Making Wellington smile again
No person is an island so why do we live like we are stranded on one?
Speakers at the Rotaryorganised Wellington Forum, being held this Thursday at the Michael Fowler Centre, plan to answer this question and others like it.
For several of this year’s speakers, making Wellington a better city is about more than just the road cone projects that have dominated recent debates – it’s about making the capital happier.
1. Treat loneliness like a public health hazard
Poor sewage systems are a perennial concern of councils and cities with sewage overflows rarely proving healthy for people or property.
But loneliness also has major health effects too, so psychologist Sarb Johal asks why it’s treated any differently.
‘‘[Loneliness] makes our lives shorter, our bodies more subject to disease, our minds vulnerable to depression and other mental illness. And it’s pervasive.’’
Many of us don’t question policies that make us lonelier but we might if they were a public health hazard.
New Zealand cities are built to breed loneliness by separating generations between suburb and city, Johal argues.
With employment opportunities growing in the centre of cities, younger people physically move further away from older people who cluster in affluent outer suburbs or rural villages.
As the ethnic makeup of our cities changes through immigration policies, other policies that restrict family reunification could add to the loneliness of many migrants.
‘‘We also need as a country to understand what drives people to stay in a city, and how they can be happy here, as well as thinking about the people they may have left behind.’’
2. Supply chains in buildings For the sake of our climate, perhaps we need to prioritise renting out buildings in ways that might work well with other businesses nearby, suggests Sophie Handford, of School Strike 4 Climate.
She gives the example of a three-storey building with a restaurant on the ground floor.
Instead of freighting food in from the rural hinterlands, it could be grown on the top floor, prepared in a kitchen on the second floor and delivered to the ground floor – reducing transport costs and emissions.
3. Bringing down housing costs by designing houses to live in, rather than own
City planner Moana Mackey points to the Nightingale apartments in Melbourne as a possible model to strengthen our social fabric while improving affordability.
The complex has shared facilities, like a communal laundry, which lead to more interaction between residents and increases the floor space in each unit. When buyers leave, they sell to the next person at the original price with a small price bump calculated from price rises in the neighbourhood.
4. Youth committees for legislation
Handford believes climate-change legislation could be a good testing ground for youth committees.
If the Zero Carbon Bill passes, a climate commission will monitor how it is implemented and provide expert advice.
Handford sees potential for a similar body of young people to be set up for the carbon bill and other areas later on.
It could consist of 16 youth, one from each region.
‘‘That’s an awesome way to think more about youth as the leaders of today, not necessarily the leaders of the future.’’