Category: Education

Housing and Communities

An integrated solution for many of the challenges facing NZ today

If we are serious about climate change, stop issuing resource consents for more transport-based development. Eliminate the need to drive.

Build MarketTowns

In every era but our own, cities, towns, villages and communities were based on some purpose of living that eludes the designers of our own time. People form communities not for justice, peace, defence or traffic, but for the sake of a good life… the pursuit of conviviality, citizenship and artistic, intellectual & spiritual growth.

The social pursuits of a good life shape how a community is laid out, how people encounter each other, how to balance public and private space, and to avoid design that disrupts. And how to make it affordable for all, ending economic polarisation.

The most important policy the 6th National Government can adopt: Of all the solutions listed on governing.nz, this is the one intended to have the greatest, most wide-ranging positive impact, addressing a host of challenges facing the nation, from environment to economic to social and cultural. It is a positive outcome, not a fix.

What is a Market Town?

A Market Town is an ancient development pattern where the social life is based on a self-supporting local economy. A thousand years ago, the basis was local agriculture. Today, technology has vanquished the tyranny of distance, enabling many to earn a living anywhere there is high-speed broadband. A local economy needs about 20% of its workforce to sell local to global (L2G) using the internet to import outside money that then turns locally 5-20 times before it leaves the local economy. With a critical mass of 10,000 people on 200 hectares total (85 hectare urban core surrounded by the greenbelt)  the economy supports over 200 local job types from accountants to zero-waste recyclers. None of these jobs require outbound commuting; it eliminates about 8,000 cars on the road. 

To get a feel for it, visit the preindustrial car-free towns of Old Europe. They are human-scaled, needing less land while providing a much more vibrant quality of life. The urban core is surrounded by a greenbelt to eliminate cross-boundary conflicts (the neighbours see only trees) and provide open space for local food, harvested rainwater storage, onsite wastewater processing, off-grid solar array, as well as sports and festival fields, a walk-to blue-collar industrial park and a motor-pool/freight depot to ensure the urban core remains car-free.

Until 2020, it was not realistically possible to build a Market Town in NZ. The number of approving agencies created insurmountable obstacles to new forms of development outside the transport-based development framework of almost every district plan in the nation. Seeking to put all under one roof, under the 5th National Government, then Building, Construction, Housing and Environment Minister Nick Smith sponsored the Urban Development Bill that became law in 2020. The 6th Labour government narrowed the focus of the Act to developing state housing, but the needed legislation is on the books. Now with the 6th National Government  taking control, no change in law is needed. All that is required is a change of focus by government to instruct the ministry to sponsor the first Market Town as a matter of national interest.

Imagine in Aotearoa
Mallorca
Verona
Cadaques, Spain

Characteristics of a Market Town

Details: The 21st century Market Town is a self contained local economy, thus it does not need extended three-waters pipes or widening roads. Its basic qualities include:

  • About 200 hectares of relatively flat, poor-quality greenfield land near a 2-lane road
  • Within 85 hectare urban core for about 4,000 3-floor attached townhouses – 10,000 people
    • Urban core divided into clusters (villages) of about 200 homes / 500 people each
    • Each village has a central plaza that becomes the community living room with development funded:
      • Daycare and primary school classrooms on the village plaza
      • Eldercare facilities for the infirm so they never have to leave their friends and family
      • Artist Guild Hall that supports about 25 members of the creative class to enrich the community
      • Village-owned cafe to provide affordable, nutritious, flavourful meals as a means of social bonding
      • Playground space by the cafe so parents can relax and converse while watching their children
      • Wharetapu to provide sacred space for celebration of rites of passage, sanctuary and contemplation
  • Surrounded by a 115 hectare greenbelt to prevent cross-boundary conflicts and site:
    • Motorpool for all motor vehicles, freight delivery and linkages – no cars in the urban core
    • Instead of 200 courier deliveries, three tractor trailer trucks deliver all goods once a day
    • Walk-to industrial park providing blue collar, clean-tech jobs and local manufacturing
    • Freshwater storage and processing – 100% rainwater harvesting from the urban core
    • Wastewater processing as a surplus resource with zero waste: biofuel, fertiliser and purified water output
    • Storm and filtered grey water storage for lower-quality water needs
    • Solar array and vanadium battery storage to provide 100% off grid energy supply
    • Sports and festival fields, garden allotments, protected native bush and productive growing
    • Surrounded by a native flora/fauna protection fence to keep out invasive species
    • Boundary between urban core and greenbelt includes a wall to keep pets out of the greenbelt
  • No less than 20% of the jobs/businesses sell local-to-global (L2G) to import money into the local economy
  • The majority of jobs/businesses are Local to Local (L2L) to facilitate a money turn of 5X to 20X
  • 20% of the housing is parallel market to ensure permanent affordable housing and block gentrification
  • 99% of buildings manufactured in an on-site, pop-up factory; keep price below $1,500/m2 including land
  • A complete, not elite community, intended to reflect national demographics, welcoming all but criminals
  • Using companies law, an elected body owned by the people that manages all local affairs
  • All internal costs self funded. Minimal burden on state services. , takes care of its own
    • The town builds its own public school classrooms, no capital burden on the Ministry of Education
    • Such towns inherent have a low tolerance for crime, less burden on Police, Courts or Prisons 
    • Eldercare is internally funded and operated, reducing the state burden of an ageing population
    • The local economy is structured to keep all able persons employed, with stand-by jobs when needed
    • The project requires seed funding, but this is repaid with interest. No burden on taxpayers
    • Ideal setting for attracting high-skill migrants as it offers a high quality of life with low cost of living
  • From the host council perspective, the town is a profit centre – generating more in rates than it costs
    • No need to widen the roads because the vehicle movement per day per household (VMD) is below one
    • No need to dig up roads or expand water or wastewater plants because all waters are managed within
    • The town funds & builds its own libraries, parks, halls, sports & festival fields, open to the general public
  • In order to prevent skyrocketing house values, once the prototype is proven, keep building new towns.

 

Crime Prevention starts with Building Character

Crime is not monolithic and this solution does not purport to change the world. It focuses on youth crime that is spawned by deprivation, a lack of role models, lack of opportunity and peer pressure, especially through social media. It focused on the failure of the 1960’s initiatives called Urbanisation that targeted rural Māori to entice them to leave ancestral lands and move to jobs in the city. With globalisation those jobs left NZ, and with them went both opportunity and a pathway to mature adulthood. In this proposal, the focus is on building character.

This is a simple plan borrowed from the United States during the Great Depression when far too many young people were unemployed. The government started the Civilian Conservation Corps and sent those young people into the countryside to build trails, bridges, cabins and other outdoor-experience amenities. It worked. It taught the young how to use their bodies, how to work, how to make things. It also taught them pride in their work, how to work as a team, and to leave lasting monuments they would show to their grandchildren decades later.

In Aotearoa, there is a framework waiting for a 21st century CCC…

Reopen the ancient Māori trails

Combat youth crime by legislation and funding that assigns delinquent teens to work projects reopening the ancient Māori trails that will foster the kāinga visitor industry.

Reopen the ancient trails: Perhaps the most famous walking trail today is the Camino de Santiago in Spain. The  800 kilometre trail is an ancient pilgrimage walk that has been rediscovered by affluent tourists looking for a more meaningful travel experience. NZ does tramping trails, but not as part of a larger context. The positive proposal to reopen the Māori trails would go much further.

They are Still There: Crisscrossing North and South Island are a series of ancient trails that connected kāinga. When asked 20 years ago, the elders not only knew where they had been, but said most were still there.

CCC – The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) model to fight NZ youth crime: In the depths of the Great Depression, the US Government developed the CCC to provide work for young people. In doing so, it built character in the same way the army does, but using shovels and diggers, not guns and tanks. Rebuilding the ancient trails not only creates a new visitor experience, enhancing the tourist economy, but it rebuilds character in young people who currently are destined to a life of crime, and provides them with a lifelong alterative.

Understanding Why

 

Youth crime is local. Crime is a symptom of a broken culture where mature adults have lost control, and delinquents fail to mature into responsible adults. Its core problem is economic where the adults are not stakeholders in their culture.

Stakeholding:

  • Being a tenant beholden to a landlord means less stakeholding than owning one’s home.
  • Being a beneficiary beholden to a social worker means less stakeholding that having a career.
  • Being a grunt worker beholden to a boss means less stakeholding than as one’s own boss or part of a team.
  • Living in terraced housing in a bedroom subdivision means less stakeholding than living in a village

In 1929, in the Economics of the New Zealand Maori, Raymond Firth wrote: the great importance of association in common locality is that it represents not merely a physical fact, but also leads to the formation of a whole body of psychological bonds, due to the common interests of the members and their contact in everyday life.

Formation of healthy psychological bonds is essential to creating a way of life that does not involve crime. It works best when it is multi-generational, and mature, stakeholding adults and elders are in charge.

Crime is not homogenous

The crime bothering voters in 2023 are ram raids, car theft and home invasions. These are crimes by mostly young people, mostly disaffected urban Māori and Pasifika raised by solo mothers living in relative poverty. The core of the problem is lack of social structure, plus new social enticement on smart phones. RNZ reports ram raids are inspired by Tiktok.

Children as young as 10 group together to steal cars and ram them into stores so they can steal goods sold in those stores. They do it for the thrills, and the bragging rights among their peers. They have no sense of the catastrophic impact it has on the store owners.

Solutions are not getting tough on crime:

Yes, coddling under 18’s as children when they commit crimes means children laugh at an impotent law enforcement system. But locking them up in youth-detention centres with other criminal youth just creates a high school for crime… most of whom will graduate to the university of crime, the NZ prison system where they meet the criminal network.

To break the cycle, the State must replace a broken family structure with a healthy tribal structure (tribal in the same context that a gang or an army unit is a tribal structure) that rewards positive social standing.

Reopening the trails to reconnect kāinga creates an economic opportunity for the kāinga, but also for the disaffected youth currently stealing cars and ram-raiding shops. It provides a far more organised and effective form of community service that has a career path to positive citizenship.

What this policy will do:

 

The monument will be reopening the ancient trails, and establishing a visitor industry that provides long-term employment for the young people who built them. But more importantly, opening and then operating the trails builds character for young people and gives them a career path in which they become stakeholders.

After they build the trails, which includes both land and waterways, they will be trained as guides, logistics suppliers and maintenance crews. As well as walking some may lead horse trekking, others on waka.

This kind of work forms a tight community, with similar psychological bonds to those found in army units or gangs,  and it provides them a healthy outdoor life and a stable income.

Learn from history: 

When the Great Depression threw hundreds of thousands of young people into joblessness, the US government developed programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps that assigned those young to work camps where they were paid to work on environmental conservation projects. They worked outdoors with picks and shovels, building trails, camps and back-country cabins. While the outcome was beneficial – those trails and buildings are still enjoyed by millions today – it was the social relationships that mattered the most. It built life-long character.

 

 

Education 

Values or Skills

About 20 years ago, it became popular for educators to write vision statements about what they do. Workshops would begin by asking what are our values?  Those values tended to be aspirational, a word salad of idealism never tested in real world conditions to ensure the intended outcome. But it changed the face of education, with the unfortunately outcome that finds 35% of teenagers don’t know how to read or write to their expected level of competence.

In 1970, NZ had the highest literacy rate in the world. In 1990, it was second only to Finland. Since the late 2000s, the performance of New Zealand students in international standardised tests measuring numeracy, literacy and science performance has steadily declined.

To be clear, this policy plank does not disagree with the values set out in the NZ Curriculum; it solely states they ask too much of NZ’s teachers. Asking teachers to take on the roles of social workers, cultural reformers or environmental activists means fewer hours in the classroom teaching children how to read, write, problem solve and become literate adults. No surprise then to find numeracy, literacy and science performance has steadily declined. Their core job is hard enough. The pendulum has swung too far, loaded on too much.  Teachers need to be supported to teach the basic skills necessary for children to become participating citizens in their society. That’s a hard enough job on its own.

Effectiveness is the measure. No less than the future of the nation is at stake.

The NZ Curriculum Vision and Values

 

The New Zealand curriculum states it has an holistic view of the abilities and skills it wants children to gain:

  • an overall vision
  • values
  • key competencies
  • learning areas (or subject areas).

It is guided by a set of principles that are used by schools in their decision making and curriculum planning. The principles are high expectations, Treaty of Waitangi, cultural diversity, inclusion, learning to learn, community engagement, coherence and future focus.

Vision

The vision is for young people to be confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners.

Students are encouraged to value:

  • excellence, by aiming high and by persevering in the face of difficulties
  • innovation, inquiry, and curiosity, by thinking critically, creatively, and reflectively
  • diversity, as found in our different cultures, languages, and heritages
  • equity, through fairness and social justice
  • community and participation for the common good
  • ecological sustainability, which includes care for the environment
  • integrity, which involves being honest, responsible, and accountable and acting ethically, and
  • to respect themselves, others and human rights.

Problem:

Excellence, Innovation, Inquiry and Curiosity: The first two values are aspirational. Of course NZ wants its future generations to value excellence, to aim high and persevere, but how are teachers to accomplish this? Can these aspirations be converted into a curriculum, or are they modelled by exposure to adults outside of class?

  • How do teachers teach excellence? How does classroom study or homework teach aiming high? In short, there is no curriculum answer. One can have books (books, not videos) on biographies of people who pursued excellence, aimed high and overcame adversity, but probably not overly-slanted to winning cups, medals or knocking off mountains. Tell stories about people who accomplished things of note – and not just Kiwis. Especially focus on how their character was formed – what education enabled their excellence? 
     
  • How is innovation taught? How does one teach curiosity in the regimented structure of a class? In fact, the classroom system is not structured to favour innovation and curiosity, and it probably is asking too much of schools to try. Yes, have alterative programs for those students whose multiple intelligences do not fit into the conventional curriculum, but otherwise focus on literacy first, then specialisation in higher grades.
     
  • The reality is that few students appreciate their education until much later, and then typically speak about one teacher out of the dozens who taught them who significantly and positively influenced their lives. The best the system can do is to identify multiple intelligences in different children and, if not encouraging it, at least avoid interfering with it.
     
  • The reality is that NZ is one of the most culturally-diverse small nations on earth. Different families value education differently. One size does not fit all. The best the school can do is teach children the skills they will require to live and thrive in a rapidly-changing world. In doing this, parental involvement needs to be encouraged, with family and their community feeling more welcome by teachers and school. Invite them into the classroom to talk about what it is like to be an adult in real life. Break down the barriers.

Citizenship: The next two values, diversity and equity, are ideological and reflect aspirational virtues. Diversity is about identity (race, colour, religion, gender, age, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, education, and national origin) as a filter for opportunity and inclusion. The core question is how to link them where the role of the teacher and classroom is educating rather than indoctrinating.

  • Diversity is a fact in Auckland but less so in Hurunui. Teaching it is a branch of civics, but except for talking about it, and hoping it takes, it is difficult to see how the classroom makes a difference. Diversity is taught by media, which is doing a reasonably good job of modelling a more diverse world. The most effective way to teach diversity in the classroom is to break down the barriers between the classroom and the outside adult world. Invite parents and community & business leaders to come into the classroom to talk about their adult lives so students begin to learn about real diversity which is far more than colour or identity.
     
  • Equity is a political platform where bias is reversed, used to provide a negative filter for the privileged, positive for the disadvantaged. This is controversial because it is not a universal national value. It also is a problem in teaching, because privilege is primarily passed down through families, not in the classroom (except where families place their children in elite private schools). While students should learn to not use diversity as a negative filter in their lives, it is far more effective for teachers to identify strengths within a group and inviting its members to engage where they can make the most positive contribution.

Socialisation: 

  • Community and Participation: Which community? The classroom can teach children to get along with each other. It can provide proximity and cooperative group projects where those groups self-identify the distinctive skills they can contribute to the group. Called multiple-intelligences, different individuals have different strengths, and a strong community brings out the best in each individual to achieve a common purpose. But as adults, people belong to many communities… their neighbourhood (although transport-based, townhouse communities tend to rip these identities to shreds). Work community depends on the culture of the place – it can be toxic. Social, sport, hobby, religious, volunteer and other communities exist, although the internet is eroding them. Generally, the most a school system can do is to build a school community in which children make life-long friends. Start with better bonding during school lunch.
     
  • Participation for the common good has two parts, the second of which seems to have been ignored. Humans are by nature social, thus they cooperate by specialisation – becoming a master of a skill – but they also need to compete – to innovate by doing it better than another. Competition is a natural human quality, but it extends to behaviour, not just sports.
     
  • Bullying: Why does NZ have such a bullying problem? It has many, complex origins, but while schools talk about creating safe environments, they don’t seem to have a clue how to foster friendship and support in a community of children. The concept of segregating children by age – a different class for each birth year is not how humans are hard wired. Positioning older children to help younger ones is a form of natural responsibility and it can be a cure for much bullying especially if the older ones become protectors. 

Environment:

  • Ecological sustainability: Society is telling its younger generations the golden era is over; that the planet is doomed to suffer heat, fire flood, drought, plague and privation and to lose land to sea-level rise. Rather than inspire to clean up our act, it evokes a sense of powerlessness, anger and over-simplistic solutions with many unanticipated negative side effects. Teachers can teach the adverse effects of human activity on the planet, and how to measure proposed change to ensure effective healing, but it needs to be about empowerment, not doom.
     
  • In 1989, in Sweden 50 scientists were asked to come to a consensus on what a sustainable society would do:

“In the sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing
    1. concentrations of substances extracted from the earth’s crust.
    2. concentrations of substances produced by society.
    3. degradation by physical means
    4. and, in that society human needs are met worldwide.”

  • This consensus can be taught. It avoids fear-mongering that adversely impacts students view of their future

Personal Character:

  • How is integrity, character and respect taught by a curriculum? Many adults tell of the one teacher in their life who deeply influenced them, but what about the other dozens who did not? These are fine aspirational goals, but they fly in the face of family, culture, media and other overwhelming forces that shape individual character. It takes the village to raise the child, not the school. The more successful educational programmes that build character through integrity and respect are outdoor based. Scouts, Young Farmers and programs like the Hillary Outdoor Pursuits as well as church youth groups served these needs better than classrooms. If the schools wish to take on building character, the education ministry needs to look at outdoor camps that focus on character building.
     
  • Resource: Unlike many nations, NZ has an extraordinary underutilised resource that is slowly seeing its leaders age and die: the marae. Dotted throughout the countryside are 1-hectare sites with a wharenui to sleep and wharekai to eat and often a knowledgeable rural group of kaitiaki ready to teach leadership and respect. For older teens, these can serve as bases for public service, not dissimilar to the public work relief schemes during the Great Depression. For example, have them build tramping trails and shelters that connect these marae into a marae network that can become an authentic and educational visitor experiences for those wishing to visit Aotearoa (and Te Waipounamu), as well as New Zealand.

In Summary:

Question the value of values. Instead of preaching, focus on doing. Simplify the purpose of the curriculum:

  • Communication: the ability to interact with others to express ones thoughts and understand other’s. This begins with literacy, that the students learn to read, to write and to form coherent thoughts they can communicate to others. Today, it also means learning how to effectively communicate in a world where technology has changed the tools. Learn how technology shapes reality and how to discern its effects – especially the addictive and socially-destructive technologies driven by pecuniary interest. There is a reason why Steve Jobs would not let his children have iPads.
     
  • Socialisation: the ability to participate in society, to work with others, to learn to cooperate, to specialise and to compete. Socialisation includes understanding how one becomes a stakeholder in society, and the responsibilities that come with being a participating member of society.
     
  • Specialisation: Once a student learns the basic tools necessary to become a participating adult, they will be guided to select areas of focus that may become their calling in life. This could be science, arts, manual skills, engineering, leadership or any of the other roles adults play in society. 

Policy Changes

 

Values: Remove all vision and value statements from the Ministry of Education, and if it seeks to rewrite them, first require it initiate a public consultation on (a) if values have a place in education and (b) if they do, what is the national consensus as to their content. If this proves too difficult to achieve (and this is the most likely outcome), then re-focus:

Re-Focus: Strip down the national curriculum into a set of core competencies and options.

Core: Students will be able to 

  • Read: Read at least one book per month at their age-level and report on their contents,
  • Write (handwriting and typing) write a coherent 5-paragraph essay, a letter 
  • Maths: Know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide without using a device, to manage money and budget
  • Civics: understand how government works, how democracy works and the social contract in being a citizen
  • Science: understand how the natural and constructed worlds work to pierce the wall of opaque engineering  
  • Technology: to know how to use technology tools to achieve the above, but also not be wholly reliant on it; to know how to read printed books, handwrite, calculate on paper and to be literate without devices.

Options

  • Languages: If there is a national consensus on Te Reo, teach the very different world view, not just the words
  • Arts: Children have multiple intelligences, ensure the creatives have their own development stream
  • History: Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Especially important for civic leaders  
GOVERNING. NZ..... To rule is easy, to govern difficult