Christchurch is currently playing out the same conflict between the central planners’ utopian theories and the tendency of the market to deliver creative responses to the earthquakes’ waves of destruction. The destruction has provided the opportunity for Christchurch to break out of the mononuclear model of urban form and become a disbursed or multi-nuclear city.

But the Central Planners see the destruction as an opportunity to make the city more dominated by the CBD and served by a 19^th Century light rail system. In the meantime land prices remain sky high and people are leaving the city in droves.

It’s time for the citizens to seize the initiative. The New Orleans model suggest its time to fire the bureaucrats rather than employ more of them. If they need more officials to deal with the consenting work-load just simplify the consent procedures and generally get rid of the DURT.

The payback to Government would be huge.