Dialogue: Crowded, soulless Auckland a citadel of Mammon

By GARTH GEORGE

I suppose there are thousands of people who like living in Auckland. I am not one of them. Although I've lived in this metropolis for more than 30 years, it has never felt like home but rather like a rented flat in which one finds it convenient to squat for a time.

Not that there aren't parts of it for which I have some affection. Shortland St, for example, where for six or seven years I toiled on the Auckland Star in the days when it was perhaps the Southern Hemisphere's finest daily newspaper.

And Kohimarama, where, newly married, my wife and I rented a unit just a block from the beach and argued each other to a standstill until the good Lord (and a number of his friends) with infinite patience showed us what marriage was really all about.

And Cheltenham, where, for an idyllic year or so, we lived in a unit right on the beach. But as for the rest of the North Shore, with the possible exception of Devonport, it has never appealed to me as a place even to visit, let alone to live.

There is much to be said, too, for Glen Eden, where we have lived in three different houses over the years and where you can pretty well guarantee that your neighbours will be friendly and the neighbourhood safe.

(We lived in Mt Eden for two years and were burgled twice to the tune of hundreds of dollars worth of gear. We have lived in Glen Eden for six years or so and our property has not once been violated.)

I suppose Auckland wasn't such a bad place when I came here at the beginning of the 1970s, not the least because the weather, in the summers anyway, was a lot better than it is today and you could lie in the sun for hours without getting crisped.

But I'm not really surprised at how this metropolis has deteriorated over the past three decades with the huge increase in population, all with their motor vehicles, competing for room on residential land and on roading and public transport systems little changed from those days.

(John Banks has as much chance of fixing those problems in seven years as he has of being elected for a second term.)

The central business district, once so full of character, has become the grottiest and most soulless downtown area in the entire country, as a visit to other main centres - and a lot of provincial cities - will quickly reveal. It has become simply a citadel of Mammon, criss-crossed by bland and windswept avenues of avarice.

So you can understand that it was with a great sense of relief that my wife and I drove south on our holiday, the chief attraction of which is always that we can get out of Auckland - the further out the better.

This time we filled in the last piece of our New Zealand jigsaw - the East Coast between Opotiki and Gisborne - then on down to Napier and Hastings and back through Taupo.

I have spent a lot of time in the far reaches of Fiordland and in the backblocks of Central Otago, but that was no preparation for the isolation of the communities between Opotiki and Gisborne, all nestled on glorious, unspoiled beaches between kilometres of magnificent, rugged coastline.

But, as it has been for a few years now as the countdown to retirement seems to pick up speed, it is the cities that engage our attention, for we are seeking a place to which we can escape when our durance vile in Auckland comes to an end.

Thus did we thoroughly investigate Gisborne, Napier and Hastings - all cities big enough to cater for our needs, all with their own unique attractiveness and all as laid-back and friendly as real New Zealand always has been.

Gisborne, bonny, balmy and booming - where in the main street I ran into a retired former workmate of many years, who has been there three years and looks 10 years younger - had to be crossed out because of its isolation. Even Radio Sport hasn't got there yet, and during a cricket test that is insufferable.

Prosperous Hastings is a tad staid and isn't on the coast.

But if Hastings is the grande dame of the fertile Hawkes Bay, beachy Napier is the cheerful, friendly, almost brazen thirty-something, alive and going places but still with enough time to make you feel welcome.

There is something about Napier that makes you think it would be a great place to live, so it now joins Rotorua on the list.

And for those wondering why it is that I stay in Auckland when I dislike it so much, the answer is simple: no other newspaper would allow me to ply my trade the way I want to - or reward me so well for doing so - as does the Herald.

Thus am I Mammon's slave, too.

* garth_george@nzherald.co.nz