Kate Hawkesby: One thing that should be on the new govt's radar is the state of our cities

One of the many things that are hopefully on the new government’s radar come October 15 is the state of our cities.

I mean yes our communities and our suburbs are in dire straits too getting ravaged by crime and unruly gangs in many places, but our CBDs are a mess - they’re unsavoury places.

They don’t feel safe anymore. I get people messaging me every day about the CBD, particularly Auckland, and what a mess it is, or how embarrassed they are of it. Which is a shame because parts of it are really cool.

There are cute little precincts and awesome little shopping areas which have been hijacked by dickheads and losers.

Two messages I got just this week, from two completely different people, travelling in Australia at the moment.

The first one said, “In Sydney, not a road cone in sight, streets are clean, everyone looks lovely, don’t feel unsafe at all, city is buzzing, Michael Hill don’t have security guards.. didn’t realise how bad NZ was til we left.”

Another one said, “Hi Kate I’m in Sydney. What I have learnt being here only two days is they know how to do things right, and clearly NZ doesn’t. The city also has a vibe and you can feel it. Auckland city feels like a morgue.”

Now these messages make me sad, as a born and bred Aucklander, who was once a proud participant in city life, it’s heartbreaking to see what it’s come to. It’s a crying shame the very same streets I frequented as a teenager at night, I now warn my own children not to go anywhere near.

But the vibe thing that second texter sent me really resonated.

The vibe is actually so important, it’s not ethereal, I think it’s true to say you can feel the vibe of a city. I felt it myself recently in Sydney. Clear as a bell, it felt awake and buzzy and energized.

And yes, markedly different to Auckland city.

I’ve thought about this a lot, because the easy answer is just leave, which actually isn’t all that easy. It’s easy to say, but pretty hard to do.

Not everybody can just pack up and leave and haul kids out of school or move away from family and friends and commitments.

You build a life in your community and in your area. I mean I admire the people that can and do, do it, successfully, but it’s not easy.

Having said that, I have an increasing number of friends who are selling up their big Auckland houses and moving out, not necessarily overseas, but just out of Auckland given it’s become so hard to live in these days.

If it’s not crime it’s sink holes, or traffic, or lack of decent public transport, or supermarket thefts or the odd car jacking.

I mean people do wonder how bad it’s going to get, how much more we have to put up with.

But I continue – perhaps naively – to have faith that we can turn it around. Looking at what Sydney does would be a good place to start.

The same way Auckland airport should look at Singapore’s Changi as a role model of how to do things properly, we should be looking to Sydney.

There’s much we could learn from how they do it. I think a big part of it is making people feel safe, is to clean up the CBDs, and I know with the number of cruise ships expected in this summer - bringing with them hundreds of thousands of new tourists, that we just have to do better and be smarter than we currently are.

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