Is this the ‘new’ New Zealand?
We seem to have learnt the lesson of the state building endless rows of dull state housing but now we are letting private enterprise do the same thing for the middle class wealthy.
There will be consequences no doubt.
I was talking to a person who has just returned after living for a few years in a new suburb at a growing coastal city. He told me that the sprawl of middle class housing is spreading rapidly – he counted twenty new developments on his last visit!
This wouldn't be so bad but they all look the same – and their design seems to have little to do with a New Zealand style. They are designed in a combination of Tuscan and Californian Orange County styles.
Is this sprawl of conformity and ‘look at me’ wealth the way we want New Zealand to develop? Private enterprise seems to have no more idea about the needs of people than the state had when it built it's houses!
The next step is gated communities to keep out the dispossessed!
What better ideas are there?
3 comments:
Scary stuff!
State houses - private developments - same idea - different income groups! Not much thought about the need for diversity.
I am pleased I don't have to live in such an environment. Some developments have artificial town village centres as well.
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