Auckland Council owns over 40 billion of assets including over 100,000 hectares of open space, parks and reserves as well as the large transport assets administered by Auckland Transport. This is infrastructure - the water network, roads, bus stops, parks and buildings with special purposes such as libraries, designed and maintained to deliver real life outcomes for Aucklander, the tools we use everyday to make our lives richer, to be healthy and connected with the world around us.
We face some big challenges as a city such as obesity, mental health and wellbeing, traffic congestion and a lack of social connection. In the face of a growing and incredibly diverse population, alongside a changing climate, we don’t have a good visualisation of all of these infrastructure assets, all in one place, that paint a picture of the connections between infrastructure and important outcomes for people and the environment. This is a very important picture for national government agencies, local government, NGOs, businesses and citizens. As the government invests our money in social and physical infrastructure, it's crucial that they have a clear picture of these communities.
So, we've prototyped Bigger Picture - a tool that draws together geo-spatial data and people outcomes. We have mapped the locations of road networks, park entrances, bus stops, schools, medical clinics and businesses such as fast food outlets. Asking ourselves, for people in this community, how accessible is a hamburger versus recreational infrastructure or public transport? Beyond a certain travel distance, sometimes only a few hundred metres, people are much less likely to use what is available around them. Adding context about people outcomes such as obesity, education levels, smoking status and income, we see a much bigger picture of a community.
