Photo / Mark Mitchell
Kia ora Auckland!
I've just got back from 24 hours in Auckland - a punctual plane, a slow bus trip, dinner with the American Chamber of Commerce and an exploration of some shared spaces. It reminded me why I enjoy visiting your city.
The recent Herald series on what makes a world-class city provided an illuminating examination of important issues. Liveability, affordable housing, events, urban sprawl, our sense of community, our environmental footprint, our reactions to cultural diversity; these are issues that face us all, from mega-cities to provincial towns. This truly is the Metropolitan Century.
A world class city isn't necessarily a mega city. Auckland and Wellington are the two truly urban economies in New Zealand; we have complementary strengths and there's every reason that both can be world-class cities. Our cities compete globally - with Singapore and Sydney, more than with each other - and working together we can do a lot for NZ Inc.
Let's face it: both cities have issues - Wellington's modest economic growth over the past decade has motivated us to initiate an $800 million stimulus package, and Auckland's rapid growth, with an extra 50,000 people arriving each year, is not without pain, especially in housing affordability and transport congestion.
Many of you in the City of Sails are "doing it tough", working long hours and adding extra hours on to your day just to get there and back. Transport in Auckland isn't easy and, for the thousands of renters looking to buy a home, you'll be struggling to get started on the property ladder because the amount you can save isn't near enough to what you need for a deposit.
Wellington is big enough to work with Auckland, grow our economies in tandem, and welcome new residents from Auckland or overseas - so there's a good option for those wondering if the grass is greener - or at least more affordable, adventurous and sustainable - beyond the Bombay Hills.
Let's face it, the geographic spread of Auckland is astonishing. Decades of fluid urban limits created a paradise of quarter-acre sections. Good for lawnmower manufacturers, not so good for your daily commute if you live in a more affordable suburb. And not so good for being able to walk to Sunday brunch.
We freed up downtown Wellington from restrictive minimum carparking requirements in the 90s and now more than 40 per cent of our population growth is downtown - where you can walk home from a late night out at karaoke or the ballet.
Wellington's inner and outer Town Belts constrain urban sprawl and give us the bonus of great views, awesome mountain biking and a resurgence of birdlife spreading out from Zealandia so kaka regularly fly over Treasury, rather than biodiversity being confined to the outer edges of the city.
Getting into town for work is easy and it's even easier to get around on foot. You can knock off half a dozen meetings a day without needing a taxi.
The home affordability index shows Wellington has become more affordable since 2008 and is now more affordable even than Christchurch where post-earthquake land is scarce.
According to data from CoreLogic, the Auckland region saw an increase in average property prices of 17 per cent to $840,165, during the 12 months to June. Wellington is sitting at $459,366, up 1.5 per cent over the same period.
Last week, top BNZ economist Tony Alexander said Wellington offers good opportunities.
"I expect to see a lot of talk soon about the good city life which Wellington offers," Alexander said.
"The ability to buy a reasonably priced house to raise a family, the fact few head offices are planning to shoot north now, the coming long-term benefits of the Transmission Gully Motorway, IT sector, culture, runway lengthening, film sector."
Here's an interesting question: What percentage of Wellington jobs are in the public sector? 30 per cent? 20? It's actually 15 per cent. With our rapidly expanding innovation sector, Wellington is becoming more high-tech town than public sector.
The public sector helps anchor the local economy, supporting an ecosystem of analysts, legal services, international relations and diplomatic corps, lobbyists and marketing professionals. These are high-value, high-paying, highly-educated sectors, and it's no surprise that Wellingtonians lead the country in these key metrics: 56 per cent of Wellington city's employment is in knowledge intensive service industries (Infometrics 2014), 37.5 per cent of Wellington city residents have a bachelor degree or higher (compared to 17.8 per cent nationally) and the average median earnings for Wellington city is $67,940 (Infometrics 2014), compared to the national average of $54,230.
With our houses affordable relative to Auckland and Christchurch, combined with incomes higher than anywhere in New Zealand, if you want to earn good money and keep it, Wellington is the place to be.
Wellington has the highest concentration of web-based and digital technology companies per capita in New Zealand with 7373 people working in the ICT sector and Wellingtonians are twice as likely to work in ICT as people in other regions - and there will be more. As part of our economic stimulus package, Wellington is investing in a Tech Hub as a front door for NZ tech industry. Wellington companies such as Datacom and Xero are headquartered here and supply hundreds of much-needed tech jobs to the Auckland market.
Opportunities in the digital sector are flourishing, especially for women in what is often considered a male-dominated industry. In fact Mat Beeche from StartUpDaily.Net, asked: "Has Wellington created the most feminist tech ecosystem in the world?"
"It should be acknowledged that city has created a culture that could indeed see it become one of the top performing cities for startups in the next 10 to 20 years," he said.
"While that is an achievement in and of itself, one of New Zealand's standout features will be the environment it has created where female founders can excel alongside their male counterparts with equal visibility and without tokenism."
The unemployment rate in Wellington has been steadily decreasing in recent times to sit at 5 per cent, nearly a percentage point below the national average. The capital has plenty of job opportunities in exciting, creative modern industries, such as:
• Film and TV - Weta, Pukeko Pictures, Wingnut Films, Gibson Group
• Gaming - Carnival Labs, PikPok, 8i
• Information and communications technology - Intergen, Xero, Fronde, Datacom, GreenButton, Raygun, Silverstripe
• Financial services - NZX Stock Exchange, Treasury, the Reserve Bank
• Science and research - ESR, NIWA, GNS Science, MetService, Gillies McIndoe , the Malaghan Institute, Callaghan Innovation.
• Education - world-class tertiary institutions Victoria, Massey University, Whitireia and Weltec, and Otago University's School of Medicine.
• Small business - for those of you considering a move to the Capital to build your own business, Wellington is planning an airport runway extension that will connect us direct to Asia and the West Coast of the US. More planes from Asia come to New Zealand than can possibly all land in Auckland.
Wellington has more than 300 cafes, bars and restaurants, and claims more places to eat and drink per capita than New York. Wellington is the heart of many artistic and cultural organisations like the Royal New Zealand Ballet and Te Papa.
We deserve the windy city tag - great for parasailing, yachting and 200MW of clean green wind energy. Wellington averages the same 2050 sunshine hours a year as Auckland but fewer rain days.
Our events calendar is packed. This month we had Visa Wellington On a Plate, the country's largest culinary festival, teamed with Beervana, and LUX fusing light and kinetic art. September brings The World of WearableArt™ Awards Show, one of the world's biggest stage spectacles and a showcase of completely unbridled international design imagination. Coming up we have the 30th anniversary of the New Zealand Festival, the pre-Olympic Games Sevens Wellington and many other premium events provide a good excuse for you to check out what else the capital has to offer.
Our cities share beautiful harbours, and I think we've got our waterfront just right. It's a public space we all enjoy, watching or being physical.
It's all so easy to get around. If you fancy a swim, kayak or paddleboard at lunchtime, you just wander down from your office. Or head into the Town Belt hills for a walk or a mountain bike. And back in time for that 1pm meeting. This is the kind of work-life balance that is attracting people from all over the world to live in Wellington, especially in the creative and high-tech sectors.
There is a friendly rivalry between our cities and always will be. We are like the Edinburgh to your Glasgow, San Francisco to your Los Angeles, the Portland to your Seattle.
Wellington's not in a race to become the country's most populous city - Auckland has won that. But we're the Place of the Possible, where a young person can get a good job, save their hard-earned money, be an entrepreneur and follow their own path.
As you endure another lengthy commute, perhaps you can consider what we've got to offer - jobs, opportunities, a wonderful lifestyle, affordable homes, and a few more hours in every day to enjoy life.
Residents built a sandbag wall to protect homes from flooding.