The roots of New Zealand urbanism

[F]or much of the nineteenth century living conditions in cities were primitive, with muddy streets, rickety buildings, bad drainage, mounds of filth and high rates of infectious disease. For some settlers this was encouragement enough to go onto the land. As city streets were paved, eliminating putrid mud and blinding dust; pipes put down, delivering clean water and removing disease causing waste; and frontier-era buildings demolished, making room for more permanent and elegant piles, cities became more modern and alluring. This was enhanced by their richer and more diverse cultural and social life, and the wider work opportunities available in the cities' secondary and tertiary industries. The perennial cry that work was going begging in the country belies any assumption that country dwellers were flocking to cities because there was no work on the land. It was more the case that the attractions of city life meant that, for some workers at least, it was better to be out of work in the city than in work in the country and removed from civilisation. The ethos for these people was less 'rigidly rural' (after Fairburn) and more obstinately urban.

In a last-minute effort to hold back the tide, the Attorney General, Dr John Findlay, warned in 1911 of 'national decay' if urbanisation continued. Enlisting the urban degeneration theory, he proclaimed not only that country folk were stronger and healthier than townspeople, but that city life made women both unfit for and disinclined towards motherhood. He asserted the birth rate in rural districts was a third higher than in cities - official statistics show otherwise - and that much more should be done to 'draw people to the land'. It was to no avail. The April Census showed two demographic milestones had been reached: New Zealand's population had passed the one million mark, and a few more Pākehā lived in urban than rural areas. (If the Mäori population had been included in the count, New Zealand became an urban society in 1916, but the official transition date has remained 1911.)

- Ben Schrader, The Big Smoke: New Zealand Cities 1840-1920, Wellington, 2016, p.395-6.