Spread out!

Auckland is one of the biggest cities in the world in terms of area with one of the smallest populations for a city. Our city is vast, and sprawled out. I never noticed this until I started needing to come into the city every day for university- it was then that the 1 hour bus ride made me realise that Howick- although it is apart of Auckland is really far away.

                                    All Images show the view of the city from where I stay. This is at the edge of                                             the metropolitan urban limit and therefore shows the sprawl of the city. (Sourced: MacDowel. 2011.)

I was talking to a friend about how sprawled our city was, and why it is so different to most other cities in the world. We compared it to cities such as London that are extremely dense in the centre of the city and slowly decrease in density the further you get from the city centre. Looking at the above photos, you can barely even see the city centre from where I am (the cloud doesnt help) yet supposedly I live in Auckland city?

Auckland needs to be fixed- i have already written about this before and what seems to be an impossible task. What needs to change first is the typical kiwi attitude that everyone should have 1/4 of an acre of land and a detached house- most people living in cities around the world do not have this. If you want it, you move to a smaller city or the countryside. Auckland is meant to be New Zealand's biggest, and most important city with regard to international trade and our economy and it should be developed in a way that reflects this. It needs to become a city that has intensive development in the central city so that more people can fit in that zone and less suburban housing that is consuming our surrounding countryside.

There is a fear that with the expected population growth of Auckland in the near future, our city is going to expand more towards the Waikato and many talk about Hamilton and Auckland becoming one city eventually because of the sprawl of Auckland. If we can see this now then we can prevent it.

"Uncontrolled urban sprawl brought inefficient demand for transport, water, waste removal and other social and physical infrastructure demands and these costs fell on the wider community through traffic congestion, environmental degradation and rates rises" (NZ Herald. 2008).


I retrieved the above quote from an old New Zealand Herald article which mentioned the adverse effects sprawl has had on Auckland, and will continue to do so as long as we expand our city horizontally. It can be read at http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10488176


As a part of the next generation of planners, I hope that we are able to adopt more sustainable development that encourages building up rather than out and we are able to reduce the costs of our city and its development so that we can have a more effective and successful economy but also protect our natural environment.