defunct corporations have found out.  Large organisations become uncoordinated, slow witted, and slow moving.  They are vulnerable to manipulation, even corruption.  They drive dissatisfaction onto the streets (or the social media), favouring the activists, the articulate, and the well-heeled in the battle for favour.

And that seems to be what’s happening in Auckland. Why stop there?  The ultimate in effective government if we believe bigger is better is one government, with power concentrated among the political and executive elite of a single central regime – or party – increasingly remote from its citizens.  Autocracy as government, however, must eventually fail. 

The Book of Rules
Let’s set that grim vision aside and return to the immediate issue. This is the belief that we can assemble a comprehensive set of rules that will in some way anticipate, regulate, and manage all forms of land use activity and development in what is, in fact, a diverse and constrained physical environment settled by diverse peoples in divergent circumstances and holding to a variety of values and beliefs.

Our planners and politicians as scribes are over-ambitious not just in what they seek to achieve, but in what they think they can achieve in the face of human multiplicity.  The proposed unitary plan looks increasingly like a sub-national canonical treatise – a set of laws that take us well beyond those mandated or intended by the state.  The irony is that in its sprawling complexity, this plan will be dissected, debated, and litigated by believers and non-believers for years to come.  And all the while the promised land will remain an illusion.

Do density and public transport resolve congestion?

(First Published January 2013)

The compact city/transit answer to the urban sustainability question

Expensive – and usually loss-making – public transit is enjoying a resurgence in the face of uncertainty over the supply and price of oil, concerns about the proliferation of private vehicles and greenhouse gas emissions, and  questions over the sustainability of our cities.

Transit is generally promoted as part of a programme to increase city densities.  In Auckland, for example, the plan is to recreate a compact city in order to get people out of cars.  A commitment to increasing the capacity of rail-based public transport is intended to support residential densities and justify concentrating public investment in the CBD.

I have addressed some of the issues this raises in earlier blogs.   (E.g., Rethink the Link, Five More Reasons, Thin Edge of the Tunnel Wedge, Derailing Auckland)

Exploring the relationship – the data

Using the Tom Tom international congestion index it is possible to explore the association between congestion and city density.  I analysed Q2/2012 morning congestion figures for 25 North American and 51 European cities covered by the index.  The index is based on the real time experience of drivers in areas of high usage of Tom Tom car navigation systems.  Congestion is measured as the deviation in travel time on individual routes at peak times compared with when they are flowing freely (generally at night).  The higher the deviation, the greater the congestion.

I looked for relationships between morning peak hour congestion and city size, population, and density using the Demographia July 2012 compendium of world urban areas data.   

Here are some summary figures for the second quarter, 2012:

Source: Tom Tom, 2012; Demographia, 2012 Congestion is additional peak hour travel time compared with free flow travel over the same routes.   (Out of interest, the comparable density figures for Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch are 2,400. 2,200, 1,900, and 2,000 respectively). 



Note the greater range of congestion figures among European compared with North American cities, and their significantly higher high and median figures.
 
The North American evidence:  higher density = more congestion?
I undertook simple and multiple regressions in each case to establish how far differences in congestion depend on the physical size of cities, how far on their populations, and how far on residential densities.
 

Among the North American cities only population density was statistically significant, explaining 52% of the differences in morning congestion among cities.  By and large, as densities increase, so does congestion (Figure 1).  The inference is that transport efficiency is no better among more compact cities, and may be worse.

Figure 1: The relationship between density and congestion, North American Cities

Does transit help?

It would take more comprehensive evaluation to establish how far transit systems might modify this relationship between density and congestion. The US News website provides a ranking of the top ten US transit systems based on ridership, safety, and government spending.  Only five are in the Tom Tom sample. 

Figure 2 orders the cities from worst to best performing on the ground of the difference between congestion that would be expected on density grounds alone (as predicted by the regression equation in Figure 1) and the actual congestion recorded.  Hence, Boston has higher levels of congestion (48%) than predicted (27%) on the basis of its density (just 800 persons per square km). And like poorly performing Seattle, it has one of the top ten transit systems as ranked by US News (4^th and 9^th respectively).  

Figure 2: Congestion performance, North American cities

The other poor performers based on this analysis include both high density Montreal, Ottawa, and Vancouver, and low density Atlanta. 

This is not a definitive analysis.  Rather, it suggests propositions for further consideration.  Among these, higher densities do not necessarily mean less congestion – more likely the opposite.  And leading edge transit does not necessarily fix the problem. 

The European Evidence: there is no evidence

The results for European cities were completely different, adding weight to the argument that context matters: what works in one setting will not necessarily work in another.  Across the 52 cities there is no relationship between density and congestion.  (There is, however, a weak relationship with cities’ physical size, r²=0.25). 

Figure 3 plots morning congestion as a deviation from the median for the 51 cities and includes a plot of densities.  It isn’t easy to read. In summary, the poor performers are Warsaw (density 3,100), Marseilles (1,300), Istanbul (9,700), Toulouse (1,100), Rome (3,400) and Brussels (2,600).  The better performers include the smaller cities of Malmo (density 3,600), Zagreb (5,700), Valencia (3,000), Seville (5,600) and Bern (2,300).

Figure 3: Congestion Performance, European cities

Does transit help?
A listing of the world’s top ten transit systems in 2011 included only four from the European sample (and only the New York subway from North America).  The London Underground comes in third, but London Metro Area comes in at a low 39^th on the European congestion rankings.  The Paris Metro is rated fifth , but Paris sits at 46^th among the 51 European cities for congestion.  The Berlin U-Bahn sits at 9^th place and the city's congestion 21^st in Europe.  Copenhagen is 10^th in the world transit stakes and 16^th in congestion ranking.

While the results are quite different from the North American analysis, the European evidence also offers no grounds for suggesting that density is a prerequisite either to better commuting conditions or that congestion reflects the quality of transit systems.

(A contrarian might argue, of course, that transit creates a commitment to a land use pattern that promotes congestion, delaying or distorting the decentralisation of employment that might otherwise occur in a well-connected city). 

Pursuing poorly performing precedents

If nothing else, the analysis raises issues which deserve much closer analysis, especially in Auckland where they do not support plans for a high cost transit system to support a compact city.

While planning – and planners – in Auckland have a tendency to cite overseas precedent to support expanded rail-based transit and higher residential densities, the variability of overseas experience suggests that this is a highly risky strategy.  Context really does matter – not only here but also among the precedent cities our planners love to cite. This is especially the case when poor performers on the congestion scale like Vancouver and Seattle in North America and London and Paris in Europe are touted as paragons of integrated land use and transport planning. 

So why do our planners and politicians continue to gamble the city's fiscal future on an economically flawed project which overseas data suggests has limited prospect of meeting its objectives?       

 

City of bites: urban design and eating in Auckland

The café culture in action
For some time now Auckland’s planners and politicians have been spending up on the central business district to attract people back to the city.  A major element of the CBD sell has been the attraction of a burgeoning café, bar, and restaurant culture. 

Well, as I said a year or so ago, it’s working:

“The irony is that the new Queen Street reflects the inner city café and restaurant culture so extolled by those who promote central city revitalisation: Queen Street from Mayoral Drive north looks and smells a bit like a glorified food court, a strip of fast food joints, where inner city residents and visitors can wander up and down and grow fat.”

And now KFC wants to join the 42 fast food outlets counted by a Herald reporter on Queen Street, the heart of the CBD.  (This count excludes ethnic food shops - I have no idea what the moral or nutritional grounds were for this exclusion). 

Better design equals better eating??

How reassuring that Auckland Council is responding to this travesty of taste.  Its urban design champion Ludo Campbell-Reid said it would speak to KFC in an attempt to avoid ‘visual pollution’. 

Because evidently we’re not getting the eating culture that Mr Campbell-Reid expected or intended.  He says that there is still work to be done to see a “better mix of retail and healthy eateries”.  

"In the future, wouldn't it be amazing if there were restaurants in the middle of the street (and) the street was closed to the traffic in places? Wouldn't that be wonderful if people were able to sit outside and there would be high-end restaurants like the French Cafe, but also cheap and cheerful as well?"

Well good luck.  Let’s not let economics get in the way of good design; that way we can spend even more public money on urban design solutions to problems of public taste.

It’s all about demand and supply

It’s fine to take the nutritional high ground – and I empathise with obesity experts concerned that takeaways on Queen Street are contributing to growing waistlines. But that’s about personal taste and means, market offerings and messages, education, and perhaps even food regulation, but not urban design.  It’s about what individuals choose (and can afford) to eat.

Anyway, the proliferation of fast food cafes is not surprising.  The development of new, up-market precincts off Queen Street promoted by the Council to pander to middle class tastes has left something of a vacuum there.  Couple this with the restructuring of retailing and what is a poor Queen Street landlord to do?

Well, an obvious option is to lift yields on high value properties losing business to other precincts by intensification: subdividing and refurbishing ground floor space to increase rentals.  And it just so happens that fast food outlets (and trinket shops) can generally attract enough custom to carry the resulting small space rentals. 

And don’t forget that the Council supported this restructuring of Queens St retailing with a $43 million facelift aimed at making the street more pedestrian friendly.

And now they seem worried that it is not leading to the Auckland – or Aucklanders – that the designers evidently want.

But others seem to be more than happy with it – some lease the space out, others take up the leases, and yet others consume the goods.

Beer and burger, cocktails, coffee and desert

Coincidentally, there was a neat little advertisement placed in Canvas Magazine in the weekend Herald by “BIG Little City”.  This is the central city marketing campaign funded by Auckland's Downtown Business Association, Heart of the City.  Heart of the City is funded primarily by rates targeted on inner city properties.

The advertisement listed “191 reasons to love your city” (for city, read CBD).  It’s not a bad advertisement, and I have no problem with the BIG Little City campaign.

But here’s the interesting bit.  At least 98 of the reasons involve food or drink (or both), with plenty of pizzas, burgers, sweets and beers among them.  (The figure may be higher – I couldn’t quite work out some of the offerings).  The other reasons, incidentally, covered mainly movies and shows, beauty treatments and shopping. Nothing unique in that lot.

Selling the CBD – our very own city of bites

So how are we selling Auckland’s CBD?  Why, as a great place for a bite and a shake, or a beer.  And that’s exactly what Queen Street is offering.  It may not be to your personal taste, and it may not be particularly healthy.  But does that make the more expensive off-Queen Street bars and restaurants, their steaks, pork bellies, desserts, wines and liqueurs any more healthy or any less indulgent? 

Is that what defines Auckland?

So let’s not get too precious about our CBD.  Surely we don’t plan to design a city that excludes half the population? The 2006 Census showed that 48% of Aucklanders earned less than $30,000 a year.  (The median was $26,000). I doubt that many of them could afford the French café, or even cheap and cheerful restaurants offering al fresco dining in the middle of main street. 

And by the way, the 191 reasons to love our city apply to most largish cities in the world.  That’s okay – it’s good to remind Aucklanders, at least, that our city stacks up on measures of middle class living.  But it’s not going to sell Auckland to others.

An alternative vision

The 191 reasons aren’t going to make Auckland’s CBD stand out from the pack.  Perhaps a livelier, less indulgent, and more diverse downtown is called for (check out Wellington waterfront for an example).  Let’s have more action, assert our city of sails, indulge in our distinctive seascape and landscape, and acknowledge, embed, and celebrate our city’s Pacific and Polynesian heritage.  The real Auckland is a smorgasbord of places, people, and experiences, not just a smorgasbord.

So if we must get down to micro-planning (and I don’t think we should), let’s plan for urban spaces and amenities that are inclusive rather than aiming for a sanctuary of gentility remote from the real Auckland.

And let's recognise that cities, like eating, are a bit messy: and that we can't urban design them to order.