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Five workers under 30 discuss the future of work: offices versus working from home, the importance of in-person connection, and how they're making the new flexibility work for them.

Nine conversations about downtown Auckland's history, its current challenges, and people's hopes for its future.

Our new interview series features seventeen central city residents discussing the state of their neighbourhood and its future.

MICHEAL DAVIS (Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, Ngāti Haua) has spent the last three years living just off Quay Street with his nine- year-old son. They both love the central city, and are proud of their tupuna Āpihai Te Kawau’s pivotal role in founding it.

ROBERT MACFARLANE has been living in the central city for 12 years. What he didn’t expect was his mother, TRISH MARRYATT, to follow from Christchurch, where she’d lived all her life. Now they live across Queen Street from one another.

HELEN ROBINSON, the Auckland City Missioner – Manutaki, has seen a lot of changes in the central city during more than a decade at the Mission. The surprise contrast to the mainstream media narrative? Yes, there is needless suffering, but things aren’t necessarily getting worse.

MAX DUDER and LAURA OH are friends who study at the University of Auckland and live in apartments in the Carlaw Park student village. For them, campus life delivers the buzz of being close to everything (including jobs), but at a steep cost.

STUART HOUGHTON and KIER IBANEZ live in Parliament Street near the University of Auckland campus. With two decades of central- city living between them, they wouldn’t live anywhere else.

SIMON ODDIE works for Eke Panuku, the council development arm with a big stake in the success of the city centre. Right now, he’s looking past the road cones and construction mess to a brighter future.

KEN LEE, NUR ATHIRAH MOHD NOR AND IZZAT NAIM ZULKIFLE are all from Malaysia, and have been living and working in the central city while studying at the University of Auckland and AUT. While they say the city could do better, they’re grateful for the welcome they’ve received and the way they’ve been able to shape their lives here.

REINA SUTTON moved into the central city five years ago to minimise her commute. Now she loves her village-like life — but she also sees distress in the streets and too many empty stores.

AAYUSH TRIPATHI was born in the Punjabi city of Pathankot and moved to Auckland’s central city in 2015. Now he’s living in an apartment in Nelson Street with his wife and their two children – and pondering a move to the suburbs.

CATHY VENINGA ditched her comfortable life in Parnell to take up residence in the central city. She has no regrets.

Nathan Joe is a playwright and the Creative Director of Auckland Pride. He’s lived in the central city for over 10 years, and says it was taking up residence here that set him on his current career trajectory. Here, he talks about the central city as a site of reinvention, connection and inspiration.