Kate Hawkesby: I want to love Auckland, but I’m running out of puff

As I tried to wade through Auckland traffic yesterday on a simple 15 minute journey which took three times that long, I asked myself again, why do I live in Auckland?  I asked myself a second time when I saw the Herald headline, ‘Auckland residents violently attacked on street by large mob.’ A resident in the story was quoted saying she’s from the Middle East and would rather be in her country than have to deal with all this violence.  The problem is, I love Auckland because I’m a born and bred Aucklander and I think there’s something about where you come from that always tugs at your heartstrings and pulls you back in. It’s like a bad ex-boyfriend that you take back one too many times. You forgive all the bad stuff and only remember the good things; until you’re reminded again of why you broke up in the first place.  My point is, I want to love Auckland, but I’m running out of puff.  It doesn’t help that my Southern-born husband increasingly feels the pull back to his hometown of Christchurch and is running a relentless daily campaign trying to convince us all to move South. Showing us beautiful houses at half the price, wider streets, tree-lined avenues, traffic that moves, and a CBD that works. It’s tempting.  The traffic has gotten worse everywhere, I’m sure, but in Auckland it truly is diabolical, and that’s before a truck on fire shuts the motorway for seven hours and planes get cancelled because pilots are stuck in traffic as happened yesterday. It’s the poor design of the roads and the attack on cars – ie- there’s no room for them anymore. It’s the infill housing and ugly developments getting thrown up cheaply and randomly all over the place. The fear that the old villa with the lovely garden next to you could be bowled over any minute for a three by three up and down Kainga Ora development, or an apartment block.  It’s the surge in crime.. the gangs, the reprobates, the grifters, the bored and unemployed looking for trouble. The pepper potting of emergency housing that’s infiltrating once family heavy suburban oases. The graffiti turning up all over the place, the price of housing, the boarded up shops of business owners who’ve gone bust, the empty shops with for lease signs, the time lost in gridlocked traffic, the lack of functioning public transport. Aucklanders will know the drill. A floundering CBD trying to find an identity again. These are the things that make me sad about the city I have always loved.  Maybe it’s just part of getting old but I look back on my uni days when walking around the city was no big deal, even at night, when public transport worked, roads functioned, the CBD was thriving, and people were lighter of foot. These days, people are harried and stressed, probably exhausted from commuting, probably exhausted from trying to find a decent coffee at a café that’s still open and thriving and actually has a barista.  I used to get defensive about people taking potshots at Auckland but now I get it. They’re right, it’s the city that’s sort of eaten itself. Too big for its boots and not enough infrastructure or can-do attitude to cope. And I’m just not sure that it can be fixed or changed.  So what to do? Leave the only city you’ve ever known and start again somewhere else? Or pray for the best that our biggest city can turn itself around and be great again? And if it’s the latter, how long do you wait?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.