Kawerau, New Zealand, Australia
Year 1953 latitude: ° 0' longitude: ° 0' Period Initiator(s) Planning organization Nationality initiator(s) Designer(s) / Architect(s) Design organization Inhabitants 7,000 Target population Town website Town related links http://www.kea.org.nz/kawerau/ http://www.teara.govt.nz/1966/K/Kawerau/Kawerau/en http://teaohou.natlib.govt.nz/teaohou/issue/Mao10TeA/c15.html Literature type of New Town: > scale of autonomy New-Town-in-Town Satellite New Town Company Town > client Private Corporation Public Corporation > policy Capital Decentralization Industrialization Resettlement Economic
Only farmers populated the area around Kawerau when in 1953 a paper mill was build there and a town suddenly formed. The site, on New Zealand's North Island, was chosen by the Department of Lands and Survey. The state housing project for Kawerau was the fastest completed - 400 homes were constructed in 64 weeks. First there were no footpaths, gardens or trees. An inhabitant from that time tells that an unknown man came into their house one evening, confusing her house with his own. Skilled migrants from Finland, Britain, Australia and the US coming to the town to run the mill gave the city a cosmopolitan air. Expansion projects in the 70s took the population to 9000, but layoffs creating high unemployment put it back to the present-day 7000. source: Jo-Marie Brown, 'Kawerau rembers its fast beginning', http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3558154
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