Tauranga is suffering from a good problem – growth – because during the next decade two-thirds of New Zealand will see population stagnation or population decline.

But the key to harnessing it is how we anticipate what will happen in the future and plan for it, says a leading Kiwi academic and professor coming to town next week.

Distinguished Professor Paul Spoonley is in Tauranga tomorrow, Tuesday, February 7, to talk to the business community, to begin a new ‘Beyond 2020 - Smart Talk Future thinking' series.

Paul, who is also vice chancellor of Massey University, will discuss how we can deliver on the potential of our businesses, communities and our region on the back of his most recent book ‘Rebooting the regions' which is full of expert essays on how to combat the pull of Auckland and get the regions humming.

And he says future prospects of the new fifth-largest city are very bright for several reasons.

'One it is part of the golden triangle. We're anticipating 60 per cent of NZ's population growth will occur in Auckland during the next two decades. So that's the growth node for NZ.

'But it will be accompanied by Hamilton and Tauranga as the two other growth nodes.”

And Paul says Tauranga benefits from being at the centre of a growing region but it is also an important retirement destination.

'In this decade the number of people 65-plus will double to 1.2million and they are the healthiest, wealthiest most active NZers aged 65-plus we've ever seen.

'And Tauranga has a significant number of those older NZers and is becoming of the retirement centres for the country.”

Nearly all of NZ's population growth is going to occur in the top half of the North Island. But the other aspect to it is since 2012 two-thirds of our population growth has come immigration. 'And we do need to be aware that immigration is where we get our people from,” says Paul.

He believes there's two important challenges for Tauranga. 'One is you need to accommodate growth – Auckland is an example of a city that has done a very poor job of providing infrastructure for growth.

'You need major infrastructural development.”

The second thing is many people contributing to Tauranga's growth are new NZers.

'And we do need to make sure we are welcoming and settling in those immigrants if we are going to be successful.”

Paul says there are three components to Tauranga's population growth.

'One is a newly-retired population coming to live here. Another comes from fertility – the number of babies born in the area.

'The third component comes from immigrants. A forth is you're getting overspill from Auckland.

'So I think the challenge for local authorities and employers is they need to look five, 10 or 15 years out and anticipate what's coming down the pipeline. They are sort of quite reactive.

Paul says one particular One of the hurdle for regions is they don't do a particularly good job of anticipating skill demand. He says NZ is 'behind the eight ball” in thinking about the demographics of the regions and how they might work to build their economies.

'So employers in Tauranga will be complaining they don't have the skill bases they need – and that's because we haven't planned for it.

'I'm not criticising employers but I'm saying we often don't anticipate what's coming up.

'And the economy is shifting towards a gig economy – and there are new jobs coming. All of the evidence suggest between 40 and 50 per cent of the jobs in a place like Tauranga in 2017 will not exist in Tauranga in 2027.

'But there will be new jobs – and those will involve much more technology and probably much more global connections. Those might be tourists or working with people internationally. And a lot of the jobs around us will become redundant.”

So Paul says the question for a place like Tauranga is: what will the future look like? And what are we doing to plan for it?

'Being strategic, visionary and having good leadership are all critical.”

To learn more about Paul's talk in Tauranga, see: www.tauranga.org.nz/events-calendar