Brilliant toilets for small towns
Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser has probably done more for regional development in New Zealand than any Government initiative.
Or he will have done if my plan is adopted nationally. But more on that later.
The regions have been bellyaching this week over Westpac looking at closing its branches in a swathe of smaller towns like Fairlie and Raglan.
The forecasted move has prompted much discussion about the problems this will cause small communities, particularly to the elderly and cash businesses. Most people will of course manage quite well. New Zealand is not a big place and Fairlie is not that far from Geraldine and Raglan is fairly close to Hamilton.
The closure of any business in a town like Fairlie is bad news but the real issue is regional development and the question of how to keep these small towns viable rather than as some repository for society’s no hopers and drongos, who flock there for the cheap rents and lack of work opportunities.
Fairlie has about 800 people. A bank might employ only four people but each will have families who go to the local school and help prop up the local economy. If they have to move themselves and their custom away, that loss is felt throughout the whole community.
You can see how a town’s business base can quickly wither to only a pub, a garage and a dairy. Fairlie has a long way to go to reach that stage but as one economist put, it it is death by a thousand cuts.
We like to talk, mostly sentimentally, about New Zealand’s heartland but this country is no different from the rest of the world. People are moving to cities everywhere. It’s an important issue for this country because the heartland towns still service the production base for most of our exports.
We need people to stay there but despite the scenery, the absence of traffic jams, cheaper housing and fresh air, the trend continues for obvious reasons. The bigger centres offer more choice and opportunities in education, entertainment, jobs and potential mates.
As long as I can remember Governments have talked about regional development. To be fair, many have tried to create jobs in the regions with various initiatives and with little success. Regional development is an area where market forces probably know best.
Industrial dairying, for a while anyway, was thought to be the answer. Like any factory, big dairy farms need workers but somehow the attractions of dairying have failed to win over New Zealand workers.
Small towns need young families and young people. Many potential regional jobs are, of course, shipped overseas. You just need to look at the raw logs piled up at New Zealand ports to see that we still don’t do much with our commodities.
As the market has spoken, the call is now for the Government to intervene. But how?
It’s been suggested the Government should compel new immigrants to settle in these threatened towns but that is not going to work. Immigrants generally come to New Zealand for a better life and if locals don’t want to live in towns out in the blocks then they are hardly going to be attractive to new citizens.
Immigrants need jobs and given that a good proportion of our new immigrants are cafe managers and restaurant staff, any compulsion to move to the smaller towns is doomed.
Maybe the Government could help set up new businesses to stimulate growth and employment? Unfortunately this is a terrible idea. Governments are bad at picking winners, as various failed enterprises around the country show.
One often overlooked possibility is the siting of a tertiary education facility in a small town to give it more of a reason for existing. Look what Otago University has done for Dunedin.
Another option is to improve local infrastructure so that people will be so impressed by the local pool or playgrounds or library that a town’s appeal is heightened. I have often think the best investment a small town can make is in a super playground. It gives people a reason to stop.
Which brings me to my great idea for regional development. I think we should stop focusing on schemes to directly entice people to live in threatened small towns.
Instead we should be encouraging people to visit even if only for a few hours or a day or so. That means improving the visitor experience. Just a few pleasant hours in a town can open people’s eyes to the attractions of living in smaller centres.
This is where Hundertwasser comes into play. The eccentric Austrian, who died in 2000, literally put Kawakawa on the map by designing an extraordinary public toilet for the little town. The toilet has made the town a visitor mecca and a talking point.
Perhaps the best thing the Government can do for regional development is get famous architects from New Zealand and around the world to design amazing public toilets for these small towns. New Zealand would become famous for its trail of beautiful and inspiring public toilets.
Anyway you get the idea. Small towns need a reason to be famous. It might be the custard squares in Pleasant Point or the pounamu in Hokitika.
And it might be that where industry and agriculture has failed small town New Zealand, art and architecture might be their salvation.
‘‘The regions have been belly-aching this week over Westpac looking at closing its branches in a swathe of smaller towns like Fairlie and Raglan.’’