How can we expect to attract international tourists if we don't have a sense of pride ourselves, asks Heart of the City's Alex Swney.
To make a great city you need a great CBD. What is good for Auckland is good for New Zealand ... and at the centre of Auckland is our CBD - the engine room of our economy.
Over the past generation Auckland's CBD has endured significant suburbanisation. Growth within the region has been driven by a car-centric suburban offer, and with that comes the suburban malls that challenge the traditional city centre. More recently investments like Britomart have begun to reverse this trend.
A prolonged flirtation with market forces as a determinant of regional and town planning has also led to the undermining of both CBD and town centre regeneration and sustainability. The result has seen the growth of uneconomic business development sustainable only because of land development economics.
These are often inherently short term in their delivery of good quality economic, social and urban outcomes.
Clearly this direction has run its course and we are now beginning to see that some transformation has already begun and this is probably best demonstrated by the fact that Auckland's CBD workers' earnings are higher than in other areas, 15 per cent higher than the Auckland city average and 27 per cent higher than the regional average.
Only a third of this CBD wage premium is explained by business sector makeup.
The business rate within the CBD will generate approximately 12 per cent of the total regional rate take - by far the single largest ratepayer group in the new super city. Interestingly in the current political debate there is a fear that suburban rates will disappear into Queen St. In fact the opposite is closer to the truth as it is the CBD which may subsidise suburban initiatives. It is also worth noting that the CBD also currently levies itself a premium CBD targeted rate to carry out the substantial CBD upgrades that all visitors to the CBD enjoy.
Cities have become so important to social and economic development that their success can be tied closely to the success of the nation. Today it is cities more than nations that are competing for business, the brightest talent and creative enterprise.
Talent, innovation and creativity concentrate in specific locations. Clustering is both a social and economic phenomena. New ideas and productivity are increased as clustering forces greater economic growth.
So, what we are trying to do here is set the scene for the overdue change that Auckland, and New Zealand desperately needs to embark upon and the fact that this transformation will begin in the CBD.
The CBD serves a metropolitan role across the whole of the Auckland Region. It is expected to continue to experience very strong residential growth over the next 20 years - a sure sign that the role of Auckland is evolving into an international city form.
The first step in this transformation is that New Zealanders and in particular Aucklanders, from Rodney to Papakura and Piha to Howick, need to be proud of our CBD. How can we expect to attract international tourists if we don't have a sense of pride ourselves?
We have to move beyond boasting our natural landscape toward developing a quality built environment. We don't have to look far. Across the Tasman the Sydney Harbor Bridge provides 8 lanes for cars and buses plus rail, pedestrian and cycling links - we built 4 lanes for cars. Sydney built their Opera House, we built the Aotea Centre. In Melbourne, a city with a parched natural environment by comparison to ours and a rather grubby Yarra River dissecting it by comparison to our spectacular Waitemata and Manukau harbours, they celebrate their modern built forms but accentuate them by also celebrating their cobbled walking lanes and heritage buildings. They build modern stadia (they are currently upgrading their tennis centre to the tune of $350 million and traded this investment off against a 25 year extension of their contract to host the Australian Open - a bankable investment in anyone's book). They have built an international convention centre, and recently expanded it.
All of these activities are happening where - you guessed it - in their CBD - this is their shop window. This is where they stand tall. Amazingly the state of Victoria, the only Australian state not digging itself up and selling itself to China, is the only Australian state trading in the black. Tourism is a modern export dollar economy and 80 per cent of this tourism investment happens within a 10km radius of the Melbourne CBD. Look and learn, Auckland!
We have begun this transformation and probably the most dramatic acknowledgment of this is the success of the Vector Arena. It has enriched our international events offering and in doing so it fills airline seats, hotel beds and restaurant tables. It is estimated that less than 20 per cent of the economic gain of events returns to the actual event and the balance resides in this supporting tourism sector.
The same economic gain is claimed by the convention industry and the sooner we turn the sod on a 5000 person international convention centre the better.
Importantly the decision about what we do with our convention cenrtre in Auckland must have strong links to good urban design. It's not just about our economy but as much about the way we form our city.
If ever there is an issue that galvanizes Aucklanders it is our waterfront. We despair at the container towers on our beautiful harbour's edge. New Zealand is clearly over-ported and we need to resolve once and for which port will become the major hubbing port in the North Island. In doing so we could open up Ports land in the CBD, create the capacity to build a new tourism economy, and enhance our linkages to the Gulf.
Public transport has not kept pace with population growth. In hindsight we've made some regretful mistakes in transport planning in our city, and pulling up the tram lines and pulling down the trolley lines are probably two of them. What we are left are with CBD streets full of cars and diesel buses and the noise and pollution that go with that.
There has to be a step change in the way we think about public transport and its role in building great places, not only in the CBD but throughout the region.
Britomart as it is is a dead-end station. The underground loop through the CBD is a must, not only to increase the efficiency and capacity of the whole network but also to create new stations in the CBD, most importantly in the arts and performance precinct around Aotea Square. That loop, too, is all about creating an electric rail system that pulses with the life of a growing city.
We need to get a modern set of electric buses in the CBD - no air pollution, no noise, buses that begin to brand the city as a smart one. Adelaide has one whose batteries are re-charged overnight from solar energy captured during the day! As the city starts to embrace these new options, and commit to them, sooner rather than later there will be a strong case for modern streetcars connecting Aotea to Britomart to the new developments in Wynyard Quarter. Roll on.
