You describe yourself as an urbanist; what does that mean?

Urbanism is a philosophy of civic planning that believes in building our towns and cities to be more connected, livable, and people-friendly. Many modern suburbs look pretty from a distance, but create barriers between the people in a community and create distance between them and shops, jobs and community hubs. Urbanist designs put people first, making beautiful places people want to live in and visit, but the same steps for making people happy to live there, also make them eco-friendly and even more affordable.

Isn’t this all about huge apartment buildings?

Absolutely not. I personally live in an attached townhouse, which feels almost exactly the same as living in a detached home, except with less lawn to manage, and it’s still a form of building up - but I have far more neighbors within walking distance, which mean we can support more local businesses, justify better transit, and visit the nature reserve just outside whenever we need to touch grass.

Traffic is already terrible!

Not a question, but I take your point; West Auckland is already prone to gridlock, and a lot of people are frustrated with or avoid using our public transport. How can we justify building up, when it already feels like we have too many people?

The answer is pretty simple: proper urbanist town planning helps reduce traffic problems, not increase them. If more people are in walking distance of the local shops, less people will drive to them. Public transit works best with a critical density of passengers; if there’s so many people that you can have a bus or train leaving every few minutes, it becomes an incredibly convenient way to get around.

What about our parks and the green belt?

What about it?

Oh, are these kinds of a plan a threat to them? Quite the opposite. Focusing on denser housing solutions and improving transit options protects our green spaces. New suburban developments happen in greenfield areas; urban development builds upon foundations that have already been laid. Further, green spaces are essential to making beautiful, livable towns; urbanist planning includes looking for places where it would be better to regrow the natural wildlife.