Getting To Christchurch v2.0 — It Doesn’t Involve Red Tape Or Fish Hooks

The image above may look like a far-distant utopian future of what Christchurch could look like but with the advances in technology, it probably isn’t that absurd to think visions of such buildings are only a few years away. With the advances in digital displays and newer cladding materials the picture above is probably quite an accurate render of things to come assuming we move with the times and don’t condemn ourselves to the past with small incremental changes. But cities aren’t just about looking pretty, they need to be able to provide the essentials and aspire to deliver the best of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Just like software versions going from version 1.0 to version 2.0 it’s often a complete rewrite of architecture and requires a completely new strategy with ambitious feature sets and a lot of blueprinting to be able to deliver an entire solution. Unfortunately, most cities seem to be stuck doing incremental changes that only seem to deliver small updates or bug fixes that are often just patches replacing things that have become outdated or were wiped out by a seismic shift+delete event. Christchurch feels like one of those cities even though we had the ability to remap the future of what it could look like, the execution of the planning has fallen flat.

As for new features, I’m racking my brain to think of many that we now have that didn’t exist over a decade ago. He Puna Taimoana (New Brighton hot pools) is probably the only new feature that has been delivered in the last decade and I’m glad it was put in New Brighton because the community has been screaming out for help and development since the 1980’s.

Projects like the convention center, public library, aquatics center & even the stadium are all just replacements for things that we had in the past. Yes, we took the opportunity to build most of them back bigger and better but with most of them running over time and over budget can you truly say they were done in the best way? Post quakes we had a map that lays out what the future of the city could look like and some of that map has come to fruition but there are aspects that make you scratch your head and ask if the city is actually able to deliver on this or if it was just an idea written on a napkin.

I think most people agreed that creating dedicated precincts made perfect sense but how about sticking to the plan? Christchurch hospital is still lacking a replacement carpark and yet new car dealerships keep going inside the designated “health precinct”. As the city expands the need for more hospital buildings is also going to increase so why are we allowing this to happen?

The simple fact is that the government and local government are never ready to execute and never able to make quick responsible decisions. If they fail on basic things like ringfencing building development for the right type of use case how can they possibly think they can attract external investment for things like medical treatment tourism?

Even the innovation precinct is a bit lackluster, 10 years ago some private individuals built the EPIC center on a bit of council land but that is about all that has happened that is innovative. Even the EPIC building is now just cheap rent for the handful of companies that got in early and we are not seeing any new companies come out of there. I’m glad a few larger technology corporations have built inside this zone and there are a handful of other tech-related businesses in there but why hasn’t the local council stepped in and built an innovation hub?

I think if we really want Christchurch to evolve into the best city it can be then the government and local governments need to set out the map and relinquish more of the control as to how it happens. Councils need to be focused on the destination but be flexible on the journey.

In time we are going to see smart contracts cutting through a lot of the red tape that is involved in these systems allowing a much more streamlined system and better transparency insurance around deliverables and unforeseen events. Smart contracts can streamline the bidding process for new building contracts, reducing administrative costs and increasing transparency.

Smart contracts can automate payments to contractors at construction milestones, reducing fraud and mismanagement while avoiding overpayment or unnecessary expenses. Smart contracts can also automate the process of verifying insurance coverage for contractors and subcontractors, reducing the risk of liability for local governments.

The systems that exist right now are too top-heavy, and there are too many people involved in the processes leading to everything taking too long for decisions to be made and everything taking over twice the price it would cost should anybody else go out and hire the exact same people themselves.

So if Christchurch ever wants to move to v2.0 they need to adopt an “if this then that” approach to things and lay the flowchart out on the table for everyone to see. Smart contracts are the easy solution to cutting through most of the red tape but then we would end up with much faster outcomes, reducing risk and saving costs so I don’t think they would be too keen on that.