Urban Development in Southern Auckland (Paerata) Demonstration of Infrastructure Deficit Model

Consequences on behaviour and culture that will be with us for decades to come

I saw this tweet from Paerata (about 15 minutes south of me here in Papakura) and I thought – here we go again with lessons not being learnt:

In #Auckland, we’re better at talking about transport land use integration than actually doing it. Paerata Rise was meant to have its own railway station but that’s a few years away. Meantime, people will drive because that’s the only choice: A pattern that will be hard to change pic.twitter.com/VBZ5hAqPeh
— Darren Davis (@DarrenDavis10) November 22, 2019

Darren is right, as the train station will be built well after the face Paerata Rise has developed it will be very hard to get behavioural and culture changes from residents who would have lived there for years to change from car to train. All because someone did not put in the infrastructure BEFORE the first residents moved in.

For more on why one should run infrastructure ahead of an urban development especially around cost, cultural and behaviour I loaded up Grand Manukau/Layton Cities to give a talk on the Urban Geographies of:

Urban Islands
Transit Infrastructure
Integrated Land Use
Demonstrating why transit infrastructure should be built ahead of an urban development
Smart Retrofitting especially in City Centre or Metropolitan Centre

The Rant: