PODCAST: Beyond Consultation

In today’s episode you’ll learn: Addressing the myth that local government isn’t fun. If fewer people engage in local politics, there will be fewer channels for people to be able to create the city that they want. The ineffectiveness of consulting communities in higher level, intangible language. How we can bring in more creative ways to work with our communities.

Listen here on Apple podcasts

REVIEW: Play and the City

Part historical essay, part psychological manual, this book is laden with fascinating research into the nature of play in cities past and present, across the globe. The scope is broad and, like a literary game of parkour, the highly readable narrative jumps from one fast-paced fragment to the next - a string of facts, interlaced, but travelling in no defined direction.

The author, Alex Bonham, an elected member of Auckland Council’s Waitematā board, has two Master’s degrees (in law and drama), and her current PhD, a doctorate on how to create a playful city – and perhaps her two children - no doubt inspired this book, which draws on both her eye for detail and her imaginative side.

Upfront, Bonham addresses the playful mind. A state at the essence of the human condition, it’s how we learn, test boundaries, communicate and connect. She explores games, how play cements power and identity, and questions why we devote so little time to it.

The second tranche of the book is a documentation of the urban context, stretching back to ancient Greece and Rome, the Medieval rise of the Christian city, dipping into the murky waters of Cromwell’s puritanical London and drifting on to enlightenment, industrialism, the colonial “utopia” and the rise of the modern metropolis. It is here that a reader with a formidable memory might pick up obscura for their next dinner party, holding forth, for example, on the game of potlach, a competition in ancient native American cultures where male participants competed to give away or destroy their wealth. Or this factoid: that in the New Zealand of 1885, 18,357 women signed a petition to “forbid women to serve in any capacity in public houses” [the temperance movement was responsible for that].

Conversation starters aside, along the way, Bonham touches on the weightier issues of equal rights, diversity and cultural identity. Overall, these are universal themes but the UK-born author manifests parts of the New Zealand story with segments on the women’s suffrage campaign, the six-o-clock swill, sausage sizzles, the Christchurch earthquake and even the Covid response. The rise of tikanga Māori, and its importance in the storytelling of place, is also explored.

For a book on the urban condition, there are few pages devoted to city planning; in fact, dancing earns more index entries than cycling. Her argument is that there is no need to be an architect or a trained planner to know what type of city inspires you. It is clear that Bonham is not an advocate of today’s idealised, somewhat formulaic approach of a mixed-use mid-rise city to provide the solutions to problems such as housing affordability, traffic congestion and general liveability. While she references the benefits of the traditional village square, and credits them in Europe as the epicentre of multi-generational socialising, big ideas get their moment of glory too. She comes down on the side of the America’s Cup village, for instance, pointing out that it generated a useful deadline which spurred authorities to action. The regenerated waterfront now provides an environment attractive to a broad spectrum of society.

Spectacular waterfront destinations aside, the deal is that Bonham sees the city, any city, as an enabler. They are natural playgrounds, and she puts the onus squarely on the individual to slide down the banisters, splash in the fountains, pause to listen to a busker, and seek out the joy to be had in myriad ways. For those finding it difficult to break free of routine, she suggests activities which will help knit our consciousness into the fabric of the city - and the community. Her warning is, “It’s a mistake to take life more seriously as we age”. Instead, she urges us to wander the city in wonderment: look up, look down, find a new shortcut. But most of all, turn up and join in.

Reviewed by Claire McCall

Buy the book here!