Capture: Two Tales of a City
1699 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 … 45 46 47 48 49 … 68 Newer→ Last
-
Mayor Bob is getting one thing right for once.
-
Hebe, in reply to
Good. Note that it is a Christchurch City Council decision, not a mayoral statement. I am interested in the rating base being down $1.5 billion; a huge hit that will be ongoing for at least a decade or two. The 15 per cent figure for the dividends from council assets is on the low side -- that must be the post-earthquake figure, another finanacial hit.
What I don't understand is the insistence on big projects. Why can't they start smaller and incrementally increase in size? Even the cycleways: $70m for a dozen or so cycleways, all leading to a useless city centre when what is needed is a web rather than the old-style radial transport system. We now move around the CBD rather than through it, from suburb to suburb rather than suburb to town. Old thinking; the powers-that-be have not wrapped their heads around a fundamental change in the way people live here. The city is becoming a series of suburbs, stringing out to Rolleston, Dunsandel and Lincoln in the west to Rangiora in the north. City-centric is gone.
Rant over. back to productivity ;-) -
Rob Stowell, in reply to
What I don’t understand is the insistence on big projects. Why can’t they start smaller and incrementally increase in size?
Amen!
-
By throwing big numbers around and proposing huge projects most little ratepayers hopefully will switch off and let them do as they please. Worked for Len Brown in Auckland. I know exactly what you mean Hebe. There is no great need for any of us to hang around the City Center that stings us for doggone parking fees in this concrete desert.
-
You talented folk may like this.
http://www.mch.govt.nz/news-events/news/poetry-victoria-street-christchurch-sought
-
Such an amazing instrument, played by this Chinese lady was one of my favorites of the evening at the Lantern Festival 2013, Christchurch.
-
Loved the emotions and skill accomplished with this instrument.
-
Dragon in the River Avon at the Lantern festival 2013.
-
Sacha, in reply to
Old thinking; the powers-that-be have not wrapped their heads around a fundamental change in the way people live here.
Or they are actively resisting it - with your money.
-
Xinhua also has pictures of Christchurch's Lantern Festival. Chinese text only, but the pics speak beautifully enough for themselves.
-
Just in case anyone needs or wants to know how they roll, this is it:http://porcupinefarm.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/the-damnation-of-roger-sutton.html?spref=fb
-
Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Curs of the dogged...
...how they roll
Damn fine work Mr W!
I'm thinking a poster
for down town...
(hell, a billboard!) -
Peter Donnelly created another masterpiece on the shores of New Brighton,9 March 2013. In memory of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, 2011.
-
Flowers are strewn across the artwork and signify the ever changing condition of life.
-
The artwork finished, all under four hours and soon disappearing by an incoming tide.
-
JacksonP, in reply to
The artwork finished, all under four hours and soon disappearing by an incoming tide.
That's awesome Gudrun. Great thing to capture.
-
Sacha, in reply to
By throwing big numbers around and proposing huge projects most little ratepayers hopefully will switch off and let them do as they please. Worked for Len Brown in Auckland.
Not sure what you mean? Neighbourhood projects continue under Auckland's new structures. True that things like making local swimming pools free for children across the region will seem more immediately relevant for residents than ones with future payoffs like the crucial Core Rail Link or community development strategies with decade-scale timeframes. Building consents are already faster to get for those few who do that, I guess.
Most citizens just aren't that engaged and have other things in their lives to get on with. However that's not new or unique.
-
Sacha, in reply to
What I don't understand is the insistence on big projects.
Ah, got you now. Yes, it's govt-scale contracting foisted on you via Brownlee and chums. Makes the pocket-lining more efficient.
-
Hebe, in reply to
True that things like making local swimming pools free for children across the region
That's happening? Wonderful idea; hope children includes teenagers.
Re the big projects: you could be right. My view is that the civic facilties and amentities have taken 150 years to accrue; things don't have to be done big striaght away. I would like to see a plan for the next 30 years so the city can be rebuilt strategically and thoughtfully. with co-operation across all sectors. Now I will return to the kitchen, being a little people with no idea of how to run a city.
-
Sasha i am just thinking of the lack of input we are having as our rates go through the roof. Amenities down to a minimum but a conference center will be build and a stadium of biblical proportions and oh the business district and wot not. Guess who needs that infrastructure for their amenities of a grand scale ? Not us but the foreign investors who are proposing to be part of it. One way to invite shareholders to part with their money is by promising how fabulous it all is with such a massive underground waterworks and sewerage system. As it is most of us are just making ends meet. But yes Christchurch will be rebuilt, one way or another let's ring the ferryman.
-
Hebe, in reply to
Gudrun, my understanding is that foreign investors are mostly not interested in investing or reinvesting in the CBD for quite a few more years. The driver behind the Govt thinking seems to be the collapsing South island tourism industry; that the mega convention centre will pump through the high-spending visitors (ie international convention-goers) to the rest of the South Island while we cream the corporate bill-payers for the conventions.
This, to my mind, ignores the strangulation of most Western economies of the GFC, and eventually the increased costs of travel due to rising energy prices.
It is easy in Christchurch to forget that the rest of NZ and much of the world is in economic crisis: 7.5% annual growth here now, and the "rebuild" hasn't cranked up yet. Wellington 2.2% pa; Auckland under 4%.
If it weren't for the $30billion insurance money (all but $5b coming from foreign reinsurers) the NZ economy would be tanking.
-
Joe Wylie, in reply to
It is easy in Christchurch to forget that the rest of NZ and much of the world is in economic crisis:
Except the convention centred cargo cult isn't a Christchurch-originated phenomenon. While it has its local cheer squad, like so much of the bureaucratic refuse that have been drawn to the "rebuild", it's been largely foisted upon us from outside.
-
Sacha, in reply to
Agree all that's going on. Just don't see the connection with your conclusion:
By throwing big numbers around and proposing huge projects most little ratepayers hopefully will switch off and let them do as they please.
I'd say there are two processes going on there. Surely the latter has more to do with the shameful lack of viable alternative representatives to vote for than big projects being thrust upon your city by wideboy deal-makers?
-
Joe Wylie, in reply to
the shameful lack of viable alternative representatives to vote for
Alternatives? Like with ECAN effectively abolished, and the rush to push projects through while CERA is still an effective dictatorship?
-
Hebe, in reply to
Yes exactly. That's why it was so good to see the pallet people on Friday evening: alt Christchurch is regrouping I feel.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.