Empty San Francisco

I’m traveling in Europe at the moment and fascinated by the huge crowds to be seen in the streets, even in small cities and in cold weather. Geneva seems so full of life I thought it must have a couple of million people, but no: found on line it has under 200k. This difference of course is to do with transport. People come out from their workplace on foot, immediately engaging with the life of the city – shopping, drinking, eating, meeting – prior to making their way to the bike stand, tram stop or station. In Auckland, they descend in the lift to the basement car park and are soon on the motorway, encased in their 4-door silos, engaging with nobody. Hence the deserted city streets after 5.00, businesses shutting up shop, even our largest cities looking like ghost towns. Our myopic business leaders cry out for better roads and more car parking, failing to see that their “solutions” are the very cause of the problem. Of course our dinosaur government ministers can’t comprehend that this is even a problem. How I wish I could take them to Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Zurich et al and open their eyes to the possibility of energizing our own cities. Sadly I think their myopia is incurable and all we can hope for is the arrival of a more enlightened generation in the halls of power.