An opinion piece by sprawl advocate Owen McShane in the National Business Review refers to a series of research papers undertaken by the Ministry for Economic Development over the past few years. The papers relate to MED trying to get a better handle on what policy interventions in Auckland are likely to have the most impact on improving the city’s economic performance.

Reading McShane’s piece, I must say my eyes rolled a bit as it seemed as though the central government agencies had yet again outlined a policy position on Auckland that is straight out of the 1960s – much as they did on the Auckland Spatial Plan and their review of the City Rail Link:

The Auckland Policy Office, led by the Ministry of Economic Development, has released the nine reports generated by its three-year research programme on Auckland’s social and economic development.

These reports openly challenge many of the assumptions behind the discussion document “Auckland Unleashed” and provide substantial data in support of the Ministry of Transport’s skeptical response to the current proposal for a mono-centric, high-density, public transport dependent, Auckland Council…

…The reports also recognise the simultaneous decentralisation of work. “The availability of cars enabled people to live in locations far from the central city where land was cheap, life was less crowded, and where new firms were locating. The result is the decentralised, often sprawling and seemingly unplanned modern city, frequently characterised by a polycentric form featuring many subsidiary sub-centres far from the traditional city centre.

This sounds awfully similar to what the central government agencies have been saying about the spatial plan and the City Rail Link project, that they expect the trends of the past few decades to continue into the future. They expect more decentralisation, more sprawl, more auto-dependency and so forth.

Of course, this gets Owen McShane very excited indeed:

Surely, the best way to develop the Auckland brand is to exploit the green and blue arcadian spaces that penetrate and punctuate its existing and distinctive form. Future development should reflect the fractal nature of Auckland’s setting, its extensive rural hinterland, dramatic coastal and bush-clad edges and the desire of so many residents to live a “greener” lifestyle. The last thing our brand requires is more urban containment and its consequent congestion, pollution and over-crowding.

The council still seems convinced Auckland is a radial monocentric city in which future economic growth should be jammed into the circular central isthmus. In reality, Auckland’s natural destiny is to be a linear city, say 100km long, with a string of major and minor centres connected by fields of green overlooking seas of blue.

Auckland’s brand of Pacific green urbanism need not be beholden to a perverse Euro-envy. We don’t need to aspire to the splendid urban spaces of Sienna or Salzburg – or to the hideous concrete deserts and slabs of Halle-Neustadt, or Pyongyang, which would be our own more probable destiny.

Our brand should be about space, sea and sky; weather and vegetation; and openness. The “creative set” are leading the way.

It’s amusing how he equates a low density auto-dependent lifestyle with one that is ‘green’. I tend to think that his ‘anti-urbanism’ probably fitted quite well with the hopes and dreams of the baby-boomer generation – who seem to aspire to having a lifestyle block on the urban fringe, even if it means huge reliance on their cars. Whether anti-urbanism fits with younger generations is more dubious I think.

But anyway, getting back to the Ministry for Economic Development papers, I thought I’d go check them out just to see how bad they were in supporting a “what has happened in the past will continue to happen” approach to planning Auckland’s future. There are quite a number of papers, but helpfully there’s also a summary paper which puts together the major findings and then has some discussion of them. Here are some of the findings: On the transport issues, I am a bit surprised that Motu (who did most of the background research for MED) didn’t highlight their very own paper into the economic benefits of the Western Railway Line that I mentioned in this previous blog post. Perhaps the timing of the research papers was to blame? One thing that I do find interesting is the emphasis placed on the benefits of enhancing intra-regional, rather than inter-regional, transportation. This is explained further below: That doesn’t exactly match up with what Owen McShane was saying about transport in his opinion piece:

The northern “holiday highway” – with its splendid “portal to the sky” – will add to our other “holiday highways” with their own splendid views of our blue and green world, such as the Newmarket Viaduct, the Harbour Bridge, and the new Mangere Bridge. Let’s make all our highways “holiday highways” – they all add to our brand.

Hmmm… that must be the strangest justification for the “holiday highway” that I’ve come across yet. But how about what the MED study says about the built environment – does that match with what Mr McShane was saying the study had concluded – that Auckland continues to decentralise and that’s a good thing? Well, not really:

Enhancing the accessibility and attractiveness of downtown for mixed use development – well that sounds exactly like what the City Rail Link project intends to achieve. Connecting up subsidiary centres that service and provide local employment, well that potentially sounds a lot like what projects such as the southwest (Airport) railway line could achieve: connecting major employment hubs like Manukau City and the Airport with parts of the city that currently under-perform, such as Mangere and other parts of South Auckland.

Reading through the research papers in a bit more detail is something of a disappointment, in that what they most commonly seem to note is the absence of a logic or pattern to where people and businesses locate. This suggests that perhaps they are looking at the wrong issues – there seems to not be a particularly extensive analysis of planning controls other than the Metropolitan Urban Limit. Or alternatively, the absence of logic may be the result of the confused and contradictory planning and policy situation that Auckland currently has.

Either way, it seems that Owen McShane was either reading a completely different set of papers to what I have flicked through, or that he just cherry-picked a couple of small things and used them to try to pretend that the papers supported his utopian vision of Auckland as a completely decentralised auto-dependent city that stretches from Whangarei to Hamilton.

Share this

31 comments

  1. Why bother to discuss what Owen Mcshane has written? He’s been saying the same thing for years. This guy is an extreme ideologue with an irrational hatred for trains. His opinion is not worth the paper it’s written on.

    1. I do agree. Problem is that I feel he is quite influential when you look at what Steven Joyce has said about planning. And also when you see what many central govt agencies say about the spatial plan, city rail link etc. Discrediting him is important.

  2. Hmm, no one wants to stop Mr McShane living on his hobby farm in Kaukapaka if thats where he wants to live… But I just don’t understand why he is so hell bent on trying to make everyone in Auckland live the same way?
    What exactly is all this guff about blue vistas and green spaces, and poly centricity? How does that fit with his sprawling suburb and freeway model, surely a non-sprawl urban village model provides for green spaces and multiple centres better than a model that is most consuming of land. If he is really interested in preserving Aucklands magestic views then wouldn’t not filling them up with pavement and suburbs be the first step?

    Also why all this talk of a ‘monocentric radial city’, when one of the main benefits of rapid transit s linking together the CBD and several outer centres, Manukau, Albany et al? It seems McShane’s understanding of public transport is likewise stuck in the postwar years.

  3. “The council still seems convinced Auckland is a radial monocentric city in which future economic growth should be jammed into the circular central isthmus. In reality, Auckland’s natural destiny is to be a linear city, say 100km long, with a string of major and minor centres connected by fields of green overlooking seas of blue.”

    Sounds perfect for high speed heavy rail. Imagine a 200km/hr train that can zip you from one end of the city to the other in a half hour.

    “Auckland’s present urban core would feature as a blue-green central entertainment district – and it’s well on the way.”

    But if it takes you an hour to drive there how motivated would you be to go?

    “The northern “holiday highway” – with its splendid “portal to the sky” – will add to our other “holiday highways” with their own splendid views of our blue and green world, such as the Newmarket Viaduct, the Harbour Bridge, and the new Mangere Bridge. Let’s make all our highways “holiday highways” – they all add to our brand.”

    There are no words to describe how idiotic this statement is. Auckland: Come for the motorways, stay for the lulz.

  4. “I tend to think that his ‘anti-urbanism’ probably fitted quite well with the hopes and dreams of the baby-boomer generation – who seem to aspire to having a lifestyle block on the urban fringe, even if it means huge reliance on their cars.”

    The poster boy for this is Len Brown, who (according to the excellent Mapnificent web site) lives well over two hours away from the CBD by public transport. I’ll believe that the council is serious about densification when Brown sells his McShane-like city edge spread and moves in to a CBD apartment.

    1. Hang on, where does Len Live? I thought I’d heard it was in The Gardens which as far as I can tell (checking the journey planners) is about an hour from the Town Hall by public transport on weekdays. Not great; but that’s more because of the underinvestment in public transport, which he is trying to fix, than the distance of 25 km. Owen lives in Kaiwaka, Northland, over 100km from the city.

      The claim that Puhoi Wellsford holiday highway will ‘give us good views of the sky’ might sound crazy, but I guess it is better than writing “build it so I can profit at the nation’s expense!”

      Now, who has got the National Geographic editor’s phone number? It’s about time they did a feature on that natural wonder, the Mangere motorway bridge.

      1. Tiffany Close, Totara Park according to his web site. Over 2 hours in to the CBD according to Mapnificent, mainly because it takes so long from there to the nearest railway station. I suspect that is why his driver picks him up from home and drops him at the station when he commutes via rail. It is in the middle of farm land (presumably lifestyle blocks) with plenty of bush around. Just the sort of place that McShane says NZers aspire to live. And a hard problem for a “fixed” public transport system to address, because you’re never going to have buses driving down every rural road every 10 minutes.

        1. You’re very clearly totally ignorant of the area, if you think it’s urban fringe based on what some website tells you.
          Totara Park was considered urban when I was growing up in Manurewa. 20 years ago! That it’s two hours to the CBD by public transport 20 years later is just a damning reflection of how truly shit the public transport to that part of Auckland really is.

          This is Auckland. If being surrounded by green is an indicator that you’re contributing to urban sprawl, there are a heap of houses around Hillsborough/Lynfield that are urban sprawl by your definition. They’re also quite a hike to the CBD by public transport.

          Totara Park is very firmly inside the urban boundaries. Hell, it’s nearly the middle of the old Manukau City Council area.

  5. obi – you need to check Wises Maps. Tiffany Close, Totara Park is just off Redoubt Road on the fringes of “The Gardens”, Manukau City.

    Given that he has a family, and that he was mayor of Manukau City before becoming mayor of the new Super City, he was the very model of someone of power and responsibility living in close commutable distance. On a typical day, that drive would have been less than 10 minutes from home to the office in Manukau City. Possibly the reason that 2 hours is showing as the commute into Auckland CBD is that: due to decades of right-wing ideological opposition to quality public transport, we still haven’t caught up with adequate PT along Redoubt Road……………

    I would suggest to you, that partway through Len Brown’s first term as mayor, it is unreasonable for him to move himself and his family into the CBD.

    As for Owen McShane – does anyone know what his views are on anthropological climate change?
    The answer to that question really determines in black and white as to whether anything that comes out of his mouth or keyboard has any credibility……..

    1. You think that people of “power and responsibility” are entitled to live a rural lifestyle. Whereas McShane presumably thinks everyone should be able to do so if they wish. I think I’m with McShane on this one.

      I’m not sure why you blame right-wingers for any lack of public transport along the rural bits of Redoubt Road. Brown was responsible for providing Manukau public transport since 2007 and had plenty of opportunities to do something about it. Even ignoring his stint as Mayor, he was a city councillor since 1992. That’s 18 wasted years if he couldn’t manage to sort out a single bus route. Sort of like (TV show) Parks and Recreation in real life.

      The issue isn’t whether it is reasonable for Brown to move his family in to the CBD… If he was opposed to sprawl and in favour of urbanisation then he should never have been living out in the countryside in the first place. Instead, he is the perfect illustration of the lifestyle choice that McShane is promoting. That isn’t an unreasonable lifestyle choice… I’ve said before that NZers like to live in suburbs and near a beach, I don’t see why you’d want to deprive them of this, and I don’t think you’ll ever get most NZers to vote in favour of high density living.

      I’d be curious to know if other politicians involved in the issue live in cities or in rural areas like Brown. Key lives in Parnell. I’m guessing Banks lives somewhere like Remuera. Where does Joyce live when he isn’t in Wellington?

      1. There is a cost to low density sprawl. More and more money must be used to expand networks and provide services like schools etc. If people want to live in a McMansion in sprawlburbia then they must pay the full cost of this. Meanwhile I will sit snug in my apartment with all the services of a major city within walking distance and laugh at idiots like McShane who have to spend their weekdays driving for hours to get to and from work and their weekends mowing lawns.

        1. Indeed. I tend to think that the best way of curbing sprawl would simply be to tax the hell out of it, to ensure places like Flat Bush & Dannemora truly paid for their infrastructure demands (AMETI, masses of roads, masses of new schools, big water infrastructure etc.) – rather than having an MUL.

          Obviously you may still want to greenbelt certain areas for other reasons (like the Waitakere foothills for their environmental values and rural land around Pukekohe for its food producing value).

        2. And perhaps users of the rail and road systems can similarly truly pay for their infrastructure demands/aspirations.

          As for the food-producing value of the land around Pukekohe; market gardeners are generally not wealthy people. If their land was rezoned for residential use its value would increase around tenfold. By that measure it is not valuable land. When smug city dwellers (see above) walk to their greengrocer and willingly part with $20 for a Pukekohe cauliflower (assuming they can control their laughter for long enough) I will accept that the land on which it is grown is valuable.

        3. The MUL is a blunt instrument. The council needs to be more subtle. It could even be a case of forcing developers to pay for the maintenance of services rather than washing their hands of it and leaving it to the council.

  6. Check the map. Focus on the facts please…..for a large chunk of Len Brown’s career, he has lived conveniently close to the office, “power and responsibility” and all. Low carbon footprint achieved.

    Tiffany Close, Totara Park may have once been rural fringe but Len brown’s drive was less than 10 minutes to his office of more than 18 years. Or, it is a 15 to 20 minute bike ride. This is a world away from what Owen McShane supports, and what it appears you support which is that – it is OK to set up cities so that people have to drive an hour or more each way to work with a USA style carbon footprint that is a body-blow to the health of the planet.

    In the same way that it may not be good for Len’s family to uproot to whereever the next job happens to be for Len Brown, it is also a reality for many folk that a sprawling city like Auckland means that…..a family and friends may be in one part of town, but work ends up being at the opposite corner of the city. Even more so with a tight job market.

    Owen McShane’s vision is a lie – you cannot operate a planet of 7 billion where everyone gets to have a rural lifestyle block close to the beach. Len Brown’s vision is a real vision for a real city.

    I see that NACT have steered away from decentralising Christchurch into a series of auto-centric utopian Owen McShane style small to medium sized cities sprawled across the Canterbury Plains all joined up by motorways for cars and trucks…….though there is still time if NACT really think that is what kiwi cityfolk want.

    In terms of who “deserves to drive cars from the country”, and who ends up catching the bus or train from within the city – it is a case of lifestyle choices at different times of our lives. It is possible that Len’s children will flat in the city and be avid users of public transport while studying, socialising, setting up all those links and contacts, new business ventures etc. Owen McShane condemns young people to go overseas for that city centred creative and energetic vibe that drives new businesses and grows economies.

    You don’t get any choices with Owen because above the size of a provincial city, his vision is neither economically nor environmentally feasible. Owen’s vision does mirror a wonderfully nostalgic view of National Party dominated provincial 1950s NuZild though!

    1. Ignore obi. He is a right wing troll, perhaps sent from Steven Joyce’s office, to discredit Len Brown and rail transport by any means necessary. Every contribution to comments thread he does exactly the same thing (much like Riggles on the CBT web forum), and should be simply ignored as a provocateur by those of us who actually want a discussion, if not deleted by admin.

      1. I personally see people like obi as being pretty vital to something like this as it actually makes us think about what we’re saying and sometimes see things that we may miss in our argument.

        While I don’t agree with him on the most part what he does for this blog is quite valuable.

        1. I agree with that. Obi’s a useful test of one’s arguments – as is Riggles on the CBT forum. Though Obi is usually more logical.

    2. “Check the map. Focus on the facts please”

      Rechecked, using Google Earth since I don’t have a map. If you take a 1km circle around Brown’s place then you capture the north east corner of The Gardens which is certainly suburban. But the rest of the circle is very rural with areas of bush. The average property size is around a hectare which is enormous in city terms. The houses are big and there are a lot of swimming pools. I’d guess it’d be 99% free of buildings. There isn’t a direct road link between Brown’s place and The Gardens… it is about 4km via road between the two. There isn’t anything wrong with any of this… he can obviously afford it and it is the life he wants to lead. But it is a lifestyle block life of the sort McShane is promoting and I think it’d be hard to play the part of a champion of urban density while living out in a rural sprawl area.

      I’ve just received my instructions from Steven Joyce. He tells me that I should comment on McShane’s article, rather than just pointing out that Brown is leading a McShane-style life. Some of the article is clearly ludicrous, such as any reference to Mangere Bridge as anything other than a dull-but-useful bit of concrete. The lifestyle block life has no attraction for me. I’ve considered it a couple of times when I’m in a romantic countryside sort of mood, but then I remember how much I like walking to the shops and that ends the debate. However, it is clearly an attractive proposition for McShane, Brown, and a lot of other people. Maybe it is a generational thing? Maybe it is a 50 to retirement age thing? Regardless, it isn’t unsustainable in NZ where population densities are low. Political decision makers aren’t going to tackle anything that is clearly popular and part of the NZ psyche. I understand McShane’s point that some roads can open up a blue and green world. Anyone who has ever driven to a remote beach or a mountain probably experienced that. Steven says “hi”, by the way.

  7. The views, opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this report
    are strictly those of the author(s). They do not necessarily reflect the views of the Ministry of
    Economic Development, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry for the Environment or the
    Department of Labour. Given that the outsourced all of the research, do we know what they actually think?

  8. @Obi In answer to your question (assuming you are sincere and not trolling)Steven Joyce lives on a rural lifestyle block north of the city.

  9. OK, on one level McShane is right – policies like the MUL are and ambulance at the bottom of the cliff insofar as they manage urban development. But on the other hand, he completely ignores the fact that our urban form reflects subsidies for driving – particularly low-cost parking (created by minimum parking requirements) and unpriced congestion.

    Auckland has 3 options 1) remove MUL first so that the city can sprawl, which subsequently suffers when policy changes internalise external costs of driving OR 2) first work to internalise the external costs of driving (and development for that matter) before slowly rolling back the “ambulance” policies, like the MUL OR 3) persist with the status quo.

    McShane advocates for option 1), which is obviously not ideal. The ARC tended to cop out and opt for 3), which leaves us in a position where we don’t get sprawl but at the cost of expensive housing and inefficient transport outcomes. It seems fairly clear that option 2) is the best.

    So let’s get on with removing minimum parking charges, pricing parking in response to demand, implementing time of use road pricing, and applying a spawl tax to greenfields development. Only then should we talk about removing MUL …

  10. Owen Mcshane sounds like the typical self serving dinosaur out of touch with the modern world. The “creative set” our economy needs are drawn to vibrant city centres and city escapes on the city’s immediate fringe. This doesn’t happen when the city fringe is covered in concrete, endless suburbs and roads with no-one living in the central city. The rail loop would add vastly to creating a vibrant city centre that people would want to live in.

    The snippets of this article read like a sitcom parody about incompetent bureaucrats. Unfortunately this is our reality with so many misguided ill-informed politicians. There are so many absurd contradictions it isn’t worth reading. I guess he wrote the article to self serve his desire for easier access to Auckland from his home. It’s unfortunate the NBR publish this crap.

  11. “…I tend to think that his ‘anti-urbanism’ probably fitted quite well with the hopes and dreams of the baby-boomer generation – who seem to aspire to having a lifestyle block on the urban fringe, even if it means huge reliance on their cars…”

    Yes! Yes! This!

    The interaction of public transport and the urban environment and the desire to create exciting urban centres for people to live in is a complete mystery to baby boomer New Zealanders, who grew up in a country devoid of real cities and one where the rural values of a transposed “deep England” held total sway.

    When we discuss why young people up sticks and move to Australia, we obsessively focus on pay. Yet it seems to me blindingly obvious that Sydney and Melbounre, with their exciting urban landscapes of which PT is a “sexy” part are just simply more fun places to be when you are 24 than Auckland.

    1. “The interaction of public transport and the urban environment and the desire to create exciting urban centres for people to live in is a complete mystery to baby boomer New Zealanders, who grew up in a country devoid of real cities and one where the rural values of a transposed “deep England” held total sway.”

      You just made that up, didn’t you?

    2. Yup, sanctuary you’re on the money. And the way to compete with Australia is not to see which country can pay it’s citizens the least ( Bill English) or which one allows the most to opt out of society (Brash), but which is the best and most exciting place to live. And that includes the place with the best built environment and most glorious natural one. Spreading cities thinly over the countryside is the surest way to achieve neither of these things. McShane and Leyland both are extraordinary delusional. And Obi, it seems to me is no troll really, just a contrarian.

      Love your work admin….

      1. I’m a boomer; my lot have been here since 1840. Left here in ’79; came back every couple of years – there used to be a quite good coffee bar on Hobson Street in the early 80s – but it was still the same stupid place that I’d left. Returned here for a couple of years in the early 2000s hoping that a revitalised Labour party would change things; it didn’t and I left again. Came back, under coercion, a couple of years back and realised almost immediately that nothing has changed; Auckland continues to be governed by greed and complacency: no heart; no buzz; no intimacy, no intelligence. Just venality and this stupid congregation of motorways; this absolute deference to motorised tin boxes on rubber wheels that is, I guess, a characteristic of life in the provinces. I’ll be leaving again, as soon as I can.

    3. “Yet it seems to me blindingly obvious that Sydney and Melbounre, with their exciting urban landscapes of which PT is a “sexy” part are just simply more fun places to be when you are 24 than Auckland.”

      According to the Australian 2006 census around 65,000 Kiwis live in Victoria, 105,000 live in NSW, and 150,000 live in Queensland. I’ll go out on a limb and guess that more of us live in the sprawlfest that is the Gold Coast than live in Melbourne. I suspect sun has a lot to do with this, but I’d guess that SE Queensland’s plentiful cheap suburban housing is also a factor. I think you’re right for 24 year olds, but 24 year olds area minority in Auckland and in the Kiwi immigrant community in Australia.

  12. “When we discuss why young people up sticks and move to Australia, we obsessively focus on pay. Yet it seems to me blindingly obvious that Sydney and Melbounre, with their exciting urban landscapes of which PT is a “sexy” part are just simply more fun places to be when you are 24 than Auckland.”

    Sydney and Melbourne are vibrant cities with both a lot of character and “heart” – two things Auckland probably used to have before, say, the trams were ripped out.

  13. obi: – ‘But it is a lifestyle block life of the sort McShane is promoting and I think it’d be hard to play the part of a champion of urban density while living out in a rural sprawl area.’

    Len Brown from my understanding is a champion of lifestyle choices as befits a cosmopolitan, multi-facetted, vibrant city. Those choices include semi – lifestyle blocks. They also include a range of other city lifetsyle options including areas of greater urban density arranged around quality passenger transport, cafes, bars, movie theatres, music and drama shows, and oh – yes – the buzzing vibrant city economy that follows the provision of such facilities and infrastructure.

    This is in contrast Owen’s only option – cookie-cutter suburbia and shopping malls.

    The only similarities are that in both cases – that lifestyle block by the sea is going to be only available to the very wealthy.
    Len’s options give the rest of us a range of choices.

    ‘but 24 year olds are a minority in Auckland’ – but stats show that demographically, Auckland is a very young city by traditional first world standards.

    So – give them a future that will allow them to stay in Auckland.

    Looking at Brisbane versus Sydney versus Melbourne, the real issue is that one of sunshine, and geographical distance to Australia’s kick-ass growth industry – the mineral belt.

    Have you lived in Melbourne in winter? It challenges any preconceptions about hot and dry Australia! And of ocurse, the big growth minerals are in Queensland, Western Australia and to a lesser extent the Northern Territory.

    I think the interesting thing is that, relative to the USA for example, Melbourne and Sydney have held their own against up and coming Brisbane, South East Queensland (and Perth) remarkably well. I’d say that city vibe and the accompaning relatively healthy economies have a lot to do with that. Melbourne in particular has worked very hard at attracting and retaining businesses.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *