This morning the Herald ran on it’s front page a vision for Auckland’s container wharf if it was given back to the city and cleared of cars and containers.

It’s impressive.  It’s the sort of thing a sultan in Dubai would dream up and get built in a couple of years with the death of only 5000 migrant workers or so.

Four new inner-city beaches, a 40m-wide canal, parklands and a lagoon with a boardwalk around its edge.  The plan also includes 4000 apartments, offices and a hospitality strip, an underground Maori historical and cultural centre with its own "volcano" and even a new stadium.

It’s just an idea right now.  After all just getting the land ready would cost 1.2 billion dollars and of course a brand new container wharf would have to take it’s place. The whole thing would take decades

But it’s a vision and not a bad one at that.  But to be frank, based on previous experience it’s something that would never happen in this country.

That’s because our visions are traditionally short-term and reactive.  That’s because our visions get hijacked by politicians for their own gain.  That’s because as a people we think only of our self-interest and not the interests of all society.

I was thinking this while reading the letters to the editor about the state of Middlemore Hospital buildings. The correspondent points out the leaky Kids First building was built under the last Labour Government. It’s only a few years olds.  Who were the architects, engineers, builders and regulators responsible for a building that has not lasted and is rapidly failing to be fit for purpose.

She compares this to the Canterbury Cathedral, now centuries old and still standing.

It reminded me of a visit I paid to the Hospital in Venice.  A modern high tech facility housed inside a 500-year-old building.  A 500-year-old building that is not rotting or leaking.

It made me wonder when, with the exception of Te Papa, did we as a country construct a building or facility that could stand the test of time. One look at the Eden Park saga will confirm the short term is that blights our development.

If an idea is good it should transcend politics and the constraints of the past and we should work towards it thinking of the next generation.

We often talk about personal responsibility but we don’t recognise that in a wider frame that personal responsibility also translates to a greater civic responsibility

I hunger for a big dream and I hunger for a country that can make it come true.