I was anticipating a view similar to that of Google Earth, where I could scroll in and view it block by block. I had envisaged thousands of Plutonese, orange and purple in my mind's eye, busily going about their day, commuting in bubble-like hover cars and shoppers in the high street.
I wouldn't have been at all surprised to see a Macca's or two located on this foreign landscape or the presence of For Sale signs in all languages though predominantly, dare I say it, in Chinese.
Instead I saw what appeared to be a large, desolate land mass that did nothing to enhance or impact on my life.
Recently, a more earthly matter was to grab my attention. They were the comments made by visiting alien Duncan Garner, followed by the local reaction and response.
True, his comments were not positive and were voiced to a national audience via his radio broadcast which left Wanganui, once again, on the receiving end of media negativity. Council staff and local residents were quick to defend against his comments but what were they really defending?
I got the impression that some were offended just because he was an alien out-of-towner.
Just a couple of weeks back the Chronicle published a very good article penned by local Dave Hill raising very similar points. It didn't paint a rosy picture and I was expecting the piece to be the subject of some aggressive feedback. The article I read received not a single online comment, for or against.
So what's the message? Is it okay to be critical only if you're a local? Surely we can't be that immature and naive. You don't have to reside here to recognise that our city is facing its fair share of economic troubles.
Many many street-front shops are glaringly empty and as Dave Hill points out, there's still the matter of how many are also vacant beyond the ground floor, out of eye level. Sadly the task of restoring them to meet current earthquake standards will ensure that many of these buildings stay that way. Short of outright demolition these structures, just like my kids, are simply not economically viable.
We are meant to feel buoyed and confident by the new developments, both recently completed and still in progress, but that's a big ask when there is an all too obvious lack of retail tenants to occupy these spaces.
It's only logical that if our local economy can't grow itself we need to look at out-of-town investors, so of course their opinion matters. It matters a great deal.
With a great climate, lifestyle, central location and some of the cheapest real estate in the country, one would think that new businesses or those seeking to reduce costs by relocating would be beating a path to our door. So why aren't they? Has anyone even bothered to ask?
A few new commercial building consents does not a city make. Relocating from one local site to another is not growth, it's just movement, despite the positive spin that many have deluded themselves into believing.
Continue to knock the out-of-towners and their comments if you must but alienating ourselves from those whose help we need most seems counter-productive to me.
Now is the time to come back down to earth and extend the hand of friendship. Actively engage the aliens and ask what incentives we can put in place to secure their investment in our beautiful city and its sadly uncertain future, because the poncey pictures of Pluto have done little to aid our cause.
