The Wrong Side of my Car
The blog that wants to go obsolete
The slum of Hobson Street — or not?
To great consternation of many urbanists, some people refer to the area around Hobson Street as a slum.
Now obviously… you don’t see makeshift tents over there. People have all the modern conveniences like electricity, running water and sewers. So what’s going on?
What's in a name?
Perhaps we’re taking it too literally. We can take a few guesses of what people actually mean when they use the 4-letter S-word.
The last resort
Maybe slum = a place where I would never live. Or perhaps more generally, I can’t imagine how anyone would ever want to live here.
Well, good thing you’re not limited by anyone else’s imagination. But after living there, I would not recommend this to anyone. Unless you really cannot afford something else. The 24/7 noise is debilitating. You might die tomorrow when crossing the street to the local dairy. There are few redeeming factors. If you’re not young and fit and childless, you don’t even have the advantage of easy access to things.
Meanwhile in the suburbs… You can actually sleep at night. You can drive your car, like normal people. *1 You don’t have to do that miserable walk to the supermarket, with those long waits at traffic lights, and the infernal noise of all that traffi̇c… And your kids won’t die if they ever escape your grasp. You get at least a semblance of a dignified (albeit bland) lifestyle.
Left behind
You can also look at what the council is doing.
During the past decade Wynyard Quarter has seen an amazing transformation. Just 10 years ago the fish market was in the middle of nothing. Now it is a hipster Valhalla of car free promenades and expensive restaurants. You have a playground and a paddle pool. Your rates dollars at work, including that targeted city centre rate to fund exactly this kind of upgrades.
Just a couple of kilometres to the south, people living in apartments also pay rates. Including that targeted rate. But they get nothing. What about just some basic maintenance of footpaths? No — I mean absolutely nothing. The streets simply cater to commuters driving in from further out.
New realities
As population increases sometimes upgrades to streets are in order. However, not all population increases are created equally deserving, it seems.
Albany Highway was once a rural road. There’s still a short stretch like that just north of Glenfield. A bit further in Massey, it has been rebuilt to reflect the new reality of now being an urban road through freshly minted urban sprawl.
So, what about updating the likes of Hobson Street and Cook Street, to reflect the fact that the CBD now has more than 1,400 inhabitants? *2 There were some hopeful signs earlier, but that plan has not materialized so far. Rumour has it that a nearby proposal for a traffic light crossing was held up by a complaint from one single building owner, because heritage protection. You just can’t make this stuff up.
There’s winners and losers. A few lucky, (or, more to the point, rich) ducks can enjoy the improvements in the winners. Wynyard Quarter. Grey Lynn, twice — long story. The rest gets stuck with the losers.
‘Slum’ is a synonym for ‘loser’.
You can of course walk or cycle, but it will be obvious from both street design, formal road code, and informal driving customs that society at large won’t care whether you live another day or die. This is an extremely strong indicator that what you’re doing is way beyond the realm of ‘normal’. Especially in case of cycling it is by many considered as stupid as walking on a railway.
As a consequence, a lack of on-premise parking, often seen in apartments, distinctively makes you a second rate citizen.
The population reached this nadir in the ’90s. It is now estimated to have a population of 50,000 people.
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