The Press FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1959. Our Race with Progress

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28889, 8 May 1959, Page 12

The Press FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1959. Our Race with Progress

The Christchurch Regional Planning Officer (Miss Nancy Northcroft) found the sprawl of two million Sydney inhabitants “ an awful warning ” to New Zealand planners. The people of Sydney (with a city and suburbs 30 miles across) are themselves very conscious of the almost insoluble problems confronting them, problems that have hardly been realised yet in such small cities as Christchurch. The troubles of an overgrown, underplanned metropolis were examined in a series of articles by H. W. Herbert in the “ Sydney Morning Herald " last week; and one of the articles bore the significant title: “ Sydney is losing its race with *' progress ”, Only 60 per cent, of Sydney is sewered, and as settlement spreads and spreads the percentage is falling. Reading is becoming an increasing burden. With the rising standard of living, Sydney expects the number of cars on its streets to be quadrupled in the next 30 years, making immense demands on travelling and parking space, even if the centre of the city, by accident or design, becomes largely the preserve of public transport. Sydney will need not a few expressways but dozens of them. As Mr Herbert notes, the technological advances that raise the real income of citizens do not reduce the costs of water, sewerage, and reading, which are not mass-production industries but “ custom-built ” services. He regrets that, because of the needs of Sydney (and similar cities in Australia), noone realised immediately after

the war that tax revenue would be required for municipal services even more than for social services.

Because the problems of Sydney are so much greater in degree than those of Christchurch they may seem different in kind. That will not always be so. We should be thankful that we have a breathing space, short though it may be, in which to plan how we may avoid mistakes that seem almost self-perpetuating in Sydney, at a price the taxpayers can afford. If we use the time wisely we shall not have houses outrunning municipal services and motor-cars clogging our streets. By preparing for growth now we can manage it much more cheaply than if we are forced into expensive redevelopment later—when our problems begin to resemble Sydney’s. One point made by Mr Herbert is relevant in Christchurch now. Twenty or 30 years is not too far to look ahead. People are quite confidently building houses that will not even be paid for in 20 or 30 years and that will be habitable for another 50 years after that. If it is worth planning housing a generation ahead it is worth planning also the municipal services and amenities that will make life comfortable for the inhabitants of the houses. If we think of the changes that the last 30 years have brought to Christchurch and realise that the pace of growth is quickening we can see that it is time to be warned by the example of Sydney—or we, too, shall be losing our race with progress.