Auckland mayor Len Brown says the city is just an underground train ride away from being number one.

Auckland council touts the super city as one of the most 'liveable' in the world and prides its ranking on liveability lists as a sign of its success.

The Economist Intelligence Unit Global Liveability Rankings has Auckland eighth in the world, up one spot from last year.

But, as Aucklanders face the upcoming local body elections and the chance for their say on how they feel about those running the city, it's timely to ask if these liveability rankings reflect the reality of living in the city?

SEAN SHADBOLT "By definition a city can't be liveable if you can't afford to live in it," mayoral candidate and Labour MP Phil Goff says.

And should we care about the results?

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Auckland Council's own research into liveability rankings suggests the answers are no and probably not.

DARRIAN TRAYNOR/GETTY IMAGES Melbourne has been number one for six straight years in the Economist Intelligence Unit rankings.

It says the reports are good for political soundbites but not much else.

And urban planning experts say the survey results are aimed at multinational businesses so they're really only useful if you're looking to move overseas for a job earning $250,000 or more.

But Auckland's outgoing mayor Len Brown is a little more bullish.

ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT The top 10 most liveable cities 2016 edition from the Economist Intelligence Unit.

He says the rankings are a sign we're heading in the right direction and yes, we should be proud of the results.

Brown, a self-confessed "champion" of the liveable city vision, is as animated as ever reeling off rankings and statistics on liveability off the top of his head.

He says Auckland is "unbeatable" when it comes to most measurements and is poised to take top spot in "two to four years".

JARRED WILLIAMSON/FAIRFAX NZ Auckland mayoral candidates Phil Goff and Vic Crone are united in saying there's a lot of work to do to get the city leading the world in liveability rankings.

It could be the renewed energy of a man with an end date in sight, or the relief at having just passed the long-awaited Unitary Plan, but he says he's increasingly confident the city is just an underground train ride away from being number one in the world.

"Look I already think it is (the world's most liveable city)," he says.

"Some of those great old cities are tagged out, they've got a lot of graffiti and they just don't look well kept at all.



"They've got a lot of history, a lot of tradition, the urban form is quite beautiful, they've got good transport but in terms of the look and the feel of pride it's missing. Whereas we've got high levels of pride in our city, the place is really tidy. I think we're the most liveable city now."

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​Phil Goff is a bit more cautious.

The man tipped as most likely to next sit on the mayoral throne says the title won't mean much if people can't afford to live in the city.

And Goff's competitors in the race to be mayor are even more divided, with some supporting the goal of being the world's most liveable city and others dismissing it as "deeply immoral" (John Palino) and "a sick joke" (Penny Bright).

>>Read the full responses from Mayoral candidates at the bottom of this article.

Goff says despite the high rankings, he thinks Auckland is struggling to be genuinely liveable because it's held back by the two overbearing issues of transport and housing.

"The surveys are simply an indicator of how we're seen from the outside," he says.

"The most important thing is what New Zealanders feel, what Aucklanders think about the city they live in. Going around on the campaign trail at the moment clearly every group of people I speak to will raise the issues of housing affordability and traffic congestion. Nobody thinks there's a silver bullet suggestion for them, but they want to see progress in terms of dealing with that problem."

Len Brown concedes the skyrocketing costs of the property market is an issue, but he expects that will balance out over time "with the ebbs and flows of the market".

PETER MEECHAM/FAIRFAX NZ. Liveability rankings fail to reflect the quality of life of the city's residents, Auckland Council's own research says.

And he says planned transport projects will unleash the city's potential and bring it up to speed with the best in the world.

It was Brown who first set the liveable city vision for the council in 2009 as part of the Auckland Plan.

And it's been a message he's incorporated into almost every speech and statement he's made for the past eight years.

JOE KLAMAR Vienna has been named world's most liveable city seven years in a row by recruitment consultancy Mercer, based on factors such as culture and environment, political stability, safety, infrastructure and ease of doing business.

Announcing a new appointment to a board; "they will help the council's decision makers in making Auckland the world's most liveable city". Opening a cycleway, anti-smoking measures, trips to China and France; all part of the overall liveability plan.

"There can be no let-up if Auckland is to continue the lift its performance in the liveable city stakes", he said in one particularly impassioned media release in February this year, responding to the Mercer quality of life survey that listed Auckland in third place.

But how does Brown define liveable?

ROBERT GIROUX/GETTY Vancouver, Canada is a regular fixture among the top of the world's most liveable city rankings.

"It's a tool for presenting our case to the rest of the world," he says.

"When people make the decision to come and study or visit they look at the liveability rankings."

He says if we want to attract foreign businesses and promote the city then we have to compete with other cities and eventually overtake them.

SUPPLIED Mayoral candidate Mark Thomas says Auckland has become less liveable over the past few years.

"There's a very pragmatic and potentially significant economic benefit to be had on focusing and promoting Auckland's high level of liveability."

But that focus is also seen as one of the biggest shortcomings of liveable city rankings.

'Validity and usefulness of indicators is questionable'

BEVAN READ / FAIRFAX NZ John Palino says it's "deeply immoral" for the city to be focused on liveable city rankings while people are living in cars.

Auckland Council's own report into city 'benchmarking' pointed out major limitations in the way cities are measured for liveability.

The research found the criteria used by the Economist Intelligence Unit, and others, was aimed at "expatriate employees rather than the quality of life of a city's own residents".

It said it failed to take into account middle and low-income groups and that was significant because they faced the biggest challenges in terms of commuting times and being able to afford a good lifestyle.

ALEX BURTON/STUFF Activist and mayoral candidate Penny Bright says: "the most liveable city vision is meaningless garbage"

While Auckland was consistently ranked as one of the most liveable cities, "it is also ranked as one of the least affordable metropolitans, at least in the context of housing affordability", the report said.

"Housing unaffordability can adversely impact on the quality life of residents, particularly low and middle-income groups, and subsequently on the city's liveability," it said.

"Since these residents should pay more for housing, their expenditure for other needs such as education, health and entertainment will be diminished."

The report found the results were mainly used for "numerical 'sound bites' that ambassadors and advocates can use to promote their city as part of city-marketing policies".

"Beyond this promotional use, however, the validity and usefulness of indicators is questionable."

University of Auckland senior lecturer at the school of architecture and planning Bill McKay says he's heard all the soundbites before and is yet to be convinced that Auckland should be considered one of the world's most liveable cities.

"There's a lot of things we take for granted in Auckland. We are a very good city, but eighth in the world, no I don't really think so."

McKay said to be truly liveable the city needs to confront issues such as the creep of urban sprawl, lack of effective transport links, and the dual issue of a shortage of housing and unaffordable housing.

He said politicians tended to cherry-pick parts of liveability reports and completely ignore others.

"When they look good for us they get trumpeted as something that they're not."

"It's lies, damned lies and statistics."

The liveabliity reports also had limited scope because they were primarily written for the purpose of multinational companies, he said.

"When you actually dig into a lot of these rankings, most of them are aimed at someone who's a Vice President of a business and wants to employ an executive. And if he's on $200,000 US then Auckland's a lovely city to live in because he can afford a decent house in a nice part of town."

Massey University associate professor in transport and urban planning Imran Muhammad, who wrote a paper on 'Auckland's first spatial plan: Ambitious aspirations or furthering the status quo?', said "Auckland deserves much better" than the current infrastructure situation.

His research has primarily focused on the city's public transport, which he said needs a major overhaul to ensure it had stable funding in place and a broader long-term vision.

He said relieving gridlock and having a world-standard rail and bus network was "decades" away.

"When (Len Brown) says we could be the most liveable in two to four years I don't think he's being realistic. Certainly Auckland is on the path, personally I really don't worry about the ranking if they're in the top five or top 10. But I doubt it could be number one. Especially if we have no stable funding for extensions of public transport."

Muhammad said the planned underground rail loop will take the city in the right direction, but he says it is just "one piece of a very big puzzle".

"It's a very positive thing. But the main thing is it's just a one-off project. We are just starting on this journey right now. Other cities are aggressively moving on this and that's what we need."

Len Brown agrees there is scope for far better transport options and says "there's a lot more room yet for improvement".

He's hopeful the legacy his council are creating will eventually catapult the city past Melbourne, Vancouver and Vienna to be consistently ranked in top spot for years to come.

"That'd be nice. I'd probably sit back and have a beer".

For the time being he says he was looking forward to gauging results from his own Mayoral scorecard on liveability that comes out in October.

Since 2011 when it was first invented Auckland's score has gone up each year, he says.

"That's what I regard as the fairest and broadest range of what's liveable and what's not".

>> RESPONSES FROM MAYORAL CANDIDATES

PHIL GOFF

1. Do you support Auckland Council's vision to be the world's most liveable city and how would you rate the current progress toward that goal?

I guess anything you put up as an objective can be a bit of a slogan but certainly we want to make Auckland a great place to live for all of the people that live here and that means addressing any of the challenges we have that detract from that. We've made progress in some areas and lost ground in others.

2. How much emphasis should be placed on where Auckland is ranked in global liveability surveys?

The surveys are simply an indicator of how we're seen from the outside. The most important thing is what New Zealanders feel, what Aucklanders think about the city they live in.

3. Auckland has the equal fourth least-affordable property market in the world, is that the biggest barrier to making it more liveable and how do you propose to improve that?

By definition a city can't be liveable if you can't afford to live in it. Right now there are increasing numbers of Aucklanders that can't buy their own homes. And equally if you're renting the cost of rent is becoming less affordable. It's about six times the rate of the overall consumer price index. And with house prices approaching $1m clearly that is a huge issue with those people that haven't got their foot on the bottom rung of the housing ladder. We've got to recognise that there is a housing crisis first if we're going to fix it.

MARK THOMAS

1. Do you support Auckland Council's vision to be the world's most liveable city and how would you rate the current progress toward that goal?

It's a great aspiration but Auckland has actually become less liveable for many since this was established as the current Mayor's goal for Auckland. We now have the 10th worst traffic congestion in the world and house prices recently climbed to 4th most expensive. The most liveable city goal, which underpins the 30-year Auckland Plan driving all council strategy, has stretched council into too many areas. We need to focus our efforts on our major transport and housing problems and make council more affordable so we can get more done. My plan, An Auckland That Works, is designed to deliver more in this area, sooner.

2. How much emphasis should be placed on where Auckland is ranked in global liveability surveys?

The vast bulk of these measures are things governments' influence, rather than NZ cities (e.g. education, health, crime etc). Auckland should focus on the two or three items on each list that we do influence: particularly transport and housing. If we do that, we will be more effective improving these areas. Our current Auckland Plan strategy is involved with social wellbeing, educational achievement and health outcomes. These are important - but Auckland needs a stronger partnership with Government to improve these areas rather than try to replace or compete with them.

3. Auckland has the equal fourth least-affordable property market in the world, is that the biggest barrier to making it more liveable and how do you propose to improve that?

Housing and transport are the biggest drags on our liveability. But we can't fix these unless we gain better control of the Auckland Council budget. Not enough of the $3.5 billion per annum council receives from Aucklanders is prioritised into these areas. I will fix that with my rewrite of the Auckland Plan. The current mayor cut the transport budget by $110 million. I will reverse that over my first three years. In housing, I will invest more in housing related infrastructure (transport, water, parks) and implement the recommendations of the Government's Rules Reduction Taskforce that I was appointed to – to get a quicker, more customer focused council.

VIC CRONE

1. Do you support Auckland Council's vision to be the world's most liveable city and how would you rate the current progress toward that goal?

Auckland is already the third most 'liveable city’ in the world, according to these measurements. Though many would disagree given the current housing and transport situation. I have higher aspirations for Auckland, we should be a world class city, up there with the best, and we need a council that helps us live up to that.

2. How much emphasis should be placed on where Auckland is ranked in global liveability surveys?

It's a good measure and reinforces why so many people are wanting to live in Auckland, but as a measure for council's success, I don't place any emphasis on it. That's because a huge chunk of the criteria used to assess a liveable city are not within the control of council.

3. Auckland has the equal fourth least-affordable property market in the world, is that the biggest barrier to making it more liveable and how do you propose to improve that?

Housing is only one out of ten categories in the survey. The biggest barrier to making housing more affordable is that not enough homes are being built in Auckland at the pace we need. My plan will increase available land supply, reduce consenting times, and fund crucial growth infrastructure and services. It’s also critical there is a positively constructive relationship between council, government, developers and local communities as we build up and out across Auckland.

JOHN PALINO

1. Do you support Auckland Council's vision to be the world's most liveable city and how would you rate the current progress toward that goal?

No. The liveable city embodies everything which has gone wrong with the super city. We have children sleeping in cars, too sick to go to school. We have homeless people on the street too scared to go to sleep at night. We have plummeting home ownership, leaving hundreds of thousands of Aucklanders without the security and confidence home ownership brings. We have congestion so bad in our mid-sized city, you have to look at cities of 2.5 million and above before you can find a comparator. Liveability sounds fair, it sounds balanced and it sounds reasonable. But in practice it means providing superior services for those who already have a high standard of living, while those without get left behind. When I say I want to bring council back to focusing on core services, I don't mean cutting services, I mean expanding them. I mean expanding them to everyone one in our city, no matter how poor or left behind they are. I mean everyone gets a roof over their head, clean water and can afford and are able to get to work and school and back. Liveability does not prioritise these things. Liveability, by definition, prioritises the nice-to-haves. It leaves more behind than it takes with it. It is the reason why we've abandoned half our population to a life of renting, left our businesses to wallow in extraordinarily bad congestion and why our rates are on a never ending trajectory upwards.

2. How much emphasis should be placed on where Auckland is ranked in global liveability surveys?

None. It is deeply immoral for us to be focused on global comparisons of liveability when we have children sleeping cars.

3. Auckland has the equal fourth least-affordable property market in the world, is that the biggest barrier to making it more liveable and how do you propose to improve that?

The focus on liveability is the reason we have unaffordable housing because it has led us to focus on things which actually aren't that important. Providing basic water and roads so that homes can get built is important. When we've got enough homes and congestion is no longer killing off jobs, then we can think about liveability again. The existing growth plan is destroying everything that has made Auckland liveable. We must change our growth plan and begin to build up our existing CBD’s such as Albany, Henderson, Manukau and a completely new modern efficient self contained satellite city beyond the Metropolitan Boundary where homes can be sold for $300,000. If we do that then everything that makes a community liveable can be addressed from ground up and built ten times cheaper on greenfields rather than brownfields and existing suburbs. Something else that is not in the existing plan. When the population grows it needs schools, police - security, fire protection. health - ambulance, play grounds and core infrastructure. All of this is in my plan and this why my plan includes you, the people.

PENNY BRIGHT

1. Do you support Auckland Council's vision to be the world's most liveable city and how would you rate the current progress toward that goal?

Pivotal to the concept of Auckland 'liveability' is having somewhere to actually live? In Auckland right now, we have homeless people and homes without people. We have a 'ghost' city of over 30,000 empty private sector Auckland houses, where the lights never go on at night, because they weren't bought to be lived in - they were bought for speculative capital gain. At the same time, while fellow vulnerable Aucklanders are sleeping on cardboard in Queen Street, or crammed in cars, caravans and over-crowded rooms and garages - the Government is effectively 'land-banking' empty state houses. This 'vision' of Auckland being the world's most liveable city, in my view is a sick joke, and a growing nightmare for the homeless, renters and first home buyers. It is 'democracy for developers' that is being promoted and pushed through the proposed Auckland Unitary Plan. This is also a nightmare for established local communities where 'up-zoning' and intensification will potentially decimate and destroy their character and heritage, in many cases without their prior knowledge or consent. In my view - this Auckland 'most liveable city' vision is meaningless garbage - the main beneficiaries of this Auckland 'growth', in my view, being commercial property developers, foreign investors, speculators, bankers, land bankers, real estate agents and money-launderers. ie: A lot of corporate beneficiaries - who arguably don't even live in Auckland.

2. How much emphasis should be placed on where Auckland is ranked in global liveability surveys?

Not a lot, in my opinion. Aucklanders, who actually live and work in Auckland, know on a weekly basis, how 'liveable' Auckland is, as increasing numbers struggle to pay mortgages, rent, power, phone, food and other living expenses.

3. Auckland has the equal fourth least-affordable property market in the world, is that the biggest barrier to making it more liveable and how do you propose to improve that?

Affordability of Auckland property to buy or rent is a major barrier to 'liveability' - but for the majority who rent, stability and security of tenure is a huge issue. How 'liveable' is Auckland for families, continually having to move, because the house they're renting has (again) been sold? How 'liveable' is that, for the kids that may have to change schools, move away from friends? (Of course - this situation is far worse for those Aucklanders who can't even afford to be tenants in their own country.) I'm calling for a national population growth, migration and regional employment strategy. Why does all this 'growth' have to come to Auckland. I'm calling for the 'rule of law' to be upheld, regarding Auckland 'planning'.