Imagined landscapes find their form in utopian dreaming. As ideal places, utopias are set up according to the ideals of their designers. Inevitably, utopias become compromised when they move from the imaginary into the actual. Opportunities to create utopias rely largely on a blank slate, a landscape unimpeded by the inconveniences of existing occupation – or even topography. Christchurch has seen two utopian moments. The first was at the time of European settlement in the mid-nineteenth century, when imported ideals provided a model for a new city. The earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 provided a second point at which utopian dreaming spurred visions for the city. Christchurch’s earthquakes have provided a unique opportunity for a city to re-imagine itself. Yet, as is the fate for all imaginary places, reality got in the way.
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.
