Are you Being Played?

Simcity

In the late 1980s, a game was released called Sim City. It was a popular game and it spawned many 'Sim' variations over the years. Variations on the original game have more recently been released on mobile devices and it's been interesting to revisit it.
Just in case you haven't played it (if you were a teenager growing up in the 80's chances are you will have at least seen it), the primary aim of the game is to make money and you do this by growing your city.
It is a game based on a simple model of land ownership and city growth based on the sale and development of that land, except in the game, land and resources are infinite, and we don't have to think about how that land was acquired in the first place, it's just magically owned and presumeaby not acquired through war, deceptive deals with indigenous people or by simply planting a flag and stealing it.
There are also no environmental consequences to your actions.
Unfortunately some people are playing this game for real, and chances are, rather than being the player, you're the one being played, primarily for monetary gain (not yours).
The consequences of playing this in the real world are becoming increasingly apparent, and yet, like the little computer controlled 'zombie' characters in the game, many people seem to be largely oblivious and instead moan about the lack of parking and how we need more roads to get to the shops to buy things that we’re told that we need. The player will gladly oblige and build your new roads (using some of the money you've earned) largely because this then opens up more land to develop, which can then be used to build more houses (or retirement homes), and then more shops can be built on even more land because there are more people to buy stuff. Unsurprisingly the roads again become clogged and the car park spaces fill and the cycle continues.
The bugs in the real-world game are becoming very apparent however and the strategy, to grow without regard to the consequences and the legacy that we are leaving behind for future generations, is fundamentally flawed.
Isn't it about time we turned it off and went outside in the fresh air instead.

 

Road Rage

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If you're on Facebook, you may have noticed that Nick Smith is 'Feeling Angry' in a paid promotion of his latest road rant.

You should be angry too.

Back in 2004, plans for the Southern Link were successfully challenged. The environment court ruled against the plans on numerous grounds (https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3558114). It was a win for the health and well being of the community. As Mike Ward said at the time it was also an "... opportunity for Nelson to show the rest of the country how to solve your transport problems in smarter ways."

Unfortunately, like a rabbit caught in headlights, some people have been unable to break their focus on a new road. Despite this, in 2012 there was a glimmer of hope and an investigation into an off road cycling/walking link along Rocks Rd. was started. NZTA even had funding earmarked for it - By 2014 several options were being considered http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/9675052/Rocks-Rd-options-soon-to-be-clarified

Not everybody was happy about this though, after-all encouraging active transport and taking motor vehicles off the road would further undermine arguments for a new Southern Link road. It was time for Nick Smith to get creative. During his time as the 'Environment Minister' (an ironic title if ever there was one), he had been focusing on weakening the Resource Management Act (RMA) which sets out how we should manage our environment. Unfortunately in 2017 he finally succeeded, although the changes weren't as drastic as originally proposed they were still significant https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/rma-reforms-pass-law.

But that wasn't enough, Nick needed to keep the Southern Link on the agenda (https://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/82969924/nick-smith-accused-of-campaign-of-misinformation-on-southern-link) and with the help from our council headed by the then recently elected mayor Rachel Reese, in a neat trick, the Rocks Rd. Cycling/Walking was tied to the Southern Link Investigation, yet another study pushed onto NZTA by the National government (if you don't get the answer you want, tweak the rules and have another go).

Even then though, and unfortunately for Nick Smith, the first stage of the business case investigation indicated that a new road was not needed (not yet at least). Undeterred by investigations that continued to not give the answer they were paying for, Nick said the government would build it anyway (with our money of course). It was an election year after-all and Nick had pinned his political career on a road.

But that was 2017 and National was voted out. A new Government Policy Statement (GPS) on land transport shifted the focus and things were starting to look up (https://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/109049382/shared-waterfront-pathway-put-in-the-fastlane). Last year our council also had a bit of a shake up and out went some strong supporters of the Southern Link, including the transport committee chair Mike Rutledge (https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/315275/deadlock-broken-on-controversial-nelson-roading-project). This is significant since despite implications that decisions on state transport infrastructure is purely driven by NZTA, those decisions depend heavily on whether there is support from local council and the community.

Here we are again, another election year and the Southern Link road is a project that just keeps giving and Nick is pulling out all the stops in the hope that he can still whip up enough road rage in his supporters to allow him to cling on to his job. But we're now suffering the consequences of this blinkered approach and a desire to keep the the Railway Reserve corridor as a road option is creating quite a mess. It seems somewhat ironic that supporters of the Link are now complaining about the traffic lights that now have to be installed on Waimea to keep this option open (at quite a large expense to us as rate payers).

A lack of progress on transport options that would reduce motor vehicle traffic isn't just a frustration for commuters. Australia is still on fire and last year, so were parts of Nelson. Even now our council is closing reserves due to the fire risk and that's just the tip of the iceberg to what scientists predict is coming (and many people around the world are already suffering the consequences). We can't continue to build roads that do little except maximising the proffits of landowners and developers and support the creation of sprawling car focused developments of McMansions.

We can't ignore the Climate Crisis and we can't ignore our contribution to it. We can't afford to take a 'moderate' approach https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/119143151/nick-smiths-moderate-message-on-climate-change.

It's now 2020, sixteen years on from the environment court decision. We've lost a lot of time but it's not too late for Nelson to be a role model for smarter, sustainable cities.