Institutional arrangements for metropolitan government and strategic planning in Auckland

Abstract

The task of designing appropriate institutional arrangements for metropolitan government and planning has recently proved highly contestable politically. We interrogate how the role of the Auckland Regional Council (ARC) was zealously contested and hollowed‐out during the 1990s. More recently, the impacts of the neo‐liberal reforms in Auckland have been mediated by a further round of local government reforms inspired by a Third Way ideology and by the imperative to respond to the planning crisis resulting from infrastructure underinvestment. New regionally based governance arrangements and planning processes have been created. We argue that this new commitment to regionalism can realistically expect to be tested by deep‐seated political cleavages within Auckland and by Auckland's relationship with central government.

Relaunching Regional Economic-Development Policy and Planning for Auckland: Remaking the State and Contingent Governance under Neoliberalism

“…It has allowed interpreting regional intervention in New Zealand and the genesis of new regulatory structures in Auckland from an alternative viewpoint. In contrast to more orthodox inquiries (see, for example, Memon et al, 2007), it has highlighted the contextual conditions in which actors made steps to influence economic processes in Auckland. It has revealed key dimensions of the emergence of governance, or the`in the making', by trying to move`into' the evolving regulatory arrangements that emerge under New Zealand's neoliberal conditions.…”

Getting to Common Ground: A Comparison of Ontario, Canada’s Provincial Policy Statement and the Auckland Council Regional Policy Statement with Respect to Indigenous Peoples

“…First, as major regions, both the Auckland Region and Southern Ontario comprise of a large proportion of their respective national populations; the Auckland Region comprising 30% of Aotearoa New Zealand's population and Southern Ontario comprising over 30% of Canada's population (MAH, 2014b;Memon, Davies, & Fookes, 2007). Each region is growing fast and provides core economic functions nationally.…”

“…Each region is growing fast and provides core economic functions nationally. Each region is also characterized in many places by similar patterns of low-density sprawl (Gordon & Janzen, 2013;Memon et al, 2007). In terms of governance, both regions during the 1990s faced a series of reforms and amalgamations that resulted in significant reductions of the number of local governments (Memon et al, 2007;Sancton, 2011).…”

“…Each region is also characterized in many places by similar patterns of low-density sprawl (Gordon & Janzen, 2013;Memon et al, 2007). In terms of governance, both regions during the 1990s faced a series of reforms and amalgamations that resulted in significant reductions of the number of local governments (Memon et al, 2007;Sancton, 2011). Finally, Southern Ontario and the Auckland Region both exist on ancestral lands of Indigenous peoples and planning texts in these regions until recently undervalued Indigenous peoples.…”

‘Rooms and moments’ in neoliberalising policy trajectories of metropolitan Auckland, New Zealand: Towards constituting progressive spaces through post‐structural political economy

“…The truncated mix of local institutional actors, with newly defined roles, took some time before they began to identify possible gains from cooperation around a regional growth framework. The valuable overview by Memon et al . (2007: 48) notes that under the National Government (1990–1999) attempts were made to delegitimate ‘strategic planning and contest the role of the Auckland Regional Council (ARC) in steering urban growth within the Resource Management Act (RMA) framework.…”