The Closer Look: Stretching Outward.

I sit in Tūranga, the Christchurch city library, four floors up. Below me, a vast square stretches out as small figures wander here and there. I sense that this is a big city, some four hundred thousand residents indicating so, but it feels remarkably open; remarkably breathable.

Christchurch is a beautiful example of what happens when a city builds outwards, not upwards. Low buildings open up the sky, letting in the light, brightening the ground. Parks, rivers, and green spaces are given room, fostering communities around them. Civilisation stretches from hilltop to sea, playing out in a vast horizontal plane of connection; a spider’s web of existence. When we navigate these outward-reaching cities, we measure our location in onward, not upward, distance. We’re always ‘four kilometres away’ and never ‘forty floors up’.

To satisfy their range of demands, Planet Earth’s biggest cities often build upwards. This is something we’re not so familiar with in Aotearoa—schoolkids living in thirty-story highrises, navigating underground transportation systems, spending more time in elevators than on footpaths. Take Hong Kong, Manhattan, Dubai as textbook examples of cities that reach skyward. Civilisation is so centralised, so incredibly condensed and layered that it’s hard to comprehend how much humanity they really hold.

To build upwards, therein centralising civilisation as opposed to expanding it, is a model that facilitates the flow of urban life, but more pressingly, the demand of overpopulation. It is leagues more economical to have 450 humans living in one highrise building than across 150 houses. Commutes are less onerous when your office is above your gym and supermarket. This hive-like arrangement can be taxing on one’s human nature, especially when infrastructure strangles out the green space that calms us. Still, there are ecological advantages to it. Less surrounding space is expanded upon; commuting and public transport is more efficient; housing is perhaps more affordable for the burgeoning generations. While dense and towering cities are scarcely utopias at all, they are remarkable studies in how we, as a global population, react to outpacing ourselves.

A human’s psychological response to a city will differ from one to the next. Yours might be different from mine. Some people feel their most connected when they’re amid dense urbanity.There’s a paradoxical sensation of feeling anonymous in a city of eight million. To some it feels safe or settling to be just one in a sea of so many. But in contrast, the suburban sprawl of outwardly-built cities gives to some a sense of tranquility. They find solace living in their own pocket of civilization. They can just as easily commute into the city when they please, as they can stretch out on their lawns, listening to the birdsong.

I suppose Christchurch has built outwards for reasons beyond its control — devastation, recovery, rebirth. It hasn’t yet subjected us to the urban climb that pushes us skywards. Perhaps it never will. We like to think it’s the demands of humans that shape cities, but then too, it's our cities that are so potent in shaping who we are, as beings.

Profoundly,

Max

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Thanks for reading this Months Closer Look, kindly written by Max Francis. You can find more of Max’s Excellent writing here.