Editorial: Scrawl of the wild is a sad sight

Photo / Thinkstock

Going away sometimes gives you a greater respect and affection for the place that you are from.

One or two people have remarked to me recently that this has not been the case for them when they leave Whangarei.

On returning home, they had observed Whangarei's graffiti problem and did not feel pride, just weary disappointment.

Lately, it's been interesting to watch the battle between graffiti vandals and whoever is cleaning the former Countdown site in Kensington.

The building was tagged within days of Countdown staff relocating to their new premises 500 metres down the road.

The graffiti was cleaned off, the building was tagged, and so on.

This has been going on for weeks, until it reached the point where a temporary fence was erected around the building. So the vandals climbed on to the roof and tagged the building.

In summer, with less cover of darkness and more to do, there is less graffiti.

In winter, not so much. We have a story in tomorrow's Northern Advocate that reports on the instances of tagging in Whangarei over a six month period - it's staggering.

It's not frustrated artists running around expressing themselves on our urban canvases.

It's lost kids and young adults getting a buzz on the sense of pride marking their territory gives them.

The Whangarei District Council is doing a good job of cleaning the mess up and identifying the culprits.

But it's mostly "ambulance at the bottom of the cliff" stuff. Why do kids do it in the first place? Whangarei has the pieces of a solid plan to combat the root cause of graffiti. The development occurring around the Town Basin engenders civic pride - we need more of it, development that makes Whangarei a better place for us to live in.

There are suburbs like Otangarei that practise and live with a sense of pride. We have a proud Maori culture and history that engenders pride. But it's hidden. I think we should be telling people how sweet the kumara is. The absence of a plan that addresses the root cause is as criminal as the vandalism.