Creating Creative Christchurch

The central argument for this thesis is changing Christchurch from an industrial society relying on a low value manufacturing economy to a post-industrial knowledge society that relies on a creative economy. There is a particular focus on education as the primary means by which this transformation can take place. This change is necessary if regions around New Zealand like Christchurch want to be globally competitive and attract businesses, immigrants and tourists. Moreover, this change is imperative in order to sustain or improve the quality of life within these regions. Unfortunately the quality of life and standards of living in New Zealand have been declining since its peak in the 1970s. In 1976, New Zealands gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was ranked 12th out of thirty OECDcountries; by 2006, this rank had fallen to 22nd. A large part of this deterioration is due to the sort of employment in which New Zealanders choose engage. Particular, regions around the country relying heavily on primary industry and low value manufacturing (low skill factory labour) will see the most significant declines in economic performance. Unlike the city of Auckland, Christchurch still continues to be heavily reliant on primary industry for employment and economic growth. Although high value services and manufacture is a slowly growing sector of the economy of Christchurch, it still is a largely under represented portion. Low skill forms of employment such as transportation, mining, agriculture, public services and low skill factory labour comprise a large majority of around 70% of the total labour force of Christchurch. This leaves a mere 30% of workers employed in high skill and high value forms of employment such as professional, scientific, technical, finance and telecommunication services. As a result, the city does not take advantage of its intellectual capital. Instead its citizens choose to engage in laborious work yielding low value manufacture products and consumer goods. Unfortunately these low value employment sectors that employ the highest numbers of people also have experienced the greatest negative growth over the last decade: a shortfall of 11% fewer jobs. This leads to a situation where workers strikes, job cuts and unhappy employees will come about due to shrinkage of these major sectors. The focus of this thesis is to invest in the intellectual capital and creative minds that Christchurch has in order to increase the citys value of work output. Creating creative Christchurch focuses on attracting and retaining the creative class in order to take advantage of the benefits of their ideas and innovations. These creative outputs will lead to an increase in creative jobs, growth in GRP and a general improvement on the citys quality of life. In order for Christchurch to be less reliant on the manufacturing and agricultural industries, more of its citizens need to be educated and specialized in order for them to create high value products and consumer goods. This requires a paradigm shift in one that moves from production based learning to a creative based learning systems as well as a significant change in the way education providers deliver education. Alternative means of learning are already being used around the globe in order to make quality education more accessible. Institutions like the Khan Academy and the European Association of Distance Education Universities have implemented alternative systems of learning and qualification aimed at extending the reach of education. These systems are free of charge and open to the access of anyone through the internet. The inadequacies of our education system as it exists today have adverse consequences on socio-economic development. Currently, only 27% of school leavers in Christchurch attain university entrance and 53% attain basic qualifications without university entrance. However the most pressing issue is the20% of Christchurch School leavers that attain no qualification at all. These low achievers move onto low skilled labour as employment paths. As mentioned before, the lack of high skilled workers increases the regions reliance on manufacturing and primary industry as sources for employment and regional revenue. The deficit of employment opportunities for skilled and educated individuals will drive them elsewhere leading to the brain drain phenomenon. This means manufacture heavy regions of the country like Christchurch will not be able to retain the students studying in its schools, universities and polytechnic colleges. Over a third of PhD and a quarter of Masters graduates leave the city seeking relevant employment opportunities in Auckland or Australia. Amoung the high skilled migrants of Christchurch, 56% are immigrants and 64% are emigrants. This is a net loss of 8% highly skilled workers per annum. Compare this with Aucklands migrant composition of 59% immigrants and 50% emigrants (a net gain of 9%). Meanwhile, the industrial output coming about as a product of Christchurchs primary production will not effectively stir the growth of the GRP. The stagnant growth of the GRP will hinder the regions quality of life with little or no investment going into public amenities (parks, reserves, libraries, waterfront developments etc). The lower quality of life will have a further devastating effect on the attraction and retention of educated individuals like the creative class. Without the creative class,

opportunities for high value manufacturing, professional services and innovation based employment will be severely restricted. This restarts the cycle of heavy reliance on primary industry and unskilled jobs. Workers will labor long hours yielding low value manufacture products. Thus allowing the viscous cycle of an uneconomic-economy to continue (refer to figure 1). Christchurch can break this cycle by investing in education. A valuable precedent for Chrostchurch to learn from is the Finnish city of Lahti. It rose from the economic slump of the early nineties recession by prioritizing education as the primary foundation for economic revival. At its worst, the manufacturing based city saw the rise of unemployment from 3.8% in 1990 to 26.8% by 1994 (605% increase in 4 years). Following its knowledge revolution, the city saw the rates of tertiary qualifications grow by 307% in 17 years. This allowed the GRP to grow by 254% in that space of time. The civic leaders of Lahti better integrated education, employment and learning as a lifestyle in order to reverse significant brain drain statistics. These creative and educated individuals stirred the economy through their creativity and innovation, created jobs and improved the citys quality of life. Lahtis change in perception of education allowed it to move from an industrial society based on a manufacturing economy to a knowledge society based on a creative economy (figure 2). The major infrastructural repairs that Christchurch faces due to the devastating earthquakes can be used to the advancement of the citys economic growth. The region can use this opportunity to address the lack of infrastructure that has allowed for the uneconomic employment composition and lack of innovative businesses. By re-addressing how the citizens of Christchurch perceive education, we can begin to take the first steps of transforming the economy of the city for the better. The architectural and urban design strategy of the thesis aims to facilitate this growth of creative education by providing necessary infrastructure to expand the Unlimited School. The creative education systems Unlimited have in place are nonprescriptive learning methods for students, where a learning advisor does not necessarily prescribe a page from a set subject text book for a student to learn from. Rather the systems in place at Unlimited encourage students to research their own methods of learning. This places a large demand on computers where 70% of the students in the school are in possession of a personal computer. However this proportion of ownership would be unrealistic for less affluent regions in the city like Hornby. The design proposes Learning Lounges for less affluent neighbourhoods with the aim of facilitating the demands of creative education. These learning lounges will house computer facilities, collaborative learning spaces, individual learning spaces and wifi hotspots for the nighbourhood community. The second phase of my design aims to further enhance this creative education system by allowing for a central hub of learning. Here facilities for learning advisors will be provided (offices, administration spaces etc.) along with more research and learning services (library, exhibition spaces etc.) for students and the general public. The aim is to promote lifelong learning for both students and general public. A vision that I believe works in conjunction with the long term goals of Unlimited.

National School Leavers

Tertiary Qualifications
Student numbers

Out of all

57, 454 school leavers in 2011 there are:

33, 667

9, 656

6, 481

5, 893

4, 148

1st
Auckland 36, 000

2nd
Canterbury

3rd
Wellington

4th
Waikato

5th
Otago

18, 874 higher achievers

24, 000

31, 171 mediocre achievers

12, 000

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

7, 409 low achievers Little or no attainment School level qualified without u.e University entrance or higher

certificate

diploma

degree

4, 148

6, 481 11%

33, 667

18% 54% 61% 28%

28%

Skills Distribution
Departures Departures Departures Population Population Population

High Skilled Migration Patterns

immigration

Arrivals

Arrivals

Key

Arrivals

Christchurch

70 60
% Composition

50 40 30 20
64% 56% 28% 19% 21% 28% 17% 23% 44%

Hi NZ

Hi NZ

10 0

Significant inflow of 30-49 year olds (and children) from Asia Auckland
70 60
% Composition

Inflow of 30-49 year olds (and children) from the world*

emigration

50 40 30 20
50% 59% 45% 28% 19% 25% 22% 25% 30%

Bye NZ

Bye NZ

10 0

New Zealand

70 60

age based net migration per annum

% Composition

50 40 30 20
51% 52% 37% 23% 22% 28% 25% 27% 35%

Significant outflow of 20-30 year olds to Australia

20, 000 15, 000 10, 000 5, 000 0 -5, 000 -10, 000 -15, 000 -20, 000

Small general outflow to the world*

*excluding Australia

24-30 year olds 30-50 year olds Under 14 year olds

10 0

2002

2004

2006

2000

2008

1984

1980

1982

1986

1988

1990

1992

1996

1998

1994

2010

1972

1978

1976

1974

High Skilled

Semi Skilled

Low Skilled

500

500 500

National Economic Performance

500

500

50 0
500

50 0
500 500 50 0

120

130

100

110

70 70

Christchurch Employment Composition

Education and Training

high skill employment

Information Media and Telecommunications Other Services Financial and Insurance Services Professional, Scientific and Technical Services Accommodation and Food Services

% Growth over the last decade

Wholesale Trade Rental, Hiring and Real Estate Services Health Care and Social Assistance Retail Trade Administrative and Support Services Public Administration and Safety Electricity, Gas, Water and Waste Services Arts and Recreation Services
year of -ve growth

semi skilled employment

28%

28%

diminishing demand for low skill labour

Construction

low skill employment

Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing Transport, Postal and Warehousing

2005 2010

Key

Manufacturing Mining 50 40 30 20 -20 -30 -40 10 -10

0

JOBS MORE MORE BACK PAY!!! JOBS! NOW!!

44%

% of OECD average of GDP per capita

Hours worked per capita % of OECD average

Ne w

Ze al

90

80

200

150

100

50

Tu d rk ey Sp ai n Ja pa n Ic el an Ca d na d Au a st ra l En ia gl an Fi d nl an d US A Ire la n Ge d rm a Be ny lg iu m Fr an ce
150 120 130 100 110 Value of work per hour % of OECD average

New Zealand
1976 1986

Australia England Spain

140

Norway Ireland USA

80

90

year

1996

2006

an

500 50 0

500

500
500