Editorial: Quick visit to Auckland from the Bay drives home the reality that paradise is relative

Auckland's urban housing intensification is marring its beauty, writes Mark Story.

Opinion

So it began when I paid $12 for a pint in a bar as warm as lino.

It was the first healthy bit of perspective gifted during a whirlwind one-night stay in Auckland this week.

To get to the bar you had to walk by inner-city apartments where tenants leave bikes and washing racks on Juliet balconies.

In Auckland the residential and commercial interface uneasily; a 20-storey-high Mexican standoff.

At the base of said high-rise a street sleeper sits as still as driftwood on the bank of a river of suits.

I've never been as homesick in such a short absence. The CBD (to steal a line from Cohen) was as cold as a new razor blade.

An Indian taxi driver, a consummate conversationalist and in taxi terms a perfect stranger, gave another perspective when I asked: "Why did you leave India?"

"Because there was too many people. Because it's corrupt. Because nothing moves without money pushed under a table - even the kids' education. Because I used to bathe three times a day due to the heat and stink. Because people don't acknowledge each other".

Seemingly the price to pay for such a mass of humanity is the lack of it. "That's why I live here [Auckland], it's beautiful."

Paradise is relative. The definition of "gentrified" or "civilised", depends on whether you're standing in Mumbai, Auckland or Hawke's Bay.

On the Dash 8's final descent into a postcard-sunny Napier yesterday a chap sitting next to me from Sydney, a first-time visitor to the Bay, looked out the window and frowned: "Looks like we're landing in a bunch of paddocks".