Recipe for a Thriving Region & The Global City Maturity Cycle
Presenter: Kate Sutton, Future of Auckland Lead, Deloitte
Recorded Tuesday 8th October 2024
Presenter: Kate Sutton – Future of Auckland Lead, Deloitte
What can the Wellington region learn from the recent, “State of the City’ report, benchmarking Tamaki Makarau Auckland’s international performance?
What do we need to prioritise and invest in, to make our city and region truly desirable for people and families to choose to live and work here?
The report is based on more than 120 global city benchmark studies, which together span more than 750 comparative metrics in which Auckland features, commissioned by the Committee for Auckland, Deloitte, and Tataki Auckland Unlimited, with support from Koi Tu: the Centre for Informed Futures and the New Zealand Government’s Auckland Policy Office.
In this presentation, Kate Sutton, Director – Future of Auckland Lead, discussed the State of the City Report, sharing insights on methods to achieve the type of partnerships that will guide our region toward a more thriving future. Kate discussed the five core ‘pillars’ that reflect on cities’ short and long term trends: opportunity and prosperity, innovation and knowledge, culture and experience, place and connectivity, and resilience and sustainability.
Key takeaways
A selection of insights and recommendations from this webinar, for Aotearoa’s context included:
– Collective impact: the need to move beyond transactional collaboration, to organisations committing to funding together around a common purpose
– Organising around the value of place: the role of Local Government has become somewhat politicised or polarised, but as city’s and regions mature, it is about more than roads and rates. We now know how to attract and retain talent, people don’t choose a place to live because of amazing roads alone if there’s nothing going on there – so how does this translate through to the role of Local Government?
– Maturity of public private relationships: potential for Government to shift from just funding infrastructure to a partnership approach through the regional deal framework to better deliver outcomes
– Address structural issues: create a stronger connection between our educated population and the ability to create prosperous jobs
– Shift to a learning organisation approach: New Zealand organisations have a bias toward ‘the thing’ – eg the spreadsheet, the report. To progress up the city maturity cycle, we need to invest more in capacity and capability building. In other parts of the world this is sometimes the main legacy left from a project.
– Crisis drives innovation: we sometimes assume that our most progressive international peers got to where they are by choice; however often the real driver was a crisis, when the cost of BAU becomes unaffordable and exploring new ways of doing things becomes an imperative.
About the speaker
Kate Sutton
Kate works in the strategy team at Deloitte and specialises in developing and implementing new models and ways of doing things. Prior to Deloitte, Kate was Head of the Asia Pacific Regional Innovation Centre at the UNDP responsible for Innovation and Digital strategy and policy. Prior to that she worked for Nesta, UKs Innovation foundation and has developed cross sector partnerships and models of delivery in local and central government across Europe. Kate has lived and worked in Asia, Africa and Europe and is excited to bring her learning and global experience back home to New Zealand.