About Planning

John Cox

This article is the first of a series of three.

“What's all this talk about planning?” says Joe Doakes. He's just seen in the morning paper that the Borough Council is preparing a planning scheme for the development of the town for the next 30 years. “We've got along all right up to now without worrying about planning.”

But wait a moment. That cup of tea he holds in his hand. What went into it? Water, yes, but that only needs automatic action—you simply turn on a tap. The tea? It came from the grocer; all that was needed was to open the packet and put it into the pot. The milk? That's quite easy, too: it comes right to the gate. So we got along without planning, did we? What was it but careful planning that directed the water from the stream to the reservoir and into the pipes in Joe Doakes' very kitchen? And how does he suppose the tea, grown in Ceylon, landed in his kitchen cupboard? Planning brought it there: the growers planned their crops; the shippers planned its transport; the importers planned its distribution. Again the milk: somewhere into the picture comes the cow but it requires careful planning and organisation to bring the milk to the box at the gate. Of course in the early days it was much simpler: the water was brought up in a bucket from the creek; the cow was milked in the paddock; and tea, well possibly there were some dandelions growing in the garden; they can be turned into tea. But would Joe Doakes like it? So we see evidence of planning even in that simple cup of tea. And the very fact that so much of our daily life has been simplified is in itself an evidence of planning, of thinking ahead. The planning in the past has been so unobtrusive and made so many of our functions almost automatic that that very fact makes Joe Doakes and his neighbours think they just happened. Its all very convenient. They simply switch on the wireless; they walk to the bus stop and catch their bus; they receive their letters on their desks. You don't worry about things like that: they just happen.

Joe Doakes doesn't like the sound of planning thirty years ahead. Somehow he feels it is an encroachment on his independence. He holds on to some romantic illusion about the good old days of rugged individualism. Vaguely he feels that people were freer then, more self-reliant. It is difficult for him to see things in their right perspective and to see that in reality there was no Swiss Family Robinson story of self-sufficient families making exciting daily discoveries of new foods and comforts plucked from an abundant nature. He does not see somehow that what each of those early families really aimed at was an organised and planned society; their self-sufficiency was uneasy. For the great majority of people, whether in town or country, the real problem was how to make a living. Until the advent of refrigeration the life of the small holder was precarious. Markets for farm produce were very limited and for most people it was essential to find some other means of supplementing the income. The young urban settlements like Auckland and Wellington were founded on a faith that was only justified by subsequent inventions such as refrigeration. Apart from the few who, through possession of capital, or who due to the very nature of their occupations were secure, the early settlers had to be versatile to survive. Is it the kind of life these people lived that the Joe Doakes of our time are yearning for? Do they want to return to a precarious existence with no markets for their limited products? Would they reject electric power and lighting? Would they be content to cook on an open fire? Would they carry their water from the creek? Would they reject the motor vehicle and be content to go about on horseback? How would they farm? Would they milk by hand? Would they reject new grasses, new manures, new orchard trees? Would they refuse to read farm journals or to listen to the advice of experts?

We merely have to ask these questions to get the answers. Of course we do not wish to reject any of our technological advances. We would not return to the primitive living conditions of the past even if we could. No farmer, and particularly no farmer's wife, would for one moment consider giving up any of the conveniences of the present day. But when the dairy farmer throws over the switch to start the milking machine he must accept the whole electrical industry from the hydro-electric stations to his local power board. When he lifts the telephone receiver he accepts the whole post and telegraph system. When his wife turns on the radio she accepts the whole broadcasting system. When he takes the cream to the gate he accepts not only the cream carting system and the butter facory, but inevitably the whole planning of the dairy industry on a national scale.

There is hardly anyone who would be prepared to go without these and many other ser- page 11 vices which have become a commonplace in our normal everyday lives. We would all agree that there is a vast amount of planning in every organisation responsible for each of the various services we enjoy. It is clear too that the kind of self-sufficient frontier farming life that we suspect Joe Doakes to be yearning for does not really exist. In fact the farmer himself has for the most part become a specialist today. He finds that he has as little time as the city man to tend his vegetable garden and his orchard. His wife is just as good a customer of the local store with its stocks of canned and fresh food as the townswoman. The farmer is, in fact, as dependent upon others as the townsman. Yet, like Mr. Doakes he tends to take it all for granted: the power supply, the roads, the motor car sales and service, the farm machinery repairs, the schools (including the school bus which picks up his children at the gate), the hospitals and medical service, the agricultural experts, scientific research into pastures and disease, entertainment—even the pictures and the races, for what they are worth—at which he is a passive observer. The list is endless. Even the marketing of his products is planned for him.

Photo: Dept. of Agriculture.

All this is very good because it does enable us to get on with our own specialised job. But we cannot afford to overlook the fact that this is made possible only through the regular functioning of an infinite variety of community services. It is the co-ordination and economic organisation of these various services that is the field of town and country planning, and it is the lack of overall organisation that is causing most of our troubles.

Let's just consider the problem from the householder's angle. His own individual home gives him great satisfaction. The house is pretty comfortable and convenient and the garden, so long as it is not too large, is a very pleasant hobby. But what about the journey back and forth to work each day in crowded trams or buses or trains? It is very unpleasant and a waste of time. No wonder he gets irritable. And now the fares are going up again He darkly suspects mismanagement. But he sees the trams only in the morning and in the mad rush home at night. On the return trips at both hours the trams and buses are empty and for the rest of the day there is only a sprinkling of passengers either way. It is this dead mileage that puts the fares up. Can anything be done by the public transport organisation itself to remedy this? Not really. It is a matter for town planning.

And if in desperation he decides to use his car the situation is worse. There is one less passenger on the trams and one more car to wear out the roads (which he helps pay for) and to increase the congestion in the business area—that is if he can find a parking space near his work. But even if he does find a gap at the kerbside near his business it is one place less for a customer to park. Actually he finds that by 9 a.m. when the doors open for business the kerbs are already fully occupied by cars and there are lorries double parked delivering cases and bundles over the cars and across the footpath into the front doors of the premises all around. Can he alone do anything about this? No he cannot. This is a matter for action by the local council through its planning powers.

Now let's consider his wife and a few of her problems. When the children are young she is tied to the home as are most of her neighbours. When she makes a few enquiries she finds that many people have only one child and have to stay home to mind it. Quite a number of these women are anxious to work at least part time at the profession for which they are trained. Some are qualified Karitane nurses and teachers. Couldn't we arrange this so that one person could look after a number of the children for at least some part of the day? It was this kind of arrangement that preceded the State primary school as we know it. The odd group or play centre can carry on for a while page 12

Main Street, Gisborne, at the end of the last century.
Photo: Turnbull Library.

but it really needs organisation and planning to be successful. The location of play centres and kindergartens in relation to existing and future population has to be considered even more carefully than the sites for the primary and secondary schools. The benefits can be largely nullified if parents have to take their children too far each day.

It would be very convenient if such centres were near the local shops, the library, the Plunket rooms, the tennis courts and the baths. But that kind of grouping doesn't just happen of its own accord. It has to be planned in advance and it must be related precisely to future development. This means that if we as individuals wish to obtain these benefits we must look ahead. In other words we must accept control of development in accordance with a plan which provides for these things.

If we are not prepared to accept planning then we must not complain when we find that there is no vacant land on which to erect the community buildings we need, if there are no tennis courts or recreation grounds in our neighbourhood, if our children have to cross dangerous traffic roads to get to school, if we spend hours each day travelling to and from our work, if our city traffic is congested and there is no parking space. There can be no security of property values or of living conditions if we reject statutory planning powers. If our next door neighbour decides to erect a factory or to store wood and coal, or old car wrecks, or if he instals a circular saw or other noisy machinery and chooses to use it at all hours of the night, there is no way of stopping him except under the planning law.

If you still subscribe to the 19th century article of faith that if everyone is completely free to do what he likes with his own property somehow or other it will all come right in time—then don't complain about the high price of vegetables. For if we want to have our vege tables and milk fresh and cheap then we must not permit urban development on the very limited areas of good farm land around our towns. Similarly, if you think that urban roads and services should be extended out in ribbons to anyone who chooses to cut his land up into town sections then, to be consistent you will pay your mounting bill for rates with a smile. For you will find that most of your rates go in interest on loans and in the annual cost of maintenance of roads, of the water and sewerage systems. We cannot have it both ways. Either we learn from experience and plan ahead so that we do not make the same mistakes again or we live by tooth and claw and take the consequences. Surely that is the most important difference between civilisation and barbarism?

Willis Street, Wellington
Photo: Evening Post