A global expert in revitalising cities says Auckland needs to campaign to bring back workers, visitors and students to the city centre and is behind much of the world.
Hundreds of business and civic leaders met in Auckland on Tuesday to discuss the city's future at an event hosted by the economic development agency Auckland Unlimited.
Mayor Phil Goff opened the day and acknowledged the irony of talking about a recovery when some were isolating.
"I'd like to say that we're coming out of the pandemic but I notice that a number of our speakers today can't be with us because like many in this room they have caught Covid."
It is the third annual Auckland's Future, Now conference.
The first was held in response to the national lockdown in 2020 to discuss the city's recovery, so how much has changed?
"Our challenge now is to promote a recovery that matches the rate of the impact that Covid had on us in a negative sense. We need to recover positively and the good news is that we are seeing that turnaround," Goff said.
Post pandemic city expert Greg Clark said many other cities in the world were halfway through their recovery from the pandemic, including across the Tasman, with office workers and visitors returning.
They were Auckland's competitors, he said.
"A new competition is emerging, particularly with those countries that came out of restrictions quickly they have garnered a first-mover advantage and in New Zealand, you've got to think about what the second mover advantage could be."
Auckland needed to campaign to bring back-office workers, students and visitors to the city centre, Clark said.
"We need to campaign to win back our tourists, our students, our office workers, our visitors and eventually of course our real estate investors and our migrants. We need to make it easy for people to come back to the city, we need to make it exciting."
RNZ
