Aucklanders have been sold the pitch of our beautiful city being “world class”, a super city. We can be rightly proud of the developments taking place. Better roads, stadiums and facilities. An enhanced waterfront, attractive footpaths and the Mayor, Len Brown, touting an impressive urban transport system.

Yes, but now the question: at what cost? The increase in costs is already being felt and people are browned off as these costs escalate. But it seems that our civic and national leaders are overlooking the social costs of their creation.

While we applaud any efforts to see positive development and recognise a government empowering this, it would seem that the short-term benefits to be gained by authorising 500 new pokie machines to finance a new convention centre, and the building of a 15-story brothel in the central city area, are outweighed by the social consequences of what they promote.

A friend raised alarm bells for me. His dad was a wealthy and successful businessman who provided well for his mother and their 11 children. That was until he became addicted to gambling, and fuelled by alcohol squandered everything, dying a pauper and leaving a widow struggling to provide for her family, which, incidentally, she did admirably.

Alongside the gambling empire is this planned high-rise brothel. Another place where family values are destroyed. Whilst we endure a society where playing fast and loose is commonplace, it cuts across all we are made for. Constantly the media that portrays the goings-on of sportsmen and women, stars and the rich and famous reports on the violence and murders that are so often fuelled by addiction and unfaithfulness.

What we must ask ourselves is whether the social costs of a super city and all the illicit activities that are its bedfellows are justified. Then there is the clean green image that attracts people to our beautiful country. Do we want this replaced by an image of a seedy city that attracts gamblers, addicts, sex peddlers, money launderers and drug dealers?

As Christians we must uphold the values that build a healthy, safe and caring community in the beautiful world God created for us to enjoy and care for. It seems that we have developed a society that is more concerned about the welfare of its animals than it is about the people made in the image of God. It is no justification to attribute this to the end-times when Jesus said it would be as it was in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. None of us want our city to carry a label like that.