‘Getting Auckland Ready for Growth’: Message from Heather Shotter
On current growth rates, two decades from now, Auckland will be a city of 2.5 million people and growing. The state of the city tomorrow will depend on what we do today. A range of indicators – across economic and social infrastructure–tell the story of a city buckling under pressure that will only grow. Managing Auckland’s problems is characterised by lack of speed, foresight and coordination.
In 2017, the Committee is picking up the sustainable growth response baton with a number of actions to rapidly progress issues and initiatives that we think can make the most difference to the city given the immediate set of challenges.
These initiatives are being operationalised against our future-focused vision and aspirations for a competitive, vibrant, and prosperous city looking out as far as 2050 and beyond.
To this end, the Committee is forming a series of Taskforces to propel the recommendations of the Port Future Study, to drive action on funding Auckland’s growth, and to steer our cross-cutting project on developing an Auckland Performance Measurement Model. A workshop to get this innovative model up and running is being held on June 13 and we seek wide participation from our diverse membership and other key city stakeholders.
We are also making moves to fuse the energy and experience of our Future Auckland Leaders participants and alumni to keep Auckland on a fast sustainable track. The first of these uses technology to produce a ‘crowdsourced’ report on the future of Auckland that taps the combined smarts of our participants and alumni.
Auckland has a plethora of challenges, however ‘challenge’ is just the word ‘opportunity’ in disguise, and the Committee for Auckland is rolling up its sleeves to get the impetus that Auckland deserves. Plenty more on the boil and I look forward to updating you further.
Heather Shotter
