Imagine what we could do with our cities and our lives if we really wanted to make some changes. Photo / Michael Craig
Imagine what we could do with our cities and our lives if we really wanted to make some changes. Photo / Michael Craig
Opinion by Simon Wilson
Simon Wilson is an award-winning senior writer covering politics, the climate crisis, transport, housing, urban design and social issues. He joined the Herald in 2018.
In every century, plagues have led to better cities, because they demand better civic planning. Now we're edging out of lockdown, what will we do? Here's a starter list of four.
1. Rebuild our public health system
in El Paso, Texas they're using flat-pack modular techniques to build "standaloneintensive care units". Pack 'em on a truck (or a train!) and send to wherever they're needed. You can get 30, says the company doing this, for the cost of a single hospital room.
Great for pandemics and other disasters. But also, great for taking public health to wherever it's needed?
We've discovered, not only from Covid-19 but from the measles outbreak last year, that our crisis response systems are too weak. The consequences have been bad enough here; they were tragic for Samoa.
Public health in general is also ridiculously under-resourced, as we have long known from the harm caused in poorer communities in urban and rural areas.
We see it in the prevalence of diseases such as rheumatic fever, in inadequate access to mental health services and in basic healthcare. The lack of affordable dental services among those same communities should be a national scandal.
"Restructuring" is a dreaded word in the health sector. It's what you say if you want to give doctors and nurses nightmares. That the legacy of neoliberalism for you. Not only did it disrupt healthcare for two decades in the 1980s and 90s, as competition drove out cooperation, it's left everyone who survived those times terrified to even think about more change.
But change we must. We know from the pandemic response that our health system is too fractured and must be fixed. We know it doesn't prioritise public health properly.
We have always known we neglect the diseases of poverty, simply because we can. So, back to those strike force flat-deck units. We could build them here. Set up a dental service, say, with 50 dentists. A month in Kaikohe, a month in Ruatoria, three months in Manurewa. Integrate with the local dentists, use trainees on section, keep it going.
Do the same for respiratory diseases, obesity, mental health, whatever the need – and there will be plenty.
On a small scale, I know, some of this happens already. But we could scale it right up, with the benefits of better health, lots of new health-sector employment, better work and education prospects for the people they help, a happier and more engaged society.
Imagine if we decided to eliminate the diseases of poverty.
Why, in normal times, do we go to work in offices in the city, all at the same time? The resources required for peak-time commuting are staggering. Photo / Michael Craig
2. Build social housing
In the Covid-19 epicentre of Wuhan, they built two hospitals in just a couple of weeks, and everyone said, yes, but Chinese labour laws. Then they did the same thing in London. It's not the labour laws that make the big difference, it's the construction methods.
Those hospitals used modular construction techniques: components mass-produced offsite, standardised designs, easy assembly.
We can do this with housing. We're been inching towards modular and prefab construction from before the time of the current Government. But it's still not happening at speed.
The heart of the process is urban design. Masterplanning that ensures the services and amenities the new community needs will be met.
Too often, that still isn't happening. The public transport might be planned separately and later. Sometimes, apartment blocks are going up and they haven't worked out where the kids will play.
We need a process that goes like this. Okay, here's the site. One year to masterplan for 1000 homes, coordinate the different agencies, get the modular designs worked up, get the supply lines in place for mass construction and get it consented. How long to build? One more year? Six months?
Imagine if we said: Let's do it like that, and identify every barrier and just get rid of it.
Imagine if we said: Social housing? Hold my beer. We're the people who just beat Covid-19 and we can sure do this.
Imagine if everyone lived in a warm, dry and safe home. It's not an impossible goal, so why do we treat it like one?
3. Rethink work
Why, in normal times, do we go to work in offices in the city, all at the same time?
The resources required for peak-time commuting are staggering. By some estimates, a quarter of our urban land is tarsealed over for roads and car parks. There are four parks for every car. Those cars are the second most expensive thing most of us is ever likely to own and a constant drain on our wallets. Motorways cost a staggering amount to build and maintain.
Why do we commute to work in an office, all at the same time? Aren't there better ways to organise our lives? Photo / Mark Mitchell
Urban sprawl eats highly productive farmland; cities are bent way out of human shape by the need to handle cars, and commuting wastes hours of potentially valuable family time. And have you heard about all the impacts of burning fossil fuels for transport?
And now we know it doesn't have to be like that. We don't all want to work at home and certainly not all the time. But the scope for mixing it up, taking the pressure off the commute and improving our quality of life? It's immense.
Imagine if we lived flexible lives. Why is that a goal only the very rich are entitled to?
4. Rethink schools and family payouts and tourism and everything
There's so much more we could do. I haven't even mentioned bicycles. Or rail freight, green buildings and urban farms.
But what about schools? We know adolescents aren't well served by the regimented school day, everyone at their desk by 8.45am. If work becomes more flexible, so could school. It's the least we could do for the poor sods, isn't it?
And we know domestic travel will be essential if the entire tourism and hospitality sectors are to survive. So let's go. Why not give every household $1000 to make a three-night trip, within 12 months of moving to level 1, to somewhere in the country where they don't live.
