Redevelopment Of Inner City Areas Proposed

Press, Volume C, Issue 29515, 17 May 1961, Page 11

Redevelopment Of Inner City Areas Proposed

"The Press" Special Service

AUCKLAND, May 16. The redevelopment of rundown inner city areas as a counter to urban sprawl is advocated by Dr. K. B. Cumberland, professor of geography at Auckland University. He blames the Government for what he has termed “the outward surge of quarteracre housing." Dr. Cumberland, addressing the English-Speaking Unson, said the Government encouraged sprawl by supplying relatively ' cheap money for house building and by buying up large areas of farmland on the outskirts of the city for housing. This land was cheaper than land closer in would be if bought for redevelopment. Local authorities were com. peting in this undesirable development, said Dr. Cumberland. Other Amenities Urban expansion of this sort was not, however, just a matter of house-building. Roads, power, water, sewerage, street lighting, schools, parks and community centres had to be provided, and municipal indebtedness would be a burden on the itiext generation. He felt that “speculators, developers and subdividers'’ should be taxed. Instead, they were able to “get, out before

the ultimate debt comes along.” Dr. Cumberland said the population of metropolitan Auckland, which had grown by 206.000 to 423,000 in little more than 20 years, would increase by 380.000 to 800,000 in the next two decades. In spite of a polished veneer of shop-fronts in Queen street and elsewhere, inner parts of the city were decaying rapidly. Finance Finance was the trouble, as well as the system of local government which threw the 1 entire burden of renewal on to the city. Government loan authoris- , ations were being spent on sprawl and not on renewal —and at the same time 15.000 houses in Auckland had only one occupant and 35.000 only two occupants Advocating higher-density building in inner areas al--1 ready serviced with sewerage, power and roads, Dr. Cumberland said this called for a co-operative effort by national government, local government and private enterprise. "Bold, long-term and positive planning is wanted.” he said, “not negative, restrictive and frustrating prohibitions.”