beaverkiwi

and what happens when you allow the land you live on to be traded as an asset in the global marketplace, suddenly your not competing against your neighbor for that big house down the street, your competing against 8 billion. Land should be for locals only (exception the business district).

Here's what i did (nuclear option):

Ditch your sim card/mobile plan, get a voip number, phone only works on wifi like a home phone. When out and about you only have the media you pre-downloaded (podcasts, mp3s, audiobooks, offline maps) no more staring at the screen in public.

Move all personal communication to email/signal, check it in the morning after your routine (exercise, meditation etc). Ditch instagram/twitter/reddit(turned to shit anyway) etc, keep facebook just for contacts but a single post with your email and never log on. (We really need a different phonebook platform). Never look at news sites except this one and other neutral biased ones like economically focused news.

Take a note of everything you want to google, allow 1 hour a day internet/research time where you google the questions of the day. You find the phone is inferior to desktop when at home so you spend little time on your phone. Make a life plan and use your new 4 hours a day to achieve these goals. No screens 2 hours before bedtime.

The downside is you cant receive calls when out and about (for me an upside), there has been 2 times in the past 2 years I've had to stop at a coffee shop to send off a message, worth the $2000 savings.

Phone is still a great tool, camera, mp3 player, maps, guitar tuner etc etc. Knowing the latest tweet from your favorite celebrity while walking in the park isn't adding to your life. Unless there is a nuclear strike or a national draft then news wont effect you.

edit, should have read the replies, seems there's a bunch of similar responses

This is how i judge whether a building is ugly or not;

If you laid down a sleeping bag and slept outside it, would you feel like your sleeping under the stars, or are you a homeless bum?

Also CAD defiantly effects the design, if your drew a square box by hand you'd feel lazy, with CAD its sophistication.

You cant compare New Zealand with other countries and their solutions. Condo's and apartments don't work for Auckland, the entire premise of the country is outdoor living, why would you move to a country in the middle of nowhere, the only attraction is the natural beauty, to live in a artificial environment with no outdoor space? It would be like moving to the rain forest and living in a sky scrapper. Condos make sense in America where it's always to hot or to cold but New Zealanders are shamed if they spend too much time indoors. The enjoyment of condos comes from online shopping and restaurants, but NZ has the highest shipping costs and the culture is to cook at home.

The whole point of NZ is everyone gets their slice of paradise, but once you move to apartment territory your just dealing with population management, quality of life goes down and disconnection with the land breeds mental deficits that bleed into policy (every country has it's hatred of people from Paris/Toronto etc). One of the nightmares of NZ is that it's beaches turns into Hawaii's with giant hotels and thousands crowding the surf.

It's a fundamental difference in thinking that foreign investors are not aware of, they just try to shoehorn their learnt development strategy into the place. It has bad effects on the locals on many levels and turning NZ into another branch of starbucks just makes it loose all appeal.

The problem is for the quality of lifestyle NZ'er expect, there is a population limit. Fortunately increasing population is no longer needed for economic growth.