Boom town dissected

Press, 18 February 1978, Page 13

Boom town dissected

Tokoroa: Creating a Community. By D. L. Chapple. Longman Paul. 160 pp. $7.50 (cased). $4.95 (paper).

(Reviewed by Robert Lamb)

Between 1950 and 1970 the population of Tokoroa, one of New Zealand’s forest boom towns, grew from a few hundred to 16,000. The several thousand mill and company employees have been "recruited from many countries and cultures.” Approximately 75 per cent are Europeans (of whom the Dutch comprise 1 in 20 of the population); 15 per cent are Maoris, while the remainder are Pacific Islanders (mostly from the Cook Islands).

This book endeavours to show how the town’s inhabitants help to shape their environment, what part schools, churches and sports clubs play in the life of the community, and what are some of the limitations of life in such a town. Could the lack of a “grandparent generation,” for instance, be seen as a weakness in the

population structure? The book argues that this is so. Whatever it is that draws people to “the timberlands,” the matter of adjusting to life there is not always easy. “The social casualty rate measured in terms of loneliness and apathy, whaka maa and frustration, is probably very high — much higher than in older communities,” states Dr Edmund Leach in the final chapter. (Whaka maa, a Polynesian attribute, is defined elsewhere in the book as “a compound of shame, shyness and Jack of confidence.”). This is a searching social analysis of a New Zealand community and includes on-the-spot case histories. It also contains some pointed observations on the need for better town planning in the layout of industrial settlements.

In its closing paragraphs the book raises a pertinent question: "Do the architects of our boom towns think beyond providing a box and a yard for the working man and his immediate family?”