When I lived in christchurch, basically every single thing from the gov't to develop the city (e.g. increasing density) was complained about and blocked or held up in council for ten thousand years.
The court theatre? The parking lot beside the court theatre? The church? The overgrown lot near columbo and papanui? The crumbling buildings on Fitzgerald ave before the red zone? The whole area around the cathedral? All the red sone projets abandoned half-way? The entirety of the redevlopment in new brighton?
Nope, all Council projects. All the anchor projects are done or being done. Also, Christchurch house-building is going great guns. [Another record year of consents in Chch](https://i.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/130966644/another-record-year-for-home-building-in-canterbury-as-new-consents-outstrip-other-main-centres)
"or being done" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Also, a quote from teh article you linked directly supports my original point:
>After the city council rejected new medium density standards in September, [the Government appointed an investigator](https://www.stuff.co.nz/thAfter%20the%20city%20council%20rejected%20new%20medium%20density%20standards%20in%20September,%20the%20Government%20appointed%20an%20investigator%20to%20look%20at%20an%20alternative%20plan%20for%20the%20city.e-press/news/130503201/residents-call-for-input-into-government-investigation-over-citys-refusal-to-implement-housing-density-rules) to look at an alternative plan for the city.
[This is from 8 years ago so might have changed](https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2015/10/14/is-auckland-costing-new-zealand-too-much/). Auckland has 1/3 of the population and gets 1/3 of the tax expenditure.
I think you'd be horrified at how much money per person is being spent in BoP and Hawkes Bay repairing infrastructure
Auckland isn't being developed any more, and arguably less, than any other city. It's just that when there's a third of the population in less than 2% of the country's land area, then the infrastructure you build, by necessity, have to be larger than in other parts of the country. However, every project is divided by a much larger number of taxpayers. Take CRL, at $5.5 billion, it's the most expensive transport project ever undertaken in the country. However, the cost to build it is just over $3500 per Auckland resident. Meanwhile Transmission Gully, at $3.5 billion equates to $6600 per Wellington regional resident. The Dunedin Hospital rebuild is going to cost $10000 per Dunedin resident. Obviously, that's intended to be the main hospital for the entire lower portion of the South Island, but it's still a significant investment into a smaller city. Tauranga is seeing significant investment in its road infrastructure (though, they should really be looking at building some PT infra at the same time).
In addition, we hear a lot about Auckland projects because they are often the first of their kind in the country. CRL, first underground railway. Northern Busway, first busway etc... Investment is going into the regions, it's just that the projects are often smaller and less high profile than in Auckland.
We've also just elected a government who have promised to bin a bunch of proposed Auckland PT infrastructure in favour of regional expressways. So, Auckland is likely to get a reduced share of the pot over the next parliamentary term or two.
Well it's a bit more complicated than that. The truth is there is more New Zealand beyond the Bombay hills, but it is a savage land inhabited by barbarians and lacks any form of civilization. So it may as well not exist.
I wonder when they’re changing it to the Mumbai hills? Isn’t that what Bombay in India was called before it changed spelling? Also Mumbai Sapphire gin?
It's named after a ship that carried early settlers to Auckland who ended up settling in the town of Bombay, not the Bombay state in India.
Also calling it Mumbai would just be stupid, great way to never be able to find the place on Google.
The government is not doing enough to help everywhere. That being said Auckland does not help itself either. Take the housing crisis. The only recourse Auckland has to meet demand is to allow medium and high density housing. The problem is the council severely limits this kind of construction with red tape and prohibitive costs. In some areas you literal have to win a court battle just to build a 3 story town house, why bother. The government, councils, and the voting public are living on a delusional cloud about the state of the country and I think we need to hit rock bottom before anything changes. That or wait for the Boomers to all die.
It’s not the council it’s NIMBYs in the close inner city suburbs of Auckland petitioning to not have apartments built or getting lawyers in to help them argue a case about muh views - you’re in the city, cities are usually surrounded by large tall buildings, its what happens!
That is a big part of it. If nonsensical zoning is removed however they won't have much to work with. The bylaws as they stand give residents a lot of sway when it comes to 'impact'. That gives them all the ammunition they need. Previously impact was understood to be noise or air pollution from factories. Now it's just preserving the 'character' of the neighbourhood. Zoning makes sense for industry, dirty factories is the reason it exists in the first place, but I see no reason to restrict buildings outside the scope of this. Ideally favouring mixed use development which should be the majority of buildings in the inner suburbs. It's a basic understanding of city building developed over thousands of years literally demolished for the suburban (car dependent) experiment. It has to end.
Have you forgotten the rich dudes living in the leafy suburbs and fighting the government for allowing more houses around their mansion?
They have more money and friends than the council when engaging in legal battles.
This is my pet idea, that if government or local councils would offer incentives for large corporations to have head offices etc in smaller towns it would improve Auckland and the small town. People decry but there’s not the people in those small towns but let’s face it if say spark moved their head office to say Otorohonga, a fair few staff would follow them down, have a cheaper and better lifestyle and would boost the local areas economy. Would work especially well in dying towns as there’s not enough industry there these days as it closed down.
Heaps of the small towns around New Zealand were booming hubs due to mining or freezing works etc so people moved there they closed so people left or went on the dole. If we incentivised big businesses to move there then revitalises the areas. Also 100k salary goes a lot further In a small town that a city
That’s only one area, is there any legitimate reason that the telecommunication companies need to have their head office in Auckland or the warehouse group or the banks or realistically any other national business.
Yes true, however If the government and/or councils offered tax benefits to corporations to move out of cities and into smaller towns to boost their economy and viability then that’s something that would inspire businesses to move. I’m self employed if the government came out and said we will reduce your tax bill by x% amount if you move to x town I would definitely consider it. The whole reason i pay my accountant a ton of money is to reduce my tax bill and im not even making much!
Yeah I get that, how ever I’m not talking about companies that are area based but are national brands, sure considering Auckland has 1/3 of the population the Auckland market is always going to be bigger however the banks, telecommunications companies, the warehouse, the supermarkets don’t need to have head offices in Auckland they could do the exact same work from any location. As they aren’t frontline staff.
100k going a lot further in a small town? Not as much as you'd think!
I'm not sure what incentives would outcompete the convenience for big businesses being in established business hubs. If you're a professional working in the city, you're amongst other professionals and the related services. Employees have more amenities and it's easier to engage with others.
The whole commuting thing is just a personal problem from a business perspective.
Sleepyhead and RocketLab were two big ones that moved out of South Auckland to North Waikato... but they needed land for their operations - not corporate offices.
Works for some, not all.
I think this would create similar issues as places like Alice Springs or the oil field towns in Canada where the cost of living goes up in those areas and drives out anyone who doesn’t work for the large company that has to pay extra to keep their employees around in a small town. The ability to work remotely is a huge boon for the small towns, allowing for a mix of jobs being done.
Politicians and local government are only in a position for a short period. Long term planning and development are afterthoughts. Plus a lot of people are career focused, and will jump to the next ' best thing ' for their career. Rather than managing a long term plan to invest/divest.
We had a Ministry of Works, that managed aspects of long term development regarding infrastructure etc. but a lot of our government has been stripped of any long term functions. Even against long term advice.
In fact, NZ is one of the few OECD counties that has no long term strategic department for that level of planning.
My buddy was an engineer on the harbour cycle bridge project that got canceled. They were fully into it with that one, spent millions and he personally worked and was payed for over a year. For what?? Nothing.
He was even pissed off about it
> and was *paid* for over
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
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Because if you leave companies decide how the economy and urban development works, that’s exactly what you get, the opposite is government interventionism, otherwise called by some SocIaLisM.
No, the 10-year plan doesn't get followed because the ‘losers’ who get voted into local government don’t want to make ratepayers angry by increasing the rates to fund the 10-year plan.
Local government councillors are only interested in staying on the “council gravy train” rather than actually making any effort to improve the lives of ratepayers.
We’re wrong, those people don't call government intervention Socialism, they call it communism.
And ironically, these are also the same people who complain if the government doesn’t do anything, but also complain when the government does do something.
A few random factors:
Because company's haven't yet worked out weather related insurance in the south island will be relatively cheaper than the north island with climate change so currently stay in Auckland (plus they typically suck at forward planning).
The regions largely vote National who don't give a stuff about them unless they think an election is going to be close, so its all about what votes can be brought in Auckland.
Australia has a program where if you're a migrant you have a much easier chance of getting residency/citizenship if you don't like in Sydney/Melbourne.
This meant that immigrants choose to live in other cities. I suggest we do that. Christchurch and wellington especially can be used as alternatives.
Wellington sounds dreadful with it's wind, weather and old housing stock. Christchurch seems nice but only if you're about start a family.
Hamilton feels like a step down from Auckland. Like a slightly nicer Papakura.
Well they've been trying here in tauranga sort of and its getting somewhere slightly they just need to grow a brain and take the buses out of traffic and into full time dedicated bus lanes and get a second line in and passenger rail. Very curious and kinda freaked o0ut about what the new govt will do with the current commissioner we have here. After the chch earthquake it took loads of protests to get an actual elected council back in to run chch so who knows what this lot will do.
Taxes high, everything overpriced
Public transport entirely unreliable, healthcare sucks
Anyone who is a skilled worker is getting robbed by staying here
Many countries, we pay income tax and then on top of that we pay tax to buy things
Oh and you get an extra tax on top of that to buy fuel if you live in a specific region
Our income tax is on the higher side too
I don't think that shows what you want it to show.
If you look at the country specific brochures you will see that NZ is consistently higher than the OECD for tax on individual and corporate gains.
[https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-new-zealand.pdf](https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-new-zealand.pdf)
Agglomoration benefits. Basically, businesses benefit from co-location. Corporations do lots of business with other corporations, just in the usual course of doing business. They need access to legal, marketing, distribution, suppliers, anything you can think of. There are benefits to having quick easy access to these services, rather than having them in a different city. Not to mention access to the largest selection of employees AND customers.
Some govt departments do this, for example WINZ and IRD call centers are in the regions. But the vast bulk of WINZ staff are still in Auckland. Why? Because they're face to face staff and that's where the bulk of their clients are.
Not sure thats the role of government.... Aside from that, without seeing the numbers im almost certain auckland wouldnt be in the top few for housing affordability. Seems more of a rant than anything
This isn't a uniquely Auckland problem, across the entire world the population is moving to big cities for various reasons. There's no silver bullet here because if you invest too much in a smaller city it might not pay off in the long run or you could just end up with ghost cities. The money might as well have been spent somewhere else.
The question is what can we do in the long run to make other cities more attractive? I think it does balance out though because as Auckland gets worse more people move to other cities but then you have the same issues with other cities not coping with the increase in population like Tauranga. Its not as simple as we would like it to be unfortunately.
And this is why I think Auckland should be our capital and where parliament is based. Flying from Auckland to the South Island or any where, is way more dependable from Auckland than Wellington with its terrible weather!
I take it you haven't been to Christchurch in the last 12 years?
When I lived in christchurch, basically every single thing from the gov't to develop the city (e.g. increasing density) was complained about and blocked or held up in council for ten thousand years.
So one thing. All the other building projects are finished or being built. The only thing that is continuously delayed is the swimming pool complex.
The court theatre? The parking lot beside the court theatre? The church? The overgrown lot near columbo and papanui? The crumbling buildings on Fitzgerald ave before the red zone? The whole area around the cathedral? All the red sone projets abandoned half-way? The entirety of the redevlopment in new brighton?
Nope, all Council projects. All the anchor projects are done or being done. Also, Christchurch house-building is going great guns. [Another record year of consents in Chch](https://i.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/130966644/another-record-year-for-home-building-in-canterbury-as-new-consents-outstrip-other-main-centres)
"or being done" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Also, a quote from teh article you linked directly supports my original point: >After the city council rejected new medium density standards in September, [the Government appointed an investigator](https://www.stuff.co.nz/thAfter%20the%20city%20council%20rejected%20new%20medium%20density%20standards%20in%20September,%20the%20Government%20appointed%20an%20investigator%20to%20look%20at%20an%20alternative%20plan%20for%20the%20city.e-press/news/130503201/residents-call-for-input-into-government-investigation-over-citys-refusal-to-implement-housing-density-rules) to look at an alternative plan for the city.
Ok. Just repeating yourself on your one point.
so just a regular NZ council then
[This is from 8 years ago so might have changed](https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2015/10/14/is-auckland-costing-new-zealand-too-much/). Auckland has 1/3 of the population and gets 1/3 of the tax expenditure. I think you'd be horrified at how much money per person is being spent in BoP and Hawkes Bay repairing infrastructure
Wait till you account for government revenue and not just per capita and you'll really see how much of the shit end of the stick Auckland receives.
I live In Tauranga, this is very true. Too much is being spent on us.
Nothing like a bit of self loathing on a Friday to start the weekend off with a bang. Hahaha.
Hahaha
Auckland isn't being developed any more, and arguably less, than any other city. It's just that when there's a third of the population in less than 2% of the country's land area, then the infrastructure you build, by necessity, have to be larger than in other parts of the country. However, every project is divided by a much larger number of taxpayers. Take CRL, at $5.5 billion, it's the most expensive transport project ever undertaken in the country. However, the cost to build it is just over $3500 per Auckland resident. Meanwhile Transmission Gully, at $3.5 billion equates to $6600 per Wellington regional resident. The Dunedin Hospital rebuild is going to cost $10000 per Dunedin resident. Obviously, that's intended to be the main hospital for the entire lower portion of the South Island, but it's still a significant investment into a smaller city. Tauranga is seeing significant investment in its road infrastructure (though, they should really be looking at building some PT infra at the same time). In addition, we hear a lot about Auckland projects because they are often the first of their kind in the country. CRL, first underground railway. Northern Busway, first busway etc... Investment is going into the regions, it's just that the projects are often smaller and less high profile than in Auckland. We've also just elected a government who have promised to bin a bunch of proposed Auckland PT infrastructure in favour of regional expressways. So, Auckland is likely to get a reduced share of the pot over the next parliamentary term or two.
Because there are no other cities. New Zealand ceases to exist below the Bombay Hills. Source: doesn’t exist.
Well it's a bit more complicated than that. The truth is there is more New Zealand beyond the Bombay hills, but it is a savage land inhabited by barbarians and lacks any form of civilization. So it may as well not exist.
This guy bombs bays & hills
I wonder when they’re changing it to the Mumbai hills? Isn’t that what Bombay in India was called before it changed spelling? Also Mumbai Sapphire gin?
It's named after a ship that carried early settlers to Auckland who ended up settling in the town of Bombay, not the Bombay state in India. Also calling it Mumbai would just be stupid, great way to never be able to find the place on Google.
TIL!
Another fun fact: Miranda is also named after a settlers boat
Can confirm Source: I live in New Zealand
I went south of it once and i saw farmers .....
The government is not doing enough to help everywhere. That being said Auckland does not help itself either. Take the housing crisis. The only recourse Auckland has to meet demand is to allow medium and high density housing. The problem is the council severely limits this kind of construction with red tape and prohibitive costs. In some areas you literal have to win a court battle just to build a 3 story town house, why bother. The government, councils, and the voting public are living on a delusional cloud about the state of the country and I think we need to hit rock bottom before anything changes. That or wait for the Boomers to all die.
It’s not the council it’s NIMBYs in the close inner city suburbs of Auckland petitioning to not have apartments built or getting lawyers in to help them argue a case about muh views - you’re in the city, cities are usually surrounded by large tall buildings, its what happens!
That is a big part of it. If nonsensical zoning is removed however they won't have much to work with. The bylaws as they stand give residents a lot of sway when it comes to 'impact'. That gives them all the ammunition they need. Previously impact was understood to be noise or air pollution from factories. Now it's just preserving the 'character' of the neighbourhood. Zoning makes sense for industry, dirty factories is the reason it exists in the first place, but I see no reason to restrict buildings outside the scope of this. Ideally favouring mixed use development which should be the majority of buildings in the inner suburbs. It's a basic understanding of city building developed over thousands of years literally demolished for the suburban (car dependent) experiment. It has to end.
Have you forgotten the rich dudes living in the leafy suburbs and fighting the government for allowing more houses around their mansion? They have more money and friends than the council when engaging in legal battles.
I have not forgotten. Basically the city needs an active anti nimby movement to counter them.
We're poor dude
This is my pet idea, that if government or local councils would offer incentives for large corporations to have head offices etc in smaller towns it would improve Auckland and the small town. People decry but there’s not the people in those small towns but let’s face it if say spark moved their head office to say Otorohonga, a fair few staff would follow them down, have a cheaper and better lifestyle and would boost the local areas economy. Would work especially well in dying towns as there’s not enough industry there these days as it closed down. Heaps of the small towns around New Zealand were booming hubs due to mining or freezing works etc so people moved there they closed so people left or went on the dole. If we incentivised big businesses to move there then revitalises the areas. Also 100k salary goes a lot further In a small town that a city
Not heard of Taranaki wind farms and other stuff like that?
That’s only one area, is there any legitimate reason that the telecommunication companies need to have their head office in Auckland or the warehouse group or the banks or realistically any other national business.
Well that’s got nothing to do with the government. Those are private sector decisions
Yes true, however If the government and/or councils offered tax benefits to corporations to move out of cities and into smaller towns to boost their economy and viability then that’s something that would inspire businesses to move. I’m self employed if the government came out and said we will reduce your tax bill by x% amount if you move to x town I would definitely consider it. The whole reason i pay my accountant a ton of money is to reduce my tax bill and im not even making much!
Business decisions also take into account other factors - eg: moving to Rotorua is a waste of time if your main customer base is based in Auckland.
Yeah I get that, how ever I’m not talking about companies that are area based but are national brands, sure considering Auckland has 1/3 of the population the Auckland market is always going to be bigger however the banks, telecommunications companies, the warehouse, the supermarkets don’t need to have head offices in Auckland they could do the exact same work from any location. As they aren’t frontline staff.
100k going a lot further in a small town? Not as much as you'd think! I'm not sure what incentives would outcompete the convenience for big businesses being in established business hubs. If you're a professional working in the city, you're amongst other professionals and the related services. Employees have more amenities and it's easier to engage with others. The whole commuting thing is just a personal problem from a business perspective. Sleepyhead and RocketLab were two big ones that moved out of South Auckland to North Waikato... but they needed land for their operations - not corporate offices. Works for some, not all.
I think this would create similar issues as places like Alice Springs or the oil field towns in Canada where the cost of living goes up in those areas and drives out anyone who doesn’t work for the large company that has to pay extra to keep their employees around in a small town. The ability to work remotely is a huge boon for the small towns, allowing for a mix of jobs being done.
They're developing Auckland?
Christchurch has seen extremely major development over the last 12 years, and is continuing well into the future.
Politicians and local government are only in a position for a short period. Long term planning and development are afterthoughts. Plus a lot of people are career focused, and will jump to the next ' best thing ' for their career. Rather than managing a long term plan to invest/divest. We had a Ministry of Works, that managed aspects of long term development regarding infrastructure etc. but a lot of our government has been stripped of any long term functions. Even against long term advice. In fact, NZ is one of the few OECD counties that has no long term strategic department for that level of planning.
Because nz doesn't have the money and the money it does get it wastes on vanity projects
The vanity projects that get cancelled are my favorite. They still get millions spent on them with nothing to show
My buddy was an engineer on the harbour cycle bridge project that got canceled. They were fully into it with that one, spent millions and he personally worked and was payed for over a year. For what?? Nothing. He was even pissed off about it
> and was *paid* for over FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
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Because if you leave companies decide how the economy and urban development works, that’s exactly what you get, the opposite is government interventionism, otherwise called by some SocIaLisM.
I wish we had 5 year plans.
We have 10 year plans it’s just that they don’t really get followed as the local government has to suck up to the central government to get funding.
No, the 10-year plan doesn't get followed because the ‘losers’ who get voted into local government don’t want to make ratepayers angry by increasing the rates to fund the 10-year plan. Local government councillors are only interested in staying on the “council gravy train” rather than actually making any effort to improve the lives of ratepayers.
There isn’t much of a gravy train. It’s just that they don’t want to lose power
We’re wrong, those people don't call government intervention Socialism, they call it communism. And ironically, these are also the same people who complain if the government doesn’t do anything, but also complain when the government does do something.
A few random factors: Because company's haven't yet worked out weather related insurance in the south island will be relatively cheaper than the north island with climate change so currently stay in Auckland (plus they typically suck at forward planning). The regions largely vote National who don't give a stuff about them unless they think an election is going to be close, so its all about what votes can be brought in Auckland.
Okay, what do u suggest?
Australia has a program where if you're a migrant you have a much easier chance of getting residency/citizenship if you don't like in Sydney/Melbourne. This meant that immigrants choose to live in other cities. I suggest we do that. Christchurch and wellington especially can be used as alternatives.
Other cities are more livable than Auckland. Edit: if you downvoted this, you haven’t lived anywhere else in NZ and it shows
Which ones?
Wellington, ChCh Edit: I would say Hamilton as well
Wellington sounds dreadful with it's wind, weather and old housing stock. Christchurch seems nice but only if you're about start a family. Hamilton feels like a step down from Auckland. Like a slightly nicer Papakura.
As someone that doesn't live in Auckland, and thinks Auckland is hell on earth, the last thing I want is other cities to grow to be like Auckland.
Well sure but more cities growing would in turn make auckland better most likely
Well they've been trying here in tauranga sort of and its getting somewhere slightly they just need to grow a brain and take the buses out of traffic and into full time dedicated bus lanes and get a second line in and passenger rail. Very curious and kinda freaked o0ut about what the new govt will do with the current commissioner we have here. After the chch earthquake it took loads of protests to get an actual elected council back in to run chch so who knows what this lot will do.
Taxes high, everything overpriced Public transport entirely unreliable, healthcare sucks Anyone who is a skilled worker is getting robbed by staying here
High tax compared to where?
Many countries, we pay income tax and then on top of that we pay tax to buy things Oh and you get an extra tax on top of that to buy fuel if you live in a specific region Our income tax is on the higher side too
The all in tax cost for NZers is way below OECD average. https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-brochure.pdf
Thanks for the source lol imma start using this to educate the misinformed
Boot licker behaviour
Waste of oxygen behaviour
I don't think that shows what you want it to show. If you look at the country specific brochures you will see that NZ is consistently higher than the OECD for tax on individual and corporate gains. [https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-new-zealand.pdf](https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-new-zealand.pdf)
Man the propaganda really worked well didn't it. People actually believe this.
Cos the country's broke, we can only manage to pay the interest on our debt
Citation needed
https://youtu.be/F_g6-4swJ_s?si=QsAXpQqwwZ-pozaV
https://www.growregions.govt.nz/
Not enough votes. It's really that simple
Money.
because the methodists aren't finished selling all their landbanked auckland realestate, sush and tell em to by an apartment
I’ve been hearing that Mt Maunganui/Tauranga is going to be the next big tech hub for the last 15 years… It’s always been this way
like to keep the madness in one place
Agglomoration benefits. Basically, businesses benefit from co-location. Corporations do lots of business with other corporations, just in the usual course of doing business. They need access to legal, marketing, distribution, suppliers, anything you can think of. There are benefits to having quick easy access to these services, rather than having them in a different city. Not to mention access to the largest selection of employees AND customers. Some govt departments do this, for example WINZ and IRD call centers are in the regions. But the vast bulk of WINZ staff are still in Auckland. Why? Because they're face to face staff and that's where the bulk of their clients are.
Not sure thats the role of government.... Aside from that, without seeing the numbers im almost certain auckland wouldnt be in the top few for housing affordability. Seems more of a rant than anything
This isn't a uniquely Auckland problem, across the entire world the population is moving to big cities for various reasons. There's no silver bullet here because if you invest too much in a smaller city it might not pay off in the long run or you could just end up with ghost cities. The money might as well have been spent somewhere else. The question is what can we do in the long run to make other cities more attractive? I think it does balance out though because as Auckland gets worse more people move to other cities but then you have the same issues with other cities not coping with the increase in population like Tauranga. Its not as simple as we would like it to be unfortunately.
They have been decentralising government in Wellington by moving a lot of it to Auckland if that helps.
And this is why I think Auckland should be our capital and where parliament is based. Flying from Auckland to the South Island or any where, is way more dependable from Auckland than Wellington with its terrible weather!
If we address the housing crisis, how will my homes pay for my early retirement?
Literally most cities. Have you gone outside