Housing, Homelessness, and Community
by Peter Naylor
A major change occurred in the late ’20s as new technologies evolved for building houses. This meant that homeless people were able to get small, safe, warm, secure abodes. Wrapped around these buildings are social services to help the homeless adjust to their new surroundings.
To make this happen there was a change in thinking. This tied in with some of the changes to the work environment as well. Firstly, bucking the world trend of making the cities bigger and more concentrated, we looked at how to better use the towns that are spread throughout the country. Secondly, we looked at the creation of brand-new green communities, and thirdly how we could change our existing cities into 15-minute cities.
Going into more detail on each of these.
Firstly, with the widespread distribution of fibre, mobile, and satellite services, in 2050 most people can work from anywhere, so what becomes important to them is what they want to do with their leisure time. Over time some towns become specialised in leisure activities and people are attracted to live in these towns. This has revitalised the townships and given longer-term residents the opportunity to expand their interests and capabilities.
The social fabric of these smaller communities means that people support each other rather than just living in a city, where you may never speak to a neighbour and have a very limited social network. With the changes brought about by Robotics and Automation, there have been new roles created in the community that foster this mode of living.
Shared Office facilities have popped up in these communities, where individuals can ‘go to work’. They have a desk that their employer can rent for them, either as a fixed or hot desk. There are meeting spaces that can be used if required. There are several advantages to these spaces. There can be social interaction with regular co-sharers even if they don’t work for the same employer. It means that they don’t need to work off the dining room table at home, and it gives the stay-at-home partner a break as well.
Secondly, as an expansion on the concept of the move to towns, totally new villages and towns have been created. Some of these are close to cities and are well served by an all-electric fleet of vehicles traveling at regular intervals during the day, as well as autonomous vehicles that can be reserved exclusively or on a ride-share basis. The towns themselves don’t have vehicles inside the town boundaries except for motorised scooters for the aged population.
Within these towns, there are smaller communities that have shared living facilities. Residents have their own personal space but also have shared kitchen and dining facilities, share lounges and recreational spaces. In these smaller communities, there is a mix of ages, with the elderly providing assistance with childcare, young adults helping the elderly or disabled with tasks that are difficult for them, all ages sharing in the cooking for the community meals etc. Basically, taking living ideas from multi-generational Māori and Pasifika cultures extended families, but not necessarily with blood relations. These communities tend to be multicultural as well, adding richness to all who live together. The traditional retirement villages have become multi-generational villages. Villages within the towns can be quite different from each other. Some for example have embraced a growing culture where there are community gardens, while others centre around artistic pursuits, such as painting or music.
These towns are carbon neutral in that they have solar power on all rooves, with mini wind turbines. There is battery storage, and they provide power back into the network to generate pumps for local small hydropower storage lakes where the location suits, otherwise they power Tower Energy Vaults that raise weights during surplus power that can generate power as they are lowered. There have been lots of other ideas developed over the last 25 years. Having electricity production close to where it is used has reduced the cost of production and distribution massively and reduced the risk from weather impacts to national transmission.
Each town has the services required for day-to-day living. In towns that are further away from a major centre, there are high-speed rail links so that those that need to commute or visit the major centres on a regular basis, can.
Thirdly, we have adopted the concept of the 15-minute city started in the early 2000’s in major European cities. The concept of the 15-minute city is that you can get most of the day-to-day services and items you need within a 15-minute walk or cycle from your home, including work, food, healthcare, education, and leisure. This has required a considerable effort as most cities evolved to the idea of commuting by private motor vehicle, with large retail complexes, and this way of living has been hard to change. The large retail complexes started to struggle in the 2030s as online retail really took off. Over the last 25 years, there has been a move away from excessive consumerism. Younger generations living in smaller places don’t tend to accumulate as much, they recycle and upcycle more and generally don’t replace items such as clothing at anywhere the rate that their preceding generations did.
All housing now is up to a warrantable standard, making sure that people are living in a healthy environment. The education system is teaching young people life skills including the importance of a clean-living environment, resulting in lower levels of illness in the community. There is still a long way to go and a few more generations before living in squalor is eliminated.
With the changes in how New Zealand’s economy works, more on that in a later article, there isn’t such a dependence on capital values of housing and property constantly improving. House prices settled and investors moved from lower returns on housing to the new investments in technology and other services that grow NZ’s balance of payments, meaning that we now produce, and export more than we import. This has been a fundamental reason that we have been able to improve our rankings in the world in the Key Performance Indicators outlined in the introduction. Landlords get a reasonable return on their investment but are now responsible for ensuring that the houses are maintained. There are very clear expectations of tenants’ roles and responsibilities as well.
We no longer allow immigration unless there is infrastructure already in place. This includes adequate housing, educational, and health facilities. There must be human resources available to help the assimilation of the immigrants into NZ society and the concepts of the towns outlined above make this a reality. Immigrants are welcomed into towns in the first instance and then are free to move to larger cities if they choose once they have mastered the language and trained for roles that may only be available in the city.
With a creative focus on education and leveraging the creativity of our neurodiverse citizens, we have come up with some ingenious methods of building. We have 3D-printed houses, that cost a fraction of the traditional build. These include using materials such as local clays blended with plant material such as hemp, rather than less sustainable cement-based products. Not only are these types of building lower cost but they are rapid to build, well insulated, and robust. Natural materials provide a healthier living environment.
We talk more about some of the other building ideas in the Productivity article later.
a) Serena, Mike, Chrissie, Anna, Bob, Mary
Meet Serena, a homeless woman living on the streets of New Zealand in the late 2020s. Her life was a daily struggle for survival, with no place to call home. Serena dreamt of a warm, safe, and secure place to live, but it seemed like an impossible dream.
Then, in a moment of hope, new technologies emerged for building houses. These innovations marked a turning point for Serena and countless others like her. They could finally have small, safe, and warm homes of their own. What made these housing initiatives even more transformative was the wraparound support services provided to help the homeless adjust to their new surroundings.
Serena was able to take advantage of innovative building techniques, her house being 3D-printed and made from sustainable materials like local clays blended with hemp. Her house was not only cost-effective but also rapid to build, well-insulated, and environmentally friendly. It represented a shift toward more sustainable and healthier living environments.
The change in thinking extended beyond housing to the very fabric of New Zealand's society. Instead of following the global trend of creating larger, more concentrated cities, the country explored different approaches.
Some towns, like the one where Serena now lived, had become specialized in leisure activities. With widespread access to high-speed internet, most people could work from anywhere, freeing them to choose how they spent their leisure time. These towns thrived, offering their residents vibrant communities where people supported each other, forming tight-knit social networks. This all helped Sarah adjust to her new life as she was given a chance to learn and grow.
New villages and towns had sprung up, some near existing cities and served by all-electric transportation fleets. These communities focused on sustainability, with no internal combustion vehicles inside town boundaries. Within these towns, residents shared living facilities, creating multigenerational communities that resembled extended families, regardless of blood relations. They were multicultural and rich in diversity, with each town specializing in unique areas, from community gardens to artistic pursuits.
Serena lived in one such village, Tūmanako, 10km south of New Plymouth close to the coast. Several surf breaks had been set up just offshore ensuring a nice even surf of differing levels of skill, supporting a number of local surf schools. In the village, there was a mix of accommodation to support various requirements for people in the various stages of life. One type of accommodation was a mix of 1,2,3,4 bedroom units that each had a small kitchenette, their own 1 or 2 bathrooms, an office, and a limited living space. These units were all interconnected to common area, where there was a large kitchen, dining area, and other common areas. There is a large mix of generations living in these units. June is the Chief Financial Officer for the TSB, and gets to the centre of New Plymouth in 10 minutes to the head office on the days she goes to the office, her husband Bob works as a Surf instructor, and is available for their children Mike and Chrissie, after school. Mary is retired and lives in a single bedroom unit. She sometimes helps with looking after Mike and Chrissie, when Bob has a late lesson, or is away at a surf competition. Mary isn’t related but loves having the kids visit and them drop in and out casually. Anna is studying to be an Engineer and still requires a Degree, however is working as an intern for Meridian Energy that is setting up a new wind farm 5km away from Tūmanako. She is just renting one of the units. She also regularly catches up with Mary running errands for her, in return Mary babysits Anna’s dog during the day.
Solar panels adorn rooftops, and mini wind turbines generate clean energy. Tūmanako has achieved carbon neutrality, with excess energy stored in Tower Energy Vaults significantly reducing electricity production and distribution costs making the network more resilient.