How many people do you want to share NZ with

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#2682044 28-Mar-2021 16:47

Geektastic:

I’m not sure you’d need to increase beaches or national parks. Not that I’ve measured, but it feels like we have about the same amount of beaches and national parks as the UK and it’s perfectly possible to stand in the middle of Dartmoor and see nobody, camp there in your tent for several days and still see nobody. Likewise plenty of windswept lonely beaches etc.

The reason those beaches are lonely is that they are windswept as well as usually gravelly and miles from where you live.

The sandy beaches close to where you live in the UK look like this on a warmer day.

UK: Thousands pack Brighton beach on hottest day of the year | Video Ruptly

I'm in favour of making the NZ economy worth more by making it a smarter economy, not making it worth more by merely having a bigger population.

When you go bigger instead of smarter, you and I will have more traffic, noise, and pollution.

Look at the Scandinavian countries if you want to mimic healthy populations and economies, not the UK.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

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#2682074 28-Mar-2021 19:31

Geektastic:

Not that I disagree with you, but it's a double-edged sword. I probably sit somewhere in the middle - I reckon NZ could definitely support a bigger population with the benefits that come with that, especially if the economy was not as reliant on agriculture\farming as it is..... But as @matisyahu alludes to it would need a magic wand to expand not only infrastructure but also national parks, beach access, etc.

I’m not sure you’d need to increase beaches or national parks. Not that I’ve measured, but it feels like we have about the same amount of beaches and national parks as the UK and it’s perfectly possible to stand in the middle of Dartmoor and see nobody, camp there in your tent for several days and still see nobody. Likewise plenty of windswept lonely beaches etc.

LOL We did that on Grasstree Beach, Sarina, QLD in winter, when it was warm (to us) Same at Crocodile Creek, Not quite the same as the UK????

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#2682075 28-Mar-2021 19:34

elpenguino:

Geektastic:

I’m not sure you’d need to increase beaches or national parks. Not that I’ve measured, but it feels like we have about the same amount of beaches and national parks as the UK and it’s perfectly possible to stand in the middle of Dartmoor and see nobody, camp there in your tent for several days and still see nobody. Likewise plenty of windswept lonely beaches etc.

The reason those beaches are lonely is that they are windswept as well as usually gravelly and miles from where you live.

The sandy beaches close to where you live in the UK look like this on a warmer day.

I'm in favour of making the NZ economy worth more by making it a smarter economy, not making it worth more by merely having a bigger population.

When you go bigger instead of smarter, you and I will have more traffic, noise, and pollution.

Look at the Scandinavian countries if you want to mimic healthy populations and economies, not the UK.

possible to stand in the middle of Dartmoor and see nobody, Yeah, if you have a yardstick. I.e. a 36 inches stick. Then you have the paradise of a Coro house on a 10sqm property, living the dream???

I guess thats why GK lives here?

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#2682082 28-Mar-2021 19:45

Mehrts:

Call me a selfish bastard, but I'm happy with our current numbers. Or less.

Sure, with greater numbers comes better economy of scale and whatnot, but I also like having space which is free of other humans. It's nice to be able to bugger off somewhere and not see a soul for miles.

I agree, but if you double the population its still bugger all.

gmball

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#2682088 28-Mar-2021 19:59

I'd be happy with a larger population, but only if local and central government actually start to spend $$ on proper infrastructure vs just bandaid fixes. Look at anything in Auckland, and the infrastructure build is pathetic. They expanded the Northwestern motorway, spent years on it, and I think they added one lane in each direction. It's still gridlocked from 6am till 9am, and 4pm till 6pm. Why not add 5 lanes, or perhaps 10 extra lanes. We have a tendency in NZ to wait until infrastructure is in dire need of replacement or expansion, and we build what we think is needed for present day, then several years down the track when its eventually finished, its already outdated and beyond capacity.

I'm guessing by the time a second harbour crossing is even started, trucks will probably be banned from the current bridge because of weight restrictions. And yet they were proposing to bolt some hideous pathway to the side of a bridge which is already beyond its structural load.

I believe one of the many undelivered promises by the labour government was light rail, including something from the city, past Pt chev, to West Auckland. We are yet to even see initial designs, and we are now 4 years down the track.

We were told in Auckland for months to conserve water, yet nearly every street you drive down, there's infill housing and highrise apartments going up. Many of which are for social housing and government builds. Where exactly do they think the water for these dwellings is going to come from?? I guess next summer we will just be told we have to stop using water again because they havent actually added any new capacity.

GV27

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#2682241 29-Mar-2021 07:24

To give you some perspective on our 'current' birth rate; the lockdown babies have utterly swamped private obstetrics and antenatal class capacity - you basically can't get into an antenatal class unless you book about four months in advance.

Once you take the horrendous commutes out of it, the pressure of working long hours to pay mortgages, etc, it turns out people end up having kids after all. There's probably a lesson there somewhere.

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#2682242 29-Mar-2021 07:36

GV27:
To give you some perspective on our 'current' birth rate; the lockdown babies have utterly swamped private obstetrics and antenatal class capacity - you basically can't get into an antenatal class unless you book about four months in advance.

Once you take the horrendous commutes out of it, the pressure of working long hours to pay mortgages, etc, it turns out people end up having kids after all. There's probably a lesson there somewhere.

Alternatively bored people will look for entertainment when they are stuck at home. There's only so much Netflix anyone can watch.

I don't think you can take any real conclusion from the lockdown baby boom.

GV27

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#2682293 29-Mar-2021 08:04

Handle9:

Alternatively bored people will look for entertainment when they are stuck at home. There's only so much Netflix anyone can watch.

I don't think you can take any real conclusion from the lockdown baby boom.

I don't know about that, some of us learned very expensive lessons as a result 😅

It will be interesting to see how our population planning evolves as a result - there's going to be big cohort of kids all born at the same time; that's a big bulge in school admissions five years from now or so.

SJB

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#2682314 29-Mar-2021 09:05

Geektastic:

I’m not sure you’d need to increase beaches or national parks. Not that I’ve measured, but it feels like we have about the same amount of beaches and national parks as the UK and it’s perfectly possible to stand in the middle of Dartmoor and see nobody, camp there in your tent for several days and still see nobody. Likewise plenty of windswept lonely beaches etc.

What NZ does lack is access to the countryside in anything like the widespread network of footpaths and bridle ways that crisscross Britain.

Try going to the New Forest in summer. The traffic jams are horrendous. And some of the roads to the northern parks have to be closed during peak times because of the number of cars.

I do agree with your comment about lack of access in NZ though. A lot of the farmland in the UK has public bridle tracks across it from centuries ago. That doesn't exist in NZ.

Fred99

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#2682324 29-Mar-2021 09:23

SJB:

I do agree with your comment about lack of access in NZ though. A lot of the farmland in the UK has public bridle tracks across it from centuries ago. That doesn't exist in NZ.

We do have the "Queen's Chain" and there are "paper roads" here.

My in-laws had to provide access via a "paper road" to a river on their farm, this was no problem 99% of the time, the 1% did create a problem. Having a picnic/swim/going fishing/ride a horse etc - those people were never a problem. Mobs going down to the river for an almighty p*ss up was a different story, they'd leave smashed glass and garbage everywhere and not close gates. Nobody else was going to arrive like magic to clean up the mess or get the stock back in the paddock, so it created extra work. So it's no wonder that some landowners make legal access as difficult as possible..

Usual story - it only takes a few dickheads to stuff things up for everybody.

Handsomedan

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#2682402 29-Mar-2021 11:35

Something that I am loathe to touch upon, but feel the need to is the effect on the "Kiwi culture" that massive increases in population would create.

We're a relatively multicultural place now, with a distinctly NZ flavour, partly influenced by the melding of Maori and European cultures, but mostly from the many years of that classic "Kiwi" bbq and beaches type of attitude to most things. Relaxed and casual.

A large influx of people from other cultures, where it's more normal to crowd together in apartment blocks/on beaches/in urban areas (and where the idea of a kiwi back yard bbq doesn't figure in their way of life) could present its own issues...it's no different to when Europeans settled here - culture clash and all of that... but it's modern times and people are more likely to say things that are less friendly online and in person than perhaps they were in the 1800's. Although I hear the 1800's were off the hook online.

I'm just not sure how a larger population from all over the world would really benefit NZ, unless we forced those inbound people to go to the smaller cities, towns and provinces. That in itself would present issues as there'd be no meaningful work for them.

If the normal pattern continued, we'd have a population of 5m in Auckland and the rest of the country would be less than that combined. Doesn't work as far as I can see.

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#2682418 29-Mar-2021 11:54

Adding more cultures to our culture enriches it and adds to the vibrancy of life in Aotearoa. It's not something to be feared it is something to be embraced.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

GV27

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#2682423 29-Mar-2021 12:05

MikeB4:

Adding more cultures to our culture enriches it and adds to the vibrancy of life in Aotearoa. It's not something to be feared it is something to be embraced.

We can add more culture with massively oversubscribing our roads, beaches and infrastructure. Just blindly adding tens of thousands more people a year isn't the way to do it, I don't think people will buy into that anymore.

SJB

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#2682442 29-Mar-2021 12:17

MikeB4:

Adding more cultures to our culture enriches it and adds to the vibrancy of life in Aotearoa. It's not something to be feared it is something to be embraced.

Depends on the culture. I would suggest adding 5 million more Russians or Albanians would not necessarily enrich NZ culture.

In fact large numbers from any one culture would make it a different country altogether.

SJB

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#2682444 29-Mar-2021 12:20

Fred99:

SJB:

I do agree with your comment about lack of access in NZ though. A lot of the farmland in the UK has public bridle tracks across it from centuries ago. That doesn't exist in NZ.

We do have the "Queen's Chain" and there are "paper roads" here.

My in-laws had to provide access via a "paper road" to a river on their farm, this was no problem 99% of the time, the 1% did create a problem. Having a picnic/swim/going fishing/ride a horse etc - those people were never a problem. Mobs going down to the river for an almighty p*ss up was a different story, they'd leave smashed glass and garbage everywhere and not close gates. Nobody else was going to arrive like magic to clean up the mess or get the stock back in the paddock, so it created extra work. So it's no wonder that some landowners make legal access as difficult as possible..

Usual story - it only takes a few dickheads to stuff things up for everybody.

Part of the track to my place is a paper road. Fortunately it doesn't appear to the outsider that it leads anywhere in particular.

I imagine it's pretty difficult to get a paper road revoked isn't it?

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