KEY POINTS:
Another year, another pilgrimage across the ditch.
Another chance to savour the delights of the holiday period in Auckland with its wonderful interplay of land and sea, glorious beaches and gentle climate.
And another chance to view Auckland's much maligned downtown with a critical eye.
For a number of years, I have returned to my home city and recorded my reactions to Auckland's CBD. I have usually been appalled by what confronted me - a devastated landscape, devoid of people, relevancy and lacking in any true heart. For years, I have complained about how a once proud late Victorian-Edwardian/early 1920s city centre has been transformed into a steel and glass cavern ringed by a series of hideous apartment blocks.
So how did it strike me this time? Somehow Queen St and its immediate surrounds seemed softer and gentler than I remembered them - probably age and nostalgia on my part rather than any substantial change.
But where, oh where, were the people? In the days up to and immediately after Christmas, walking up Queen St was almost like an Auckland Sunday in the 1950s when people were a rarity and shops were shut. Certainly the trees and parking bays have improved the strip as has the loss of a number of tatty shops and the addition of some upmarket retail developments.
But looking at them I was reminded of a Bruce Petty cartoon of some years back which had an executive discussing an urban development with his architect who said people wanted an environmentally friendly and relevant building.
The executive's response was: "Just put a couple of plastic pot plants in the foyer and a bird print on the wall and they will be satisfied."
There seems little doubt that Auckland's CBD has lost its ability to attract and relate to people. It has become totally irrelevant in the lives of most Aucklanders who rarely visit it and see no reason to do so.
This was brought home to me on Boxing Day when, in Sydney, the major downtown department stores of David Jones and Myers opened their doors at 6am and prepared for the hordes that flooded in for the annual sales.
In Auckland, the only department store, the venerable Smith & Caughey's was shut and many other downtown shops opened late - one had to search high and low for people let alone any crowds.
Yet apparently suburban malls at Albany, St Lukes and elsewhere had a ball with record sales. Suburbia redux. The suburban mall reigns supreme. The CBD is now simply a place of work or a passing point for elsewhere. It is mainly inhabited by tourists off ships or people working in the city or living in one of the many unprepossessing high-rise buildings that fringe the downtown area.
What a sad statement on a once proud city centre.
But why visit it? It holds little attraction for local Aucklanders, it lacks vitality and relevance and decades of hectic redevelopment driven by business and the real estate sectors has decimated downtown Auckland.
Our history has been thrown away with many of our beautiful old buildings. Among the devastation there remain small oases of hope such as the Sky Tower (minus the casino) with its imperious views over Auckland, the cinema complex and Aotea Centre and the new entertainment centre on the waterfront, but they are swamped by an ocean of mediocrity.
Sydney experienced much the same 15 years ago when people largely shunned the city centre for the huge suburban shopping malls with their cinemas, shops and restaurants. But now Sydney's CBD attracts people with its pedestrian malls, its recital halls, historic pubs and restaurants, shops and street life. People explore The Rocks, Darling Harbour and Chinatown.
How many Aucklanders explore The Viaduct, Albert Park, The Domain or St Kevin's Arcade in Karangahape Rd - why would they want to?
But what do we really want from our city centre? Lots of people, the stores occupied, well maintained buildings, a mass transit system that brings people into the core and a sympathetic and involving blend of the historic character with the physical interplay of land and sea.
But is that enough? We really want people to identify with downtown Auckland, to take ownership, to see its relevance in their lives. To want to go there because its offers excitement, history and meaningful things to do and see.
Finally, over a number of years, I have also pleaded in these pages for High St and its immediate surrounds of Chancery, Lorne and parts of nearby Shortland St to be made a pedestrian/shopping/restaurant/coffee bar mall. The area simply cries out for it.
It is almost impossible for cars to navigate easily and through traffic continues unabated. If you want to breathe life into Auckland's centre, attract people not cars, trucks and buses. Make it vibrant, relevant and meaningful and bring people back.
Apparently, my cries for change over the years have fallen on deaf ears. Is it that local small businesses crave the motor vehicle as some sort of umbilical cord of business or is it that the city council cannot or will not act?
Who knows but while we wait, Auckland suffers.
* Peter Curson is Professor of Population and Security at the University of Sydney and Emeritus Professor of Medical Geography at Macquarie University.
