Andy Asquith: Single voice key for solving city's issues

Birmingham suffered from Thatcher's policies but has successfully reinvented itself. Picture / Visit Britain

Before I came to New Zealand, I had lived away from my home town for more than 20 years in a number of locations in England.

By far the bulk of this time was spent living and working in and around England's so-called second city, Birmingham. Brum, as Birmingham is affectionately known, is a place you love to hate.

When I first arrived in 1984 I despised the place, yet over a number of years I learned to love the city and its people.

In the 1980s the city was politely described (to misquote John Cleese) as the suicide capital of England. It was a city which had seen better days.

Having thrived in the post-war years as a predominantly industrial city, with a dominant role played by the car manufacturing and component supply industries, the city was hit incredibly hard by the industrial and economic policies of the Thatcher government, and the influx of cheaper and better-quality cars from Japan.

For years, Brum had rested on its laurels. The City Fathers, led by the Chamberlains, Joseph and his two sons, Austen and Neville, had created a great Victorian city 100 years earlier when they had established the nation's first municipal-controlled gas company, bank and water company to combat the threat of disease.

But little had been done to build on these successes in the decades since the Chamberlains had run the city.

In the past 20 years virtually every major provincial English city has seen a transformation in the form of urban and suburban renewal.

Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Nottingham, Sheffield and Newcastle have all transformed themselves from cultural and economic deserts into thriving centres of prosperity.

The most interesting aspect of these transformations is the commonality of their actions. Each has taken a blueprint developed and implemented in Brum from the early 1980s onwards, and used it to re-invent their cities.

My first morning in Brum was one I will never forget. I was told to catch a bus to Paradise Circus.

The word paradise conjures up images of tropical islands and tranquillity.

My reality check came as I found myself on a concrete island surrounded by four lanes of constant traffic apparently participating in the unofficial Brum Formula One grand prix.

Yet fast forward 20 years and Paradise Circus now, at least, offers a modicum of tranquillity. It, like the rest of the city, has been transformed.

Brum can now rightfully claim to be a world-class city - a status to which Auckland also aspires.

Yet today, I would challenge anyone to visit Brum and not see a startling transformation.

The city centre is being rapidly repopulated, after years of citizens fleeing to the relative calm of the surrounding countryside.

The country's premier exhibition complex, on the outskirts of the city, is owned and run by a company which belongs to the city, as are its sister facilities, which are situated next to the city centre in an area once abandoned.

Another part of the central city periphery, once more famed for the frequency of violent crime, now boasts a huge digital arts complex.

The canals have been opened up and surrounding areas gentrified.

Public transport is enjoying a new renaissance, with trams once again operating in the city to supplement a comprehensive bus and rail network. Industrial investment has returned.

Much was made of the calamitous demise of Rover earlier this year. The city was well prepared for this, with a co-ordinated approach to minimise its impact on the city's economy. A range of stakeholders were involved in the development of the post-Rover strategy.

You might be asking what any of the above has to do with Auckland. Well, the answer is simple. The regeneration I witnessed was championed and pursued by local government, often against enormous odds.

True, local government did not act alone. To do so would have been impossible. Instead, it acted as the catalyst to bring together the private sector, voluntary organisations, other local public sector bodies, such as hospitals and tertiary education providers, central government and the European Union.

The role of local government was crucial. As the democratically elected, collective voice of the city it rightly claimed a legitimacy to speak for all, which no other individual or organisation or group of organisations could.

The success in the rebirth of Brum was solely down to the vision identified and advanced by local government, in a similar way to the vision now being articulated by a number of mayors in the Auckland region.

The one difference between what Brum - and indeed all the other English cities I listed - achieved and what Auckland hopes to achieve, is that in Brum, there was just one articulator - Birmingham City Council.

The existence of one strategic voice for the city is something which the current debate surrounding the governance of Auckland ought to pay attention to.

* Dr Andy Asquith is in the Department of Management and International Business at Massey University, Auckland.