When we were in lock-down in the south island it was really a self imposed one at best as there was little enforcement in regards to traffic movements between cities. But as we travel we begin to hear other people’s experiences, especially in places like Auckland and further north. For them it was a firm, military controlled experience that still has still left some people traumatized over the experience. Some with legitimate reasons for travel to deliver goods and services, were also unable to travel freely or without feeling victimized. The thing about cities is that they don’t function well without outside elements such as goods moving continually around it’s network. It relies so heavily in fact on transportation and movement of goods and services that it’s almost impossible to lock it down without creating a desperate situation for people who can’t get what they need for daily subsistence. To say that it grinds to a halt would be an understatement. It would actually go backwards and degenerate very quickly due to the high density of people. At best large cities may contain a few weeks of food in supermarkets before noticeable gaps would appear on shelves and to my knowledge there are not huge warehouses full to the brim to re supply. We are a people that generally function from garden to table or grower to seller. We didn’t before, have a need to keep food piled up in warehouses for weeks at ta time because trucks kept cumming and going.
The south island cities are similar in that regard but the population base of the south island is roughly 1 million where as the north island holds the other 4 million. The difference between south and north island is quite stark when you travel between the two within a short time frame. Even just leaving Auckland can be quite different. I think i would rather live in a large city in the south island than the north but i would prefer a country lifestyle if i had the means to support myself. If i didn’t i would be in a worse situation than a city would be due to large distances to get to food supplies if they were available. Its going to be an interesting time ahead for city and country folk alike. On talking to a friend about the seemingly huge amount of building work going on you would thing we were in a boom time. but it turns out , through his relationship with banking people, that most of the works we see are finance builds that were started and paid for before the current crisis. Not much of it is new money or new finance, which means at some point this will taper off, more job losses will come and the economy will more accurately reflect whats really happening.