Nice try, but it’s called ‘Greater Wellington’ for a reason
It is often the way of those behind in the game to turn to the ref and point in desperation to the rulebook. To search for some imagined transgression.
My southern colleague does so frequently in his 1170-word love letter to the South Island’s largest city.
It is also the way of the young to rely on the internet as their sole source of knowledge, whereas the older and more mature among us use it merely to support more established, institutional knowledge.
But just as the Crusaders’ favourite son Richie McCaw did so well in playing to that ref and pushing the boundaries at the bottom of a maul, the internet numbers leaned on by the other Mitchell can be described as lies, more lies and damned statistics.
He relies heavily on a change in the rules that breaks Greater Wellington (Christchurch is, sadly, merely a city) into separate centres while practically ignoring the false and still controversial construct that created Auckland’s ‘super city’ of 1.5 million people.
However compelling, the numbers tell just a small part of the story. As any great historian or novelist has observed, greater meaning so often exists between mere lines.
Those numbers tell us that, as of 2018, 212,000 people lived in the tightly defined confines of what people now regard as Wellington city.
That has created a diverse, vibrant centre of commerce, culture and central government business that is unrivalled in the South Island’s largest city, maybe even Auckland.
Wellington was dented but not destroyed in the 2016 Kaiko¯ ura quake. It has challenges but its city centre has something its southern counterpart can not compete with: Life. Loads of it.
The capital’s streets teem with people at all hours of the day; people pouring out of the many thousands of apartments to live, work and play in its many business, shopping and pleasure precincts.
That number is magnified many times by those heading into Greater Wellington’s centre from its satellite suburbs, towns and cities, where more than 200,000 Wellingtonians live.
These are people proud of their own footholds in the greater diaspora but also of their long-established connections to the capital. Important parts of a greater whole.
Christchurch can swell for the odd festival or attraction but its centre is otherwise a pretty but rather quiet and soulless wasteland, its people pushed out beyond its ring roads by the centrifugal force of earthquake fear and indifference.
Yes, those numbers tell part of the story, but the greater part of that story explains why the capital is Greater Wellington. And will remain so despite the distractions of noisy neighbours.
Last but certainly not least, to our most up-to-date knowledge, the South Island’s largest centre lacks two key prerequisites for any claim to ‘great city’ status: It has neither a bucket fountain nor a rainbow crossing.
‘Nuff said.
The numbers tell just a small part of the story.