We can take 10 million, with planning
Now, by the millions, we are five. One day, in the slow march of lockdown, New Zealand’s population clock ticked over a major milestone. The image conjured for me of our growing population was not one of pop-up suburbs and towering, high-density housing, but of a mansion I once visited in Kitale, western Kenya. Its rambling, echoey rooms and wide ebony staircase were home to a single person. It stood in contrast to the busy scene outside the guarded gate, where humans, motorbikes, goats, and trucks, overflowing with passengers, moved in vibrant rhythms.
New Zealand sometimes seems like that oversized house-for-one. Physically detached from its global surroundings and enjoying spaces unbeknown to most of the world’s residents, our land mass-topopulation ratio – like that mansion to the people of Kitale – is the envy of the planet.
One way to describe how much room we have here is like this: in population, New Zealand is 127thlargest of nearly 200 countries, but 75th in land mass. We are geographically larger but support far fewer residents than most countries, making our population density among the lowest in the world. The spatial emptiness of Norway, Algeria, and Paraguay compare to that of Aotearoa.
Nobody Lives Here, the 2017 map of New Zealand’s uninhabited areas, by Andrew Douglas-Clifford, illustrates how much vacant land we have. It shows which parts of Aotearoa have no residents at all, a colossal 78 per cent of our land mass. As one writer noted, ‘‘New Zealand is a huge country, but above all an empty one.’’
Over a third of New Zealand’s land is put aside for conservation and much of this is the Southern Alps. Conservation reasons aside, most of this mountainous terrain is deemed uninhabitable, but when you consider many settlements in northern Canada, the Himalayas or even desert-bound Las Vegas – modern towns nestled in the harshest of conditions – it’s hard to see why. Even our own Scott Base in Antarctica and National Park Village, New Zealand’s highest urban township at 825m, show that Kiwis can build comfortable lives in inhospitable environments not previously considered habitable.
Empty though we are, most of us bristle at the suggestion of sharing our space with more than 5m residents. But if we imagine that the bountiful resources of our country could be distributed more equitably, more strategically, and honouring the principles of the original caretakers of the land, perhaps it wouldn’t seem so confronting.
A population policy that envisions doubling the number of residents to 10 million in, say, 20 years would bring huge benefits to our pint-sized population. Infrastructure projects that are regularly stymied by the curse of low population numbers, like inter-region rail, more powerful wind farms, and better public transportation, would finally make sense to the most conservative of economists. More people bring more ideas, more variety, more opportunities, and more of the energy that we love when we visit more populous places.
We blame the big-city woes of Auckland on population growth, while ignoring the lack of infrastructure development it takes to ensure quality of life is maintained as a city grows. Compared to other international cities, Auckland is barely big – there are 180 larger cities. But it suffers from big city problems due to lack of foresight that should’ve planned for its exponential growth, driven mostly by migration policies of the past 20 years. A third of the nation’s residents live in Auckland and, despite it being ranked as one of the most liveable cities, it has annoying and unsustainable problems of road clog, air pollution, decaying infrastructure and institutions serving far more residents than it can cope with.
A population policy could help entice current residents and new arrivals to live in the other 263,000sq km that our capacious country has to offer. Immigration policy levers that attract new residents to live outside of Auckland are a good start, but more could be done to draw more people to the regions. For example, making investments into regional schools and hospitals even before the local population figures demand it would future-proof regions by offering employment and educational opportunities to New Zealand families. This ‘‘Build It and They Will Come’’ approach could be complemented by marketing and information campaigns that work to improve the attraction of regional and rural living to city-bound citizens.
The only proper way to enable population growth in Aotearoa is in partnership with tangata whenua and according to the principles of kaitiakitanga and manaakitanga. There is much evidence that demonstrates the synergies between Treaty-based policy and economic and environmental sustainability.
As the population clock continues to tick, we need to share our geographic mansion with more than just a few. This requires a clear rationale for why we do so, our shared values of guardianship of our natural resources and caring for our people, and the utilisation of our vast, unrealised spaces in a country that has a whole lot to share.