Kiwianarama

It's Not Easy Being Green

Clean, Green, 100% Pure New Zealand. Our tourism billboards and food export packaging are awash with helpful information reminding the rest of the world how Eco, sustainable, environmentally-friendly, and downright nice we all are.

Strange, then, that the average Kiwi owns ten cars – four of which are likely to be Holden V8s. Our largest power station runs on coal. Our national train service advertises itself as the ‘Scenic Option’ on account of it taking 15 hours to get anywhere (and so consequently a population the size of Birmingham, England, is serviced by, approximately, 200 domestic airlines). Getting around on public transport in Auckland is so painful, that residents would rather risk prison time for drink driving, or being molested in a taxi, over taking the bus. And 1/3 of our entire GDP comes from cows, the most carbon-hungry, flatulent animals known to God.

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A model of good town planning.

Auckland. City of JAFAs (which we are reliably informed stands for ‘Joy! Another friendly Aucklander!’). A temperate climate, plenty of nice beaches, 2 harbours, and just enough going on to feel like you’re not quite dying in the cultural doldrums of the world.

So why, then, does everybody in New Zealand, even, sometimes, those who live in the city, hate Auckland so much?

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You're going the wrong way!

Per Capita, New Zealand is officially one of the fittest countries in the world. But Kiwis don’t just like to exercise. Oh, no. They like to be ‘competition-ready’.

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Doer-Uppers Dream..?

New Zealand has a great many beautifully preserved character buildings and colonial villas. Ideal locations, in other words, in which to turn a fast profit by demolishing, sub-dividing and replacing them with brown, ‘Nouveau-Tuscan’, leaky townhouses and windowless shoebox apartment blocks.

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