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Andrew Dickens: Screw Auckland - the regions are where it's at

Author
Andrew Dickens,
Publish Date
Fri, 24 Aug 2018, 12:22PM
Napier, Dunedin, Queenstown, Tauranga - the whole country is going off! (Photo / Getty)

Andrew Dickens: Screw Auckland - the regions are where it's at

Author
Andrew Dickens,
Publish Date
Fri, 24 Aug 2018, 12:22PM

I was thinking today about how New Zealand seems to be slowly changing under our feet and I wonder if we’ve acknowledged it.

A while back, it seemed like every second issue was an issue driven on or caused by our largest city. It got to the point where the A word was hated by half the country and the people who lived there were more and more reticent to mention the place.

But the place seems to have gone off the boil lately while the rest of New Zealand is on fire.  I thought that when I heard that Phil Collins is coming but only playing Napier and Christchurch. Dunedin is now on the global stadium music venue radar. 

Frankly, if I was a mega star flying halfway across the world to play a gig I’d rather plat those exotic places rather than a bog standard mid-sized Westernised city like A town.

The investment in facilities up and down the country is another great thing.  Tauranga today is boasting that 120,000 visitors are heading to the Bay because of their music festivals but also the development of the international cricket ground at the Mount.

Here’s to the cities that invested and stole cricket from the biggest city.  Nelson’s Saxton Oval is the prettiest ground.  The University Oval and Seddon Park are great places to watch the sport.

But sport and music are the cream.  The cake is the regions boom.  Regional real estate prices are surging as refugees escape the big smoke. The Waikato and Cambridge Expressways are a revolution for Central Waikato and making South Waikato more attractive as well.  When the new Wellington motorway is completed then the Kapiti Coast and Levin are going to explode.

In Queenstown, the debate is what to do with the airport.  Do we make the present one bigger or do we look for a new location for a big Central Otago air transport hub. No matter which prospect you prefer it’s still a sign of great confidence in the region.

In a generation Queenstown and Frankton will be a thriving city not a pretty town.  With Air New Zealand showing such strength in yesterday’s financial report you’d hope that they’d be expanding services to the regions.

All over the nation, towns are lifting their game and improving their infrastructure and becoming more attractive.  The country is getting bigger but at the same time it’s getting smaller and smaller.   We’ve never been so connected, both electronically and in transport options

I tell you, these days if I was setting up the headquarters for a medium sized nationwide business, the last place I’d be looking is the country’s biggest city. The cost and the hassle of the place is just not worth it.

It seems to me that the market is correcting the issue that we’ve complained about for a couple of decades, bit by bit. The A word will always a bit a pain in the butt, but the Queen City’s problems are proving to be an opportunity for the rest of the country.

And look at that, I didn’t say Auckland once.

 

 

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