Aotearoa New Zealand’s population has grown rapidly from 3.85 million in 2000, to 5 million in 2020. Ethnic diversity has consequently increased. Territorial Authorities (TAs) undertaking statutory consultation and wider public engagement processes need to respond to increased diversity and foster inclusivity. Inclusivity is necessary to facilitate a greater understanding of TA statutory functions, as well as to encourage awareness and participation in annual planning processes, and resource management plans and consents. We examined perceptions, and experiences, of planning within the ethnic Chinese immigrant population of Christchurch. The Chinese ethnic group is a significant part of the city’s population and is in itself derived from diverse cultural and language backgrounds. We surveyed 111 members of this community, via social media and in person, to identify environmental and planning issues of concern to them. We sought to ascertain their previous engagement with planning processes and to gauge their willingness for future involvement. We also undertook a small number of semi-structured interviews with Chinese immigrants to explore their experiences with planning in more detail. Results showed only 6% of respondents had been engaged in any planning processes, despite only 20% being unwilling to participate. We analysed these responses by gender, age, visa category, and length of time resident in Christchurch. Notwithstanding the low level of reported engagement, earthquake recovery (70% of respondents) along with water quality, transport, and air quality were the most important issues of concern. However, there was a general lack of awareness of the ability to make public submissions on these and other issues, and of the statutory responsibilities of TAs. We discuss possible explanations and provide several suggestions for TAs to increase awareness and to improve engagement. This includes further research to assist in identifying the nature of barriers as well as the effectiveness of trialling different solutions.
The Canterbury region of New Zealand was shaken by major earthquakes on the 4th September 2010 and 22nd February 2011. The quakes caused 185 fatalities and extensive land, infrastructure and building damage, particularly in the Eastern suburbs of Christchurch city. Almost 450 ha of residential and public land was designated as a ‘Red Zone’ unsuitable for residential redevelopment because land damage was so significant, engineering solutions were uncertain, and repairs would be protracted. Subsequent demolition of all housing and infrastructure in the area has left a blank canvas of land stretching along the Avon River corridor from the CBD to the sea.
Initially the Government’s official – but enormously controversial – position was that this land would be cleared and lie fallow until engineering solutions could be found that enabled residential redevelopment. This paper presents an application of a choice experiment (CE) that identified and assessed Christchurch residents’ preferences for different land use options of this Red Zone. Results demonstrated strong public support for the development of a recreational reserve comprising a unique natural environment with native fauna and flora, healthy wetlands and rivers, and recreational opportunities that align with this vision. By highlighting the value of a range of alternatives, the CE provided a platform for public participation and expanded the conversational terrain upon which redevelopment policy took place. We conclude the method has value for land use decision-making beyond the disaster recovery context.
Lincoln University was commissioned by the Avon-Otakaro Network (AvON) to estimate the value of the benefits of a ‘recreation reserve’ or ‘river park’ in the Avon River Residential Red Zone (ARRRZ). This research has demonstrated significant public desire and support for the development of a recreation reserve in the Avon River Residential Red Zone. Support is strongest for a unique natural environment with native fauna and flora, healthy wetlands and rivers, and recreational opportunities that align with this vision, such as walking, cycling and water-based sporting and leisure activities. The research also showed support for a reserve that promotes and enables community interaction and wellbeing, and is evident in respondents’ desires for community gardens, regular festivals and markets, and the physical linking of the CBD with eastern suburbs through a green corridor. There is less support for children’s playgrounds, sports fields or open grassed areas, all of which could be considered as more typical of an urban park development. Benefits (willing to pay) to Christchurch residents (excluding tourists) of a recreation reserve could be as high as $35 million each year.
Savings to public health costs could be as high as $50.3 million each year. The incorporation or restoration of various ecosystems services, including water quality improvements, flood mitigation and storm water management could yield a further $8.8 million ($19, 600) per hectare/year at 450 ha).
Combined annual benefits of a recreational reserve in the ARRRZ are approximately $94.1 million per annum but this figure does not include potentially significant benefits from, for example, tourism, property equity gains in areas adjacent to the reserve, or the effects of economic rejuvenation in the East.
Although we were not able to provide costing estimates for park attributes, this study does make available the value of benefits, which can be used as a guide to the scope of expenditure on development of each park attribute.
The September and February earthquakes were terrifying and devastating. In February, 185 people were killed (this number excludes post earthquake related deaths) and several thousand injured. Damage to infrastructure above and below ground in and around Christchurch was widespread and it will take many years and billions of dollars to rebuild.
The ongoing effects of the big quakes and aftershocks are numerous, with the deepest impact being on those who lost family and friends, their livelihoods and homes.
What did Cantabrians do during the days, weeks and months of uncertainty and how have we responded? Many grieved, some left, some stayed, some arrived, many shovelled (liquefaction left thousands of tons of silt to be removed from homes and streets), and some used their expertise or knowledge to help in the recovery.
This book highlights just some of the projects staff and students from The Faculty of Environment, Society and Design have been involved in from September 2010 to October 2012. The work is ongoing and the plan is to publish another book to document progress and new projects.
Please contact supervisor Lin Roberts at Lincoln University to request a copy of this dissertation to read.Cities around the world are becoming greener, with many striving to make their cities as green as possible. Christchurch was devastated by an Earthquake in 2011, which resulted in many fatalities. Though this impacted the city negatively, this sad event was used as an opportunity for the broken city to become a better one. The Christchurch City Council (CCC) ran an exercise called ‘Share an Idea’, which asked the public what they wanted the new city to look like. The main theme extrapolated by researchers was that people wanted the city to be greener. A draft plan was created by the CCC but was deemed not good enough and replaced by a new plan called the Blueprint Plan created by the government. Through the process of public consultation to the finalized plan and the implementation of the finalized plan, there were many changes made to the inclusion of nature into Central Christchurch’s urban regeneration. The aim of this research is to assess the role of nature in the urban regeneration of Christchurch, by evaluating the recovery process, and comparing the level of greenness the public wanted by looking at what they said in Share an Idea, and then seeing how that translated into the proposed plans, and then finally looking at what is being implemented.
This research investigates creativity in a post-disaster setting. The data explore creativity at the intersection of the affected community of Christchurch, New Zealand and the social processes that followed the earthquakes of 2010 - 2012. Personal and contextual influences on creative ideas implemented for community or commercial benefit are also examined.
Viewed as creative, unique approaches to post-disaster problem solving were celebrated locally, nationally and internationally (Bergman, 2014; Wesener, 2015; Cloke & Conradson, 2018). Much has been written about creativity, particularly creativity in organisations and in business. However, little is known with regards to who creates after a disaster, why individuals choose to do so and what impact the post-disaster context has on their creative activity. This exploratory study draws on the literature from the fields of creativity, disasters, psychology, sociology and entrepreneurship to interpret first-hand accounts of people who acted on creative ideas in a physically and socially altered environment.
A mixed method - albeit predominantly qualitative - approach to data gathering was adopted that included interviews (n=45) with participants who had been the primary drivers of creative ideas implemented in Christchurch after September 2010 – the first major (7.1 magnitude) earthquake in a prolonged sequence of thousands of aftershocks.
Key findings include that a specific type of creativity results from the ‘collision’ between individuals and social processes activated by a disaster situation. This type of creativity could be best categorised as ‘little c’ or socially adaptive and emerges through a prosocial filter. There is wide consensus amongst creativity researchers - principally social psychologists - that for output to be considered creative it must be both novel and useful (Runco & Jaegar, 2012). There is greater tolerance for the novelty component after a disaster as novelty itself has greater utility, either as a distraction or because alternatives are few. Existing creativity models show context as input – an additional component of the creative process – but after a disaster the event itself becomes the catalyst for social processes that result in the creativity seen. Most participants demonstrated characteristics commonly associated with creativity and could be categorised as either a ‘free thinker’ and/or an ‘opportunist’. Some appear preadapted to create and thrive in unstable circumstances.
Findings from participants’ completion of a Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) showed an apparent reduced need for extraversion in relation to implementing creative ventures in society. This factor, along with higher levels of agreeableness may indicate a potentially detrimental effect on the success of creative ideas established after a disaster, despite earnest intentions.
Three new models are presented to illustrate the key findings of this study. The models imply that disasters enhance both the perceived value of creativity and the desire to act creatively for prosocial ends. The models also indicate that these disaster influenced changes are likely to be temporary.
The topic of ‘resilience’ thinking seems of late to have superseded that of ‘sustainability’ thinking. Sustainability means simply that which sustains and lasts but has taken on many different subtle nuances over the last 20 years since it came into common parlance with the Bruntland Report of 1987, which sought to clarify the definition. However, resilience ‘speak’ has become hot property now, especially highlighted since Christchurch experienced a natural disaster in the form of several large earthquakes from Sep 2010 until most recently in December 2011. Many people comment on how resilient people have been, how resilient the city has been, so it seems timely to investigate what resilience actually means and importantly, resilient to what and of what? (Lorenz, 2010).
This essay will look at the concept of systems and resilience, definitions and theories will be explored generally and then these concepts will be more closely defined within the context of a particular system, that of Somerfield School located in the western suburbs of Christchurch.
The quality of public space is vital to livable cities. Yet livable cities also require empowered communities. This thesis asks: how is the landscape architect’s design expertise expressed as part of the public participation process, what are the key features of design expertise that lead to an effective design-based participation process and how does quality in the participation process relate to the quality of design outcomes? A theoretical framework is developed from which to clarify the relationship between decision-making processes in design and public participation. Insights from design theory are combined with the findings of key informant interviews with New Zealand and Northern Europe design experts, and with landscape architects, community and Council staff working in post-earthquake Ōtautahi/Christchurch, Aotearoa/New Zealand. Results of a case study of Albion Square in Ōhinehou/Lyttelton reveal that the designer’s interactions with the public play a critical role in shaping elegant design outcomes in public space design. Four key insights reveal that participatory design processes in New Zealand need to be reconsidered in order to enable landscape architects to work more closely with communities in mutual learning, rather than the currently limiting technical problem solving process. Institutional, professional and theoretical implications are drawn from the findings.
Creativity that is driven by a need for physical or economic survival, which disasters are likely to inspire, raises the question of whether such creativity fits with conventional theories and perspectives of creativity. In this paper we use the opportunity afforded by the 2010-2013 Christchurch, New Zealand earthquakes to follow and assess the creative practices and responses of a number of groups and individuals. We use in-depth interviews to tease out motivations and read these against a range of theoretical propositions about creativity. In particular, we focus on the construct of “elite panic” and the degree to which this appeared to be evident in the Christchurch earthquakes context. Bureaucratic attempts to control or limit creativity were present but they did not produce a completely blanket dampening effect. Certain individuals and groups seemed to be pre-equipped to navigate or ignore potential blocks to creativity. We argue, using Geir Kaufmann’s novelty-creativity matrix and aspects of Teresa Amabile’s and Michael G. Pratt’s revised componential theory of creativity that a special form of disaster creativity does exist.
The 2010 and 2011 earthquakes of Canterbury have had a serious and ongoing effect on Maori in the city (Lambert, Mark-Shadbolt, Ataria, & Black, 2012). Many people had to rely on themselves, their neighbours and their whanau for an extended period in 2011, and some are still required to organise and coordinate various activities such as schooling, health care, work and community activities such as church, sports and recreation in a city beset by ongoing disruption and distress. Throughout the phases of response and recovery, issues of leadership have been implicitly and explicitly woven through both formal and informal investigations and debates. This paper presents the results of a small sample of initial interviews of Maori undertaken in the response and early recovery period of the disaster and discusses some of the implications for Maori urban communities.
Within four weeks of the September 4 2010 Canterbury Earthquake a new, loosely-knit community group appeared in Christchurch under the banner of “Greening the Rubble.” The general aim of those who attended the first few meetings was to do something to help plug the holes that had already appeared or were likely to appear over the coming weeks in the city fabric with some temporary landscaping and planting projects. This article charts the first eighteen months of Greening the Rubble and places the initiative in a broader context to argue that although seismic events in Christchurch acted as a “call to palms,” so to speak, the city was already in need of some remedial greening. It concludes with a reflection on lessons learned to date by GTR and commentary on the likely issues ahead for this new mini-social-environmental movement in the context of a quake-affected and still quake-prone major New Zealand city. One of the key lessons for GTR and all of those involved in Christchurch recovery activities to date is that the city is still very much in the middle of the event and is to some extent a laboratory for seismic and agency management studies alike.
The city of Christchurch, New Zealand, was until very recently a “Junior England”—a small city that still bore the strong imprint of nineteenth-century British colonization, alongside a growing interest in the underlying biophysical setting and the indigenous pre-European landscape. All of this has changed as the city has been subjected to a devastating series of earthquakes, beginning in September 2010, and still continuing, with over 12,000 aftershocks recorded. One of these aftershocks, on February 22, 2011, was very close to the city center and very shallow with disastrous consequences, including a death toll of 185. Many buildings collapsed, and many more need to be demolished for safety purposes, meaning that over 80 percent of the central city will have gone. Tied up with this is the city’s precious heritage—its buildings and parks, rivers, and trees. The threats to heritage throw debates over economics and emotion into sharp relief. A number of nostalgic positions emerge from the dust and rubble, and in one form is a reverse-amnesia—an insistence of the past in the present. Individuals can respond to nostalgia in very different ways, at one extreme become mired in it and unable to move on, and at the other, dismissive of nostalgia as a luxury in the face of more pressing crises. The range of positions on nostalgia represent the complexity of heritage debates, attachment, and identity—and the ways in which disasters amplify the ongoing discourse on approaches to conservation and the value of historic landscapes.
The city of Ōtautahi/Christchurch experienced a series of earthquakes that began on September 4th, 2010. The most damaging event occurred on February 22nd, 2011 but significant earthquakes also occurred on June 13th and December 23rd with aftershocks still occurring well into 2012. The resulting disaster is the second deadliest natural disaster in New Zealand’s history with 185 deaths. During 2011 the Canterbury earthquakes were one of the costliest disasters worldwide with an expected cost of up to $NZ30 billion.
Hundreds of commercial buildings and thousands of houses have been destroyed or are to be demolished and extensive repairs are needed for infrastructure to over 100,000 homes. As many as 8,900 people simply abandoned their homes and left the city in the first few months after the February event (Newell, 2012), and as many as 50,000 may leave during 2012. In particular, young whānau and single young women comprised a disproportionate number of these migrants, with evidence of a general movement to the North Island.
Te Puni Kōkiri sought a mix of quantitative and qualitative research to examine the social and economic impacts of the Christchurch earthquakes on Māori and their whānau. The result of this work will be a collection of evidence to inform policy to support and assist Māori and their whānau during the recovery/rebuild phases. To that end, this report triangulates available statistical and geographical information with qualitative data gathered over 2010 and 2011 by a series of interviews conducted with Māori who experienced the dramatic events associated with the earthquakes.
A Māori research team at Lincoln University was commissioned to undertake the research as they were already engaged in transdisciplinary research (began in the May 2010), that focused on quickly gathering data from a range of Māori who experienced the disaster, including relevant economic, environmental, social and cultural factors in the response and recovery of Māori to these events.
Participants for the qualitative research were drawn from Māori whānau who both stayed and left the city. Further data was available from ongoing projects and networks that the Lincoln research team was already involved in, including interviews with Māori first responders and managers operating in the CBD on the day of the February event. Some limited data is also available from younger members of affected whānau.
Māori in Ōtautahi/Christchurch City have exhibited their own culturally-attuned collective responses to the disaster. However, it is difficult to ascertain Māori demographic changes due to a lack of robust statistical frameworks but Māori outward migration from the city is estimated to range between 560 and 1,100 people.
The mobility displayed by Māori demonstrates an important but unquantified response by whānau to this disaster, with emigration to Australia presenting an attractive option for young Māori, an entrenched phenomenon that correlates to cyclical downturns and the long-term decline of the New Zealand economy. It is estimated that at least 315 Māori have emigrated from the Canterbury region to Australia post-quake, although the disaster itself may be only one of a series of events that has prompted such a decision.
Māori children made up more than one in four of the net loss of children aged 6 to 15 years enrolled in schools in Greater Christchurch over the year to June 2011. Research literature identifies depression affecting a small but significant number of children one to two years post-disaster and points to increasing clinical and organisational demands for Māori and other residents of the city.
For those residents in the eastern or coastal suburbs – home to many of the city’s Māori population - severe damage to housing, schools, shops, infrastructure, and streets has meant disruption to their lives, children’s schooling, employment, and community functioning. Ongoing abandonment of homes by many has meant a growing sense of unease and loss of security, exacerbated by arson, burglaries, increased drinking, a stalled local and national economy, and general confusion about the city’s future.
Māori cultural resilience has enabled a considerable network of people, institutions, and resources being available to Māori , most noticeably through marae and their integral roles of housing, as a coordinating hub, and their arguing for the wider affected communities of Christchurch.
Relevant disaster responses need to be discussed within whānau, kōhanga, kura, businesses, communities, and wider neighbourhoods. Comprehensive disaster management plans need to be drafted for all iwi in collaboration with central government, regional, and city or town councils.
Overall, Māori are remarkably philosophical about the effects of the disaster, with many proudly relishing their roles in what is clearly a historic event of great significance to the city and country. Most believe that ‘being Māori’ has helped cope with the disaster, although for some this draws on a collective history of poverty and marginalisation, features that contribute to the vulnerability of Māori to such events.
While the recovery and rebuild phases offer considerable options for Māori and iwi, with Ngāi Tahu set to play an important stakeholder in infrastructural, residential, and commercial developments, some risk and considerable unknowns are evident. Considerable numbers of Māori may migrate into the Canterbury region for employment in the rebuild, and trades training strategies have already been established.
With many iwi now increasingly investing in property, the risks from significant earthquakes are now more transparent, not least to insurers and the reinsurance sector. Iwi authorities need to be appraised of insurance issues and ensure sufficient coverage exists and investments and developments are undertaken with a clear understanding of the risks from natural hazards and exposure to future disasters.
This report presents the experiences of Tangata Whaiora (Mental health clients) through the disastrous earthquakes that struck Otautahi/Christchurch in 2010-11. It further analysis these experience to how show the social networks these individuals, their whānau, supporting staff respond and recover to a significant urban disaster.
The disaster challenged the mental health of those individuals who are impacted and the operations of organisations and networks that support and care for the mentally ill. How individuals and their families navigate a post-disaster landscape provides an unfortunate but unique opportunity to analyse how these support networks respond to severe disruption.
Tangata Whaiora possess experiences of micro-scale personal and family disasters and were not necessarily shocked by the loss of normality in Ōtautahi as a result of the earthquakes. The organic provision of clear leadership, outstanding commitment by staff, and ongoing personal and institutional dedication in the very trying circumstances of working in a post-disaster landscape all contributed to Te Awa o te Ora’s notable response to the disaster.
Millions of urban residents around the world in the coming century will experience severe landscape change – including increased frequencies of flooding due to intensifying storm events and impacts from sea level rise. For cities, collisions of environmental change with mismatched cultural systems present a major threat to infrastructure systems that support urban living. Landscape architects who address these issues express a need to realign infrastructure with underlying natural systems, criticizing the lack of social and environmental considerations in engineering works. Our ability to manage both society and the landscapes we live in to better adapt to unpredictable events and landscape changes is essential if we are to sustain the health and safety of our families, neighbourhoods, and wider community networks.
When extreme events like earthquakes or flooding occur in developed areas, the feasibility of returning the land to pre-disturbance use can be questioned. In Christchurch for example, a large expanse of land (630 hectares) within the city was severely damaged by the earthquakes and judged too impractical to repair in the short term. The central government now owns the land and is currently in the process of demolishing the mostly residential houses that formed the predominant land use. Furthermore, cascading impacts from the earthquakes have resulted in a general land subsidence of .5m over much of eastern Christchurch, causing disruptive and damaging flooding. Yet, although disasters can cause severe social and environmental distress, they also hold great potential as a catalyst to increasing adaption. But how might landscape architecture be better positioned to respond to the potential for transformation after disaster?
This research asks two core questions: what roles can the discipline of landscape architecture play in improving the resilience of communities so they become more able to adapt to change? And what imaginative concepts could be designed for alternative forms of residential development that better empower residents to understand and adapt the infrastructure that supports them?
Through design-directed inquiry, the research found landscape architecture theory to be well positioned to contribute to goals of social-ecological systems resilience. The discipline of landscape architecture could become influential in resilience-oriented multi disciplinary collaborations, with our particular strengths lying in six key areas: the integration of ecological and social processes, improving social capital, engaging with temporality, design-led innovation potential, increasing diversity and our ability to work across multiple scales. Furthermore, several innovative ideas were developed, through a site-based design exploration located within the residential red zone, that attempt to challenge conventional modes of urban living – concepts such as time-based land use, understanding roads as urban waterways, and landscape design and management strategies that increase community participation and awareness of the temporality in landscapes.
This report presents research on the affects of the Ōtautahi/Christchurch earthquakes of 2010 to 2012 on the city’s Tangata Whaiora community, ‘people seeking health’ as Māori frame mental health clients. Drawing on the voices of 39 participants of a Kaupapa Māori provider (Te Awa o te Ora), this report presents extended quotes from Tangata Whaiora, their support staff (many of whom are Tangata Whaiora), and managers as they speak of the events, their experiences, and support that sustained them in recoveries of well-being through the worse disaster in Aotearoa/New Zealand in three generations.
Ōtautahi contains a significant urban Māori population, many living in suburbs that were seriously impacted by the earthquakes that began before dawn on September 4th, 2010, and continued throughout 2011 and 2012. The most damaging event occurred on February 22nd, 2011, and killed 185 people and severely damaged the CBD as well as many thousands of homes. The thousands of aftershocks delayed the rebuilding of homes and infrastructure and exacerbated the stress and dislocation felt by residents. The tensions and disorder continue for numerous residents into 2014 and it will be many years before full social and physical recovery can be expected.
This report presents extended excerpts from the interviews of Tangata Whaiora and their support staff. Their stories of survival through the disaster reinforce themes of community and whānau while emphasising the reality that a significant number of Tangata Whaiora do not or cannot draw on this supports. The ongoing need for focused responses in the area of housing and accommodation, sufficiently resourced psycho-social support, and the value of Kaupapa Māori provision for Māori and non-Māori mental health clients cannot be overstated. The report also collates advice from participants to other Tangata Whaiora, their whānau, providers and indeed all residents of places subject to irregular but potentially devastating disaster. Much of this advice is relevant for more daily challenges and should not be underestimated despite its simplicity.
The disastrous earthquakes that struck Christchurch in 2010 and 2011 seriously impacted on the individual and collective lives of Māori residents. This paper continues earlier, predominantly qualitative research on the immediate effects on Māori by presenting an analysis of a survey carried out 18 months after the most destructive event, on 22 February 2011. Using a set-theoretic approach, pathways to Māori resilience are identified, emphasising the combination of whānau connectivity and high incomes in those who have maintained or increased their wellbeing post-disaster. However, the results show that if resilience is used to describe a “bounce back” in wellbeing, Māori are primarily enduring the post-disaster environment. This endurance phase is a precursor to any resilience and will be of much longer duration than first thought. With continued uncertainty in the city and wider New Zealand economy, this endurance may not necessarily lead to a more secure environment for Māori in the city.
The devastating earthquakes of September 2010 and February 2011 have without question upset the Christchurch City way of life for all. Families and businesses, as well as the natural and built environments have been directly affected, and our social landscapes have since evolved to accommodate the visible changes. Though not perhaps seen as a priority, the Christchurch nightlife has been profoundly altered by the quakes and the once popular CBD clubbing scene has ceased to exist. The concern highlighted in this article is the way in which this has put pressure on suburban bars and the the implications of this for local residents.
Successful urban regeneration projects generate benefits that are realised over a much longer timeframe than normal market developments and benefits well beyond those that can be uplifted by a market developer. Consequently there is substantial evidence in the literature that successful place-making and urban regeneration projects are usually public-private partnerships and involve a funder, usually local or central government, willing to contribute ‘patient’ capital. Following the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes that devastated the centre of Christchurch, there was an urgent need to rebuild and revitalise the heart of the city, and increasing the number of people living in or near the city centre was seen as a key ingredient of that. In October 2010, an international competition was launched to design and build an Urban Village, a project intended to stimulate renewed residential development in the city. The competition attracted 58 entrants from around world, and in October 2013 the winning team was chosen from four finalists. However the team failed to secure sufficient finance, and in November 2015 the Government announced that the development would not proceed. The Government was unwilling or unable to recognise that an insistence on a pure market approach would not deliver the innovative sustainable village asked for in the competition brief, and failed to factor in the opportunity cost to government, local government, local businesses and the wider Christchurch community of delaying by many years the residential development of the eastern side of the city. As a result, the early vision of the vitality that a thriving residential neighbourhood would bring to the city has not yet been realised.
On November 14, 2016 an earthquake struck the rural districts of Kaikōura and Hurunui on New Zealand’s South Island. The region—characterized by small dispersed communities, a local economy based on tourism and agriculture, and limited transportation connections—was severely impacted. Following the quake, road and rail networks essential to maintaining steady flows of goods, visitors, and services were extensively damaged, leaving agrifood producers with significant logistical challenges, resulting in reduced productivity and problematic market access. Regional tourism destinations also suffered with changes to the number, characteristics, and travel patterns of visitors. As the region recovers, there is renewed interest in the development and promotion of agrifood tourism and trails as a pathway for enhancing rural resilience, and a growing awareness of the importance of local networks. Drawing on empirical evidence and insights from a range of affected stakeholders, including food producers, tourism operators, and local government, we explore the significance of emerging agrifood tourism initiatives for fostering diversity, enhancing connectivity, and building resilience in the context of rural recovery. We highlight the motivation to diversify distribution channels for agrifood producers, and strengthen the region’s tourism place identity. Enhancing product offerings and establishing better links between different destinations within the region are seen as essential. While such trends are common in rural regions globally, we suggest that stakeholders’ shared experience with the earthquake and its aftermath has opened up new opportunities for regeneration and reimagination, and has influenced current agrifood tourism trajectories. In particular, additional funding for tourism recovery marketing and product development after the earthquake, and an emphasis on greater connectivity between the residents and communities through strengthening rural networks and building social capital within and between regions, is enabling more resilient and sustainable futures.
Disaster recovery involves the restoration, repair and rejuvenation of both hard and soft infrastructure. In this report we present observations from seven case studies of collaborative planning from post-earthquake Canterbury, each of which was selected as a means of better understanding ‘soft infrastructure for hard times’. Though our investigation is located within a disaster recovery context, we argue that the lessons learned are widely applicable.
Our seven case studies highlighted that the nature of the planning process or journey is as important as the planning objective or destination. A focus on the journey can promote positive outcomes in and of itself through building enduring relationships, fostering diverse leaders, developing new skills and capabilities, and supporting translation and navigation. Collaborative planning depends as much upon emotional intelligence as it does technical competence, and we argue that having a collaborative attitude is more important than following prescriptive collaborative planning formulae. Being present and allowing plenty of time are also key.
Although deliberation is often seen as an improvement on technocratic and expert dominated decision-making models, we suggest that the focus in the academic literature on communicative rationality and discursive democracy has led us to overlook other more active forms of planning that occur in various sites and settings. Instead, we offer an expanded understanding of what planning is, where it happens and who is involved. We also suggest more attention be given to values, particularly in terms of their role as a compass for navigating the terrain of decision-making in the collaborative planning process. We conclude with a revised model of a (collaborative) decision-making cycle that we suggest may be more appropriate when (re)building better homes, towns and cities.
The urban environment influences the way people live and shape their everyday lives, and microclimate sensitive design can enhance the use of urban streets and public spaces. Innovative approaches to urban microclimate design will become more important as the world’s population becomes ever more urban, and climate change generates more variability and extremes in urban microclimatic conditions. However, established methods of investigation based upon conventions drawn from building services research and framed by physiological concepts of thermal comfort may fail to capture the social dynamics of urban activity and their interrelationship with microclimate. This research investigates the relationship between microclimate and urban culture in Christchurch, New Zealand, based upon the concept of urban comfort. Urban comfort is defined as the socio-cultural (therefore collective) adaptation to microclimate due to satisfaction with the urban environment. It involves consideration of a combination of human thermal comfort requirements and adaptive comfort circumstances, preferences and strategies. A main methodological challenge was to investigate urban comfort in a city undergoing rapid physical change following a series of major earthquakes (2010-2011), and that also has a strongly seasonal climate which accentuates microclimatic variability. The field investigation had to be suitable for rapidly changing settings as buildings were demolished and rebuilt, and be able to capture data relevant to a cycle of seasons. These local circumstances meant that Christchurch was valuable as an example of a city facing rapid and unpredictable change. An interpretive, integrative, and adaptive research strategy that combined qualitative social science methods with biophysical measures was adopted. The results are based upon participant observation, 86 in-depth interviews with Christchurch residents, and microclimate data measurements. The interviews were carried out in a variety of urban settings including established urban settings (places sustaining relatively little damage) and emerging urban settings (those requiring rebuilding) during 2011-2013. Results of this research show that urban comfort depends on adaptive strategies which in turn depend on culture. Adaptive strategies identified through the data analysis show a strong connection between natural and built landscapes, combined with the regional outdoor culture, the Garden City identity and the connections between rural and urban landscapes. The results also highlight that thermal comfort is an important but insufficient indicator of good microclimate design, as social and cultural values are important influences on climate experience and adaptation. Interpretive research is needed to fully understand urban comfort and to provide urban microclimate design solutions to enhance the use of public open spaces in cities undergoing change.
Today there is interest in building resilient communities. Identifying and managing the risks of natural hazards with communities who face compounding hazards is challenging. Alpine ski areas provide a unique context to study this challenging and complex process. The traditional approach taken to manage natural hazards is discipline-centric and focuses on common (e.g. high probability low consequence) natural hazards such as avalanches. While this thesis acknowledges that the common approach is rational, it argues that we can extend our communities of practice to include rare (e.g. low probability / high consequence) natural hazards such as earthquakes. The dynamically complex nature of these ‘rare’ hazards limits our understanding about them, but by seeking and using the lived experiences of people in mountain communities some knowledge can be gained to help improve our understanding of how to adapt. This study focuses on such an approach in the context of alpine ski areas prone to earthquakes as a first step toward identifying key policy opportunities for hazard mitigation in general.
The contributions can be broken down into methodological, contextual, and theoretical pursuits, as well as opportunities for improving future research. A development mixed method triangulated approach was justified because the research problem (i.e. earthquakes in ski areas) has had little consideration. The context provided the opportunity to test the integration of methods while dealing with the challenges of research in a novel context. Advancement to fuzzy cognitive mapping was achieved through the use of unsupervised neural networks (Self-organizing Maps or Kohonen Maps). The framework applied in the multi-site case study required a synthesis of current approaches, advances to methods and a functional use of cultural theory. Different approaches to participatory policy development were reviewed to develop a research protocol that was accessible.
Cultural theory was selected as a foundation for the thesis because of its’ preference for plural rationalities from five ways of organizing. Moreover, the study undertook a shift away from the dichotomy of ‘methodological individualism’ and ‘methodological collectivism’ and instead chose the dividual (i.e. social solidarities that consist of culural biases, behavioral strategies and social relations) as a consistent unit of analysis despite three different methodologies including: field studies, qualitative interviews, and fuzzy cognitive maps. In this sense, the thesis sought to move away from ‘elegant solutions’ from singular solidarities or methods toward a research philosophy that sustains requisite variety and clumsy solutions. Overall the approach was a trandisciplinary framework that is a step toward sustainable hazards mitigation.
The results indicate that the selections of risks and adaptation strategies associated with the in-situ hazards are driven by roles that managers, workers, and riders play in the context. Additionally, fuzzy cognitive maps were used as an extension of qualitative interviews and demonstrated the potential for power struggles that may arise between participant groups when considering strategies for preparation, response and recovery. Moreover, the results stress that prolonged engagement with stakeholders is necessary to improve the policy development process. Some comments are made on the compatibility condition of congruence between cultural biases, behavioural strategies, and social relations. As well, inclusion of the hermit/autonomous solidarities is stressed as a necessary component of future applications of cultural theory. The transdisciplinary mixed-method framework is an approach that can be transferred to many other vital areas of research where integration is desirable.
Earthquakes and other major disasters present communities and their authorities with an extraordinary challenge. While a lot can be done to prepare a city’s response in the event of a disaster, few cities are truly prepared for the initial impact, devastation, grief, and the seemingly formidable challenge of recovery. Many people find themselves overwhelmed with facing critical problems; ones which they have often never had experience with before. While the simple part is agreeing on a desired outcome for recovery, it appears the argument that exists between stakeholders is the conflicting ideas of How To effectively achieve the main objective. What I have identified as an important step toward collaborating on the How To of recovery is to identify the ways in which each discipline can most effectively contribute to the recovery. Landscape architecture is just one of the many disciplines (that should be) invovled in the How To of earthquake recovery.
Canterbury has an incredible opportunity to set the benchmark for good practice in earthquake recovery. To make the most of this opportuntiy, it is critical that landscape architects are more effectively engaged in roles of recovery across a much broader spectrum of recovery activities. The overarching purpose of this research is to explore and provide insight to the current and potential of landscape architects in the earthquake recovery period in Canterbury, using international good practice as a benchmark. The research is aimed at stimulating and guiding landscape architects dealing with the earthquake recovery in Canterbury, while informing stakeholders: emergency managers, authorities, other disciplines and the wider community of themost effective role(s) for landscape architects in the recovery period.
Oarai is a coastal town in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. The disaster severely damaged local industries, and the local tourism sector faced a sharp decline followed the event. To overcome the conundrum, the local tourism businesses have taken the opportunity to collaborate with an anime called Girls und Panzer, which has been developed by an external animation production studio. This collaboration has resulted in huge success, and the drop in the local tourism industry had been largely reversed, but has resulted in a significant change to the tourism system. This thesis explores the activities and outcomes of this tourism industry reimagining. A mixed-method approach was used to investigate the perception of local tourism businesses to the current Oarai tourism system, and examine the transformative effect of the disaster and its aftermath. Perceptions of disaster impact and anime tourism development were analysed through surveys (n=73) and interviews (n=2) which focused on tourism business operators, while participant observation was conducted to create the image of anime tourism operation in Oarai. Results show that the development of anime tourism in Oarai successfully helped the local tourism businesses to recover from the disaster. As new agencies and organisations joined the anime tourism network, anime tourism increased communication between stakeholders, and improved the resilience of the community. The new tourism development has transformed the local tourism industry, to some extent, however. the future trajectory of anime tourism in Oarai is difficult to forecast, and there is scope for longitudinal research of this tourism system.
Group case study report prepared for lecturers Ton Buhrs and Roy Montgomery by students of ERST 635 at Lincoln University, 2013.The New Zealand Government’s decision to establish a unitary authority in the Auckland Region has provided much of the context and impetus for this review of current governance arrangements in the Canterbury region, to determine whether or not they are optimal for taking the communities of greater Christchurch into the future. A number of local governance academics, as well as several respected political pundits, have prophesised that the Auckland ‘Super City’ reforms of 2009 will have serious implications and ramifications for local governance arrangements in other major cities, particularly Wellington and Christchurch. Wellington councils have already responded to the possibility of change by undertaking a series of reports on local governance arrangements, as well as a major review led by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, to investigate options for governance reform. Alongside these developments, the Christchurch earthquakes beginning in September 2010 have raised a myriad of new and complex governance issues, which may or may not be able to be addressed under the status quo, while the replacement of Regional Councillors’ with centrally-appointed Commissioners is suggestive of government dissatisfaction with current arrangements. With these things in mind, the research group has considered local government in Canterbury and the greater Christchurch area in the wider governance context. It does not limit discussion to only the structure of local government in Canterbury but rather, as the brief (Appendix 1) indicates, considers more broadly the relationship between central, regional, and local tiers of government, as well as the relationship between local government and local communities.
The world is constantly changing. Christchurch, New Zealand, has recently experienced drastic changes after earthquakes struck the city. The earthquakes caused the city to physically shake, and the land to sink in some places and rise in others. Now further change is forcast and parts of Christchurch could be under water by 2115 according to experts.
Climate change induced sea level rise is recognised as a international issue with potential impacts for coastal communities all over the world. The Chrischtchurch City Council is required to have a 100-year planning horizon for sea level rise and this means planning for at least one meter, and possibly up to two meters, of sea level rise by 2115. This dissertation investigates the planning response to slow onset disasters, change, and uncertainty, using the example of sea-level rise in Christchurch, and it examines the role of public participation in this. To achieve this, the ways in which planning theory and practice acknowledge uncertainty, and cope with change, were critically analysed along with the Christchurch City Council’s response to the Tonkin and Taylor predictions and modelling. Semi-structured interviews with professionals in natural hazards risk reduction, policy, and planning were conducted, and the previous and proposed Christchurch City District Plans were compared.
Planning for sea level rise in Christchurch provides an example of how planners may cope with slow onset change. The results of this dissertation suggests that the favoured risk reduction strategy for coastal communities in Christchurch is an adaptation strategy, and at present there is no sign of managed retreat being employed. The results also suggests using a planning approach that involves public participation for best results when planning for change, uncertainty or slow onset disasters.
An often overlooked aspect of urban housing development is the composition of the space between buildings; the streetscape. The pressures of suppressing suburban sprawl have seen housing developments respond by increasing residential density within more centralised city sites. Medium-density housing typologies are often used as urban infill in response to the challenge of accommodating an increasing population. A by-product of these renewed areas is the creation of new open space which serves as the fundamental public space for sociability to develop in communities. Street space should emphasise this public expression by encouraging social exchange and interaction. As a result, a neighbourhood owes its liveliness (or lack thereof) to its streets. The issue of density when applied to the urban housing landscape encompasses two major components: the occupancy of both the private realms, constituting the residential built form, and the public spaces that adjoins them, the streets. STREETSCAPE: dialogues of street + house. Continual transition between the realms of public and private (building and
street space) enact active edges, giving way to public stimulation; the opportunity for experiencing other people. The advent of seeing and hearing other people in connection with daily comings and goings encourages social events to evolve,
enhancing the notion of neighbourly conduct. Within New Zealand, and specifically in Christchurch as considered here, the compositions of current streetscapes lack the demeanor to really encourage and facilitate the idea of neighbourly interaction and public expression. Here lies the potential for new street design to significantly heighten the interplay of human activity. In response, this research project operates under the notion that the street spaces of urban residential areas are largely underutilised. This lack is particularly evident in the street. Street design should strive to produce spaces which stimulate the public life of residents. There exists a need to reassert eminence of the street as a space for vibrant neighbourhood life. This thesis employs design as a tool for researching and
will involve using numerous concept generators to trigger the production of multiple scenarios. These scenarios are to
explore the ways in which the streetscapes within medium-density urban communities could respond in the event of (re)
development.
Numerous studies have shown that urban soils can contain elevated concentrations of heavy metals (HMs). Christchurch, New Zealand, is a relatively young city (150 years old) with a population of 390,000. Most soils in Christchurch are sub-urban, with food production in residential gardens a popular activity. Earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 have resulted in the re-zoning of 630 ha of Christchurch, with suggestions that some of this land could be used for community gardens. We aimed to determine the HM concentrations in a selection of suburban gardens in Christchurch as well as in soils identified as being at risk of HM contamination due to hazardous former land uses or nearby activities. Heavy metal concentrations in suburban Christchurch garden soils were higher than normal background soil concentrations. Some 46% of the urban garden samples had Pb concentrations higher than the residential land use national standard of 210 mg kg⁻¹, with the most contaminated soil containing 2615 mg kg⁻¹ Pb. Concentrations of As and Zn exceeded the residential land use national standards (20 mg kg⁻¹ As and 400 mg kg⁻¹ Zn) in 20% of the soils. Older neighbourhoods had significantly higher soil HM concentrations than younger neighbourhoods. Neighbourhoods developed pre-1950s had a mean Pb concentration of 282 mg kg⁻¹ in their garden soils. Soil HM concentrations should be key criteria when determining the future land use of former residential areas that have been demolished because of the earthquakes in 2010 and 2011. Redeveloping these areas as parklands or forests would result in less human HM exposure than agriculture or community gardens where food is produced and bare soil is exposed.
This paper identifies and analyses the networks of support for tangata whaiora (mental health clients) utilising a kaupapa Mäori health service following the Ötautahi/Christchurch earthquakes
in Aotearoa New Zealand from 2010 to 2012. Semi- structured interviews were undertaken with 39 participants, comprising clients (Mäori and Päkehä), staff, managers and board members of a kaupapa Mäori provider in the city. Selected quotes are presented alongside a social network analysis of the support accessed by all participants. Results show the signifi cant isolation of both Mäori and Päkehä mental health clients post- disaster and the complexity of individuals and collectives dealing with temporally and spatially overlapping hazards and disasters at personal, whänau and community level.
