KEY POINTS:
I was pleasantly surprised this week when I saw that the Auckland City Councillors had voted overwhelmingly in favour of removing the big corporate billboards in Auckland's central city and some of our trendier shopping areas.
I've always thought it was rather crass that big companies with far too much money in their pockets spent hundreds of thousands of dollars ramming their goods at us. It seems that there is simply no rest from the relentless campaigns by our turbo-capitalists to infiltrate our sub-consciousness with their sometimes dubious advertising. The only companies, of course, who can afford these kinds of mega-promotions are the giant brand companies which now dominate our society. If you don't believe me, look through any newspaper or watch the prime-time ads on television. They are the same advertisers who dominate our city building facades.
The whole point of these multi-media promotions is to attack us on all fronts so their messages to buy can't be ignored. There is some freedom to turn the page or flick channels when ads show up in print or electronic forums. But full-length building billboards can't be ignored so easily. Marketing companies know this, and that's why they charge thousands a week for each billboard. Oh yes, there is a lot of money sloshing around on those billboards. Do they work? You betcha. Remember the Kiwi/Iwi Don Brash boards? It nearly won him the election.
But, surely, even the most avid capitalist would have to admit that it's not fair to hit us with mega-high billboards promoting underpants and things we don't need whenever we come to town.
I remember when I first went to the United States how giant, tacky billboards dominated beautiful landscapes. In some respects, we've gone even further. The owners and their corporate advertisers kid us that the boards are less invasive than they used to be because there are only 200 in the Auckland CBD when there used to be 300. They don't mention that the billboards are now larger and can dominate an entire neighbourhood.
I'm amused that they claim the billboards brighten up the city and hide the dreariness of our buildings. They don't say that the property developers are responsible for having demolished most of the character buildings we had until the 1980s, replacing them with the cheap and nasty structures that they claim they need to now spruce up with underwear ads.
Conservative city councillors in the past let property developers and billboard promoters get away with it. So it's great to finally see that when the centre-left is elected to office, they're prepared to take them on. The billboard owners and their corporate clients may well run a campaign over the next few months trying to convince us that these eyesores are in our best interests. I hope our councillors will not be intimidated into backing off.
My strong advice to the councillors fighting against these billboards is that if they don't get rid of them before the next election in October, they can count on them being used to promote their opponents with the intent of removing them from office.
While there will be a lot of attention given to whether or not we should have these giant billboards, what is really at stake is a fight between rampant commercialisation and the rights of Auckland's citizens. The council's campaign to clean up advertising clutter started with the commercial sandwich boards on footpaths being removed. Now it has moved onto more positive initiatives such as upgrading Queen St and our city neighbourhood shopping centres.
There was a lot of hoo-ha recently about the replacement of some of the trees in Queen St for native trees and the use of tiles on footpaths. But already you can see the recent upgrades making our city more people-friendly. Even outside my new office in Queen St, the council has widened the footpath and is planting trees and providing seating for pedestrians. Recent purchases of commercial land by Auckland City Council to create new urban parks is something I never thought I would see. The Auckland mayor and his council should take a bow. After decades of promoting commercial interests over its citizens, this council is willing to take action.
To make our city citizen-friendly, the big spending items of public transport and a better road network need to be addressed. Every time I get caught up in a traffic jam, I curse the negligence of successive conservative city councils that were captured by the road lobby. Imagine if we had a decent, rapid underground rail system, as have many other cities around the world. Long-time former mayor Sir Dove-Myer Robinson lost that battle to the conservatives, and Auckland has become a gridlocked transport shambles because of it.
While our transport solutions will be some way off, the council decision to fight to curb billboards is a step in the right direction.
Provided we can get a good run of successive centre-left councils in the next few years, we have a real chance of becoming a world-class city.
This can only be achieved if we become a citizen-friendly community rather than allowing the interests of crass commercialism to continue.
