Shining beacon of enterprise
Ronald Reagan might have called it a shining city on a hill. Non-Auckland-based Kiwis likely have another name for it, writes David Slack.
Auckland always makes you welcome. ‘‘Slow down,’’ it encourages you, ‘‘look around. Sure, you’re on a motorway but what’s the hurry? Roll at walking pace with all these other Corollas and Audis and clapped out imports. Really get a feeling for the place. Breathe it in: the coffee, the ripe vegetation, the faint smell of – what is that other smell? Oh, that would be fear. Big mortgages hang over these houses. What if interest rates hit 8 or 9 or 10 per cent? Things could get ugly, that’s what.’’
Auckland, eh, New Zealand? Not easy to avoid, is it?
You may have been so busy with your earthquakes and your crook water and your dairy prices you may have missed some of the excitement up here.
Let’s start with the big one: if you’re planning to fly some time in the next year, you should make your way to Auckland airport immediately. Take a cut lunch. Right now it takes about as long to get from the airport to Ponsonby as it does to get to Sydney.
Why? Too many cars and trucks and SUVs, not enough road, and a whole lot of roadworks. The drive to the airport is as long and painful as an Air New Zealand safety video.
You may well ask: Hey, Auckland, how come you ended up with so many people using the airport and not enough road to get them in and out of the place?
It’s a fair enough question to ask, but Auckland will just snap back at you in a YOU’RE NOT HELPING RIGHT NOW tone and say you need to understand that roads and airports are leading edge technology and until we’ve had more experience with them, there’s always going to be a lot of guesswork in making them work.
You might also say in all innocence that you’ve noticed whenever there’s a big test match at Eden Park, the city manages to find several million buses and move vast numbers of non-sober middle-aged men from the CBD to Mt Eden and back at great speed.
You might well ask in all innocence why they couldn’t make one of the road lanes to the airport a dedicated bus lane and put everyone into buses like it’s a Bledisloe Cup weekend.
But what you need to understand is: roads and airports are leading edge technology and until we’ve had more experience with them, there’s always going to be a lot of guesswork in making them work. The drive to the airport is as long and painful as an Air New Zealand safety video.
What else is happening in Auckland? Well, if you’re thinking of coming up to do a spot of begging, be warned, nearly all the sweet spots are gone on Queen St and Victoria St and Hobson St.
We can’t recall a time when the streets were ever as full as they are today of enterprising folk with their blankets and pillows and their carefully crafted cardboard signs and their little tin or box or cup to collect their revenue. And really, hasn’t that always been the spirit of Auckland – everyone looking for an angle, looking to get in some serious coin.
At times it feels almost feverish, this commerce: a bit chaotic. If you really want to see the pulsing spirit of the new economy, stand at the top of Queen St and order yourself a ride with Uber. Tell your driver you’re at the top of Queen St and then watch on your app as his car turns off Queen St and explores all the side streets of our busy town as he makes his way to you, ETA tomorrow.
While you’re waiting, look across the skyline: there are more cranes working in Auckland than there are right now in Manhattan, according to one report. Admire them all and wonder to yourself how many of these new buildings will end up needing to have their leaky problems fixed like the newly occupied Auckland Council building, which is being repaired in the manner of so many buildings constructed in the 1990s in this thrusting, proud city.
We love our commerce and our innovation here in Auckland, and frankly you small-town cowboys and cardy-wearing public servants could learn a thing or two from us if you could just for a minute stop sneering at us in that foolish way you do.
@DavidSlack