Talk:Auckland

Transport

Ferries

User:Drstuey thinks that commuting by ferry is not an overly unique feature of AKL transport. I am sure he is technically correct but I sincerely doubt that any other city includes ferries as part of regular commuting as much as AKL. Ferries are viable because of the insane Harbour Bridge traffic. Other cities have more bridges than AKL. And although NYC and SYD have ferries, are they actually used by commuters or just tourists?! I'd rather keep the "unique"... Papeschr 04:41, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Never been to Vancouver, huh? Considerable amount of commuter traffic there is by ferry - probably a greater proportion that Auckland's. Auckland's ferries are not unique. [[User:Grutness|Grutness ^talk

]] 05:06, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Humm, I don't think they are unique, or even the most common form of public transport. I think a much higher proportion of public transport users in Auckland use buses than the ferry. Therefore I agree with Grutness that ferries aren't unique to Auckland. To me, as a Auckland citizen, they are just one of the options for public transport in Auckland. Also Gruntees brings up a good point that Auckland isn't the only city with ferries. Wellington and Christchurch both have ferry services. James Pole 10:20, 2005 Feb 19 (UTC)

eastern corridor

210.185.5.117 removed some of the paragraph about Auckland's traffic problems and the proposed Eastern motorway. I would prefer that this paragraph stay (and therefore reverted this poster's change), but perhaps we could change the wording if something about it offends this poster. I have changed the description of the opposition to the motorway from "growing opposition worldwide" to just "opposition". Gadfium 00:11, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

removed the phrase ", a scheme which would see thousands of homes demolished and inner city mangroves decimated" from traffic, as this is unreferenced, and does reflect a negative bias to the scheme, contrary to wikipedia's NPOV policy. removed "controversial" for the same reason. external links make alot of sense though, since there is opposition to it, even if the wikipedia isnt the place for expounding upon it.

(I quite liked the mangroves phraseology, but I agree that the paragraph was a shade unbalanced - however, I see nothing wrong with the factual word "controversial")
Anyway, just dropped by to mention Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand places as a page worth visiting by anyone thinking of going into more geographical detail :-) Robin Patterson 01:19, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I think describing Britomart as controversial is a simple statement of fact. I agree that the bit about the mangroves wasn't balanced.--Gadfium 02:06, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

New geostatistical table

I like it, Ben! Robin Patterson 06:36, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, I've done it for Wellington and Dunedin as well Ben Arnold 09:46, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Auckland, Auckland & Auckland

I think it would be good to split this article into three so that there is a clear separation between the region Auckland, the metropolitan area Auckland and Auckland City. I envision that it would be split similar to how there are currently articles on London, Greater London and City of London.

What I propose is to have Auckland about the metropolitan area that is probably what most people think of as Auckland. Have Auckland City refer the city, that is the region governed by the Auckland City council. Then have an Auckland (region) that covers the entire Auckland region, that is the metropolitan area plus Franklin, Rodney and Papakura districts. Of course there will be some overlap e.g. Auckland would cover Auckland City but not to the same detail that the Auckland City article does. -- Popsracer 10:58, 14 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

There is a WikiProject about places in New Zealand. We should probably discuss this there. Whatever we decide to do for Auckland should be consistent with what we decide to do for other places in New Zealand, or we should be able to identify what makes Auckland a special case.

My intuition on this is that creating additional articles does not add much value. People will inevitably make most of their contributions to the main article and the others will be largely stubs. Look at Wellington (region) for example.

The basic human tendancy when writing about a city seems to be to write generally about the greater metropolitan area, and in more specific detail about the core city. An example might be, "Auckland is a city of a million people, it is known for its landmark Sky Tower and One Tree Hill". I think this kind of article reads well and doesn't limit the writer. After all, much of the activity, growth, culture, and history of a region tends to be focused on its central city.

So I think we should think of the existing Auckland article in this way:

General scope includes the whole "greater urban area"
Specific focus is on Auckland City
Details of satellite cities relegated to their own articles

An advantage of this is that it's consistent with the other articles in the New Zealand series. The Whangarei article is about both the Whangarei Urban Area and Whangarei District.

A disadvantage is that it is slightly confusing what the scope of an article is. People don't know if they're writing about the city council area, or the urban area. I have tried to address this with the geostatistical sidebars for each article. The sidebar clearly (I hope) describes the two meanings of the term "Auckland" in a way that is consistent with the other articles in the New Zealand series, and without needing a separate article for each.

The London example is slightly different. The City of London is a very small area of London, with its own peculiar characteristics and history. Because of this, discussion of the City of London is too detailed to go on to the London article, which is much more general.

As for an "Auckland (region)" article, I find this an appealing idea. Most countries do have second-tier units (provinces, states, cantons). A "region" is a different concept from a "city", and different things could possibly be pertinent.

Ben Arnold 05:33, 16 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with 3 articles, the main one being for the metro. I don't think it is a problem that the other 2 articles will be much smaller. I do hesitate over the Ak metro article having a "specific focus" on Auckland City as such, except insofar as AC does include the central and oldest part of Ak. I think it will "naturally" include more content on features, history etc within AC but the various Ak TLAs should be treated as equals, rather than AC being given a deliberate and stated emphasis. (Maybe I'm biased because I live in Ak but not in AC. I get annoyed at phrases like "John Banks, mayor of Auckland", because it is not true - he is mayor of Auckland CITY only".)

I would scope articles this way:

"Auckland" - main article; on the metro. This is what outsiders generally regard as Auckland.
Auckland (region) - covering the TLA Region. It may not say a lot but would cover the history of the Region as a TLA eg ARA, ARC.
Separate articles on the smaller TLAs eg North Shore City, Auckland City, Manukau City. These would include info specific to the TLA as a TLA (eg history of the TLA, old boroughs and counties incorporated into the City/District) and info on the area as a distinct area. For example, the main Auckland article might give an overview of North Shore history, but the North Shore City article would cover that history in much greater detail.
Separate articles on suburbs - in the case of suburbs that were originally separate towns (eg Onehunga, Howick, Devonport etc), these could be quite detailed and interesting articles, partic re their early history.
An article on "Auckland Province".

In my view the existing geostat table should be changed. "Ak City" is not "the" TA for the Ak metro. It is only one of several TAs of equal standing. Therefore the Name, Pop. and Extent boxes of TA should be removed and AC relegated to one of several TAs. The "see also" box should probably be renamed "Names". -- Nurg 08:45, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I might add I was surprised to see the extent of Ak as being Waiwera to Runciman. I think of Ak as being between the 2 bays - Long Bay and Bombay. But, if it's good enough for StatsNZ, I might get used to it. -- Nurg 08:53, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I hope to come to a compromise between Ben's view and Nurg's view here, as I think both are right but in a way both are pushing it too. The main one on Auckland should have a scope of the greater urban area, I agree with both, but I too am hesitant with the idea of having a focus on Auckland City within this article and having separate articles for satellite cities.

I suppose that in a way the article scopes I see are that of Nurg. However there should be some focus on central Auckland in the main article, like Ben said. I think that this focus should be on the people and history, but not the authority of Auckland City, as bringing this into the main article would make it confusing. Therefore I see it as follows:

Auckland. Main Article. scope: greater urban area, with more focus on the older and more active central Auckland, on the people and history and so on. Territorial Authorities like Auckland City don't come in here (except a link to it).
Auckland (region). Region Article, covering where the ARC roams.
Auckland City, North Shore City, etc. covering the authorative and administrational aspects rather than the people, history and geography. For cities other than Auckland City which have their own character and people and history and geography, they might want to go into that there as well. This will therefore be (especially the Auckland City one) noticably smaller than the main article.
Suburbs and Features

I've never heard of Auckland Province, so I don't include that here. I hope it helps. Neonumbers 05:51, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It's been some half-year since the initial proposition, no-one's objected... so what happens now? (yes, I am kind of new here) Neonumbers 04:50, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well it's half done. The Auckland (region) article was created a few days after Popsracer's suggestion in May. All we need now is an Auckland City article. Nurg 06:06, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm making the Auckland City article. Do watch that I make the page the way it's meant to be. I'm also moving the suburbs list there. Neonumbers 04:33, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I withdraw my reservations :)... it seems to have worked quite well for Auckland. It would probably work well for Wellington too. I'd want to be careful that we don't take this as too much of a precedent, though. We could end up creating a lot of unnecessary articles, if, say Rotorua was separated from Rotorua District, etc. Ben Arnold 05:24, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think it'll just vary from place to place. Rotorua, you're right, there's not much point. But I could see somehere like Gisborne, say, or Dunedin, getting separate articles for the urban area and the surrounding district. No hard & fast rule, just whatever seems most appropriate. [[User:Grutness|Grutness ^talk

]] 05:57, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Can someone take the TAs image from North Shore, New Zealand and make one for Auckland City? I don't know how to edit pngs. Thanks. Neonumbers 07:43, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Takanini

When writing an article on New Zealand Dairy Foods, a website said they are in Takanini, Auckland, New Zealand; is this a neighbourhood, or a town in a megacity of Auckland, or what? I believe its part of the Papakura District; I honestly though haven't the foggiest. For now, anyway Takanini, Auckland, New Zealand is a redirect to Auckland, New Zealand-- user:zanimum

It's a town in the megacity. Takanini used to be a small town sandwiched between the cities of Manukau and Papakura, but I suspect it's all one continuous urban centre now. I think at some point someone could write a separate article, but to redirect to Auckland for now is fine. My New Zealand Encyclopedia doesn't list Takanini at all.--gadfium 21:28, 20 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, Takanini is part of Papakura! Thieving Aucklander!! ;o) Papeschr 06:18, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

And given that there's an article at Takanini... [[User:Grutness|Grutness ^talk

]]

Moved from Auckland, New Zealand to just Auckland

I have moved this page from Auckland, New Zealand to just Auckland. This is to be consistent with Wikipedia's international naming standards, which are to disambiguate only if the name of a place is in conflict with another use of the name, and the placename is not the most dominant use of the name.

I don't think there's even a disambiguation page for Auckland, so the question of dominance doesn't even arise.

Currently about half the links are to Auckland and half to Auckland, New Zealand. I expect this to slowly rationalise. I will make an effort to tidy some of this up myself.

Ben Arnold 05:59, 24 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Only just related: who/what/where was the City of Auckland named after? I had the vague idea that it was named after an English Bishop whose name was Auckland, but after finding Bishop Auckland I'm now awfully confused. Should there not be a disabiguation page, particularly as the Bishop Auckland page has a link to the as-yet-non-existant page West Auckland.--Dom 12:20, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

George Eden, Baron Auckland, born 1784, died 1849, Governor-General of India 1836-1842, subsequently made Earl of Auckland. A disambiguation page should be created at Auckland (disambiguation) and this page should remain just Auckland. Ben Arnold 05:41, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Where can we list the suburbs?

Particularly Auckland City suburbs, such as the newly-written-up Epsom, New Zealand? Robin Patterson 03:24, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've created a Category:Auckland, and put the Epsom article into it. If you were planning to write a lot of articles about the suburbs, it might be worth having a Category:Suburbs of Auckland (or Category:Auckland suburbs) as you can see the similar categories Category:Melbourne suburbs and Category:London Districts. -gadfium 05:15, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have shifted them to Auckland (region) Papeschr 07:25, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

See the note below on lists - they should be written into the articles on the four cities, but preferably not as lists. In the case of other large NZ cities, they are arranged geographically (again as noted below). Also note that in the last week I've written small articles on about 25 suburban areas in and around Auckland. There is now a Category: Auckland urban districts, which keeps it in line with other large cities where suburbs and sectiions have separate articles. I've shifted them (and Epsom, New Zealand) there. This, also in line with these articles, should be for distinct areas of the urban area of any size, but should not include the article on the city (in this case four cities) itself/themselves, and should not include the likes of parks, streets or buildings. [[User:Grutness|Grutness ^talk

]] 11:15, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

largest city in the "south pacific"?

where does the south pacific start or stop? Sydney has much more people in the central "city" area than auckland, and indeed a much larger pure metropolitan area.

And Santiago has a bigger population than New Zealand as a whole.

Got to agree. It looks wrong. Nurg 06:51, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"Avoid lists"

I think it's a pity the way this article is going. Lists of DHBs, lists of suburbs containing links to mostly non-existent articles. Do readers really want to know there is a suburb called Davenport [sic] with no further info about it. I can see what's coming - lists of schools, lists of churches, ad nauseum. Meanwhile no work on the text of the article. There's a place for lists but this is an encyclopedia article about Auckland, not a series of lists. "You should avoid list-making in entries. Wikipedia is not a list repository .... Having lists instead of article text makes Wikipedia worse, not better." - Wikipedia:Embedded_list. Nurg 07:14, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I totally agree. Moving the lists to Auckland (region). People can abuse me later :o) Papeschr 07:24, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Those non-existent articles on suburbs will exist soon - I'm writing them at a rate of about ten a day, as I've been doing with other New Zealand geography articles (348 since early October). Give 'em time. I agree about the lists though. A far better scheme is that used for Dunedin and Christchurch - although the size of the Auckland U.A. might make it difficult: Inner suburbs listed geographically, clockwise from the city centre, then the same with outer suburbs. The best solution might be a clickable map, but that might be too much work. [[User:Grutness|Grutness ^talk

]] 11:01, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'll understand if you're mad at me for this, but the list of Auckland suburbs is back here - in different form. They have been arranged geographically, as I mentioned above, and the Waitakere, North Shore, and Manukau ones are on the pages for their respective cities arranged either in the same way or within the text of the articles. Listed suburbs do NOT beong on the region pages, since they aren't suburbs of regions, they are suburbs of the cities within the region. You'll notice that over 20 of the "non-existent articles" now exist, too. [[User:Grutness|Grutness ^talk

]] 07:12, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm moving them to the city pages. Hope no-one objects, but they don't belong here and they don't belong on the region page either so to the city pages it is. Neonumbers 04:35, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, OK - but now you have the task of disambiguating the Auckland conurbation (this page) from the city of Auckland. That will probably also mean a considerable rewrite of this article, sonce there's no indication on much of it that it isn't talking about Auckland city. Have fun! [[User:Grutness|Grutness ^talk

]] 05:29, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This article is about the Auckland metro area as a whole, so I made sure that it followed that and didn't get sidetracked to Auckland City. I thought it was fine, mostly, except for the isthmus part (which is now changed)... Neonumbers 04:52, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think the thing I'm most concerned about it that it doesn't say anywhere that it's not about the city itself. Read it as someone who doesn't know, and you're not going to find out you're not reading about Auckland city. It needs something - early - to say that this isn't an article about the city. I'd suggest replacing the first sentence (which is incorrect, anyway) with something like Auckland is the largest urban area in New Zealand. It is a conurbation, made up of the cities of Auckland City, Waitakere, Manukau and North Shore. In Maori... [[User:Grutness|Grutness ^talk

]] 05:54, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yep, I see what you're getting at now. It makes sense to replace the first sentence with something of the sort. I don't know, though, from an outsider's point of view, precisely what the difference between Auckland and Auckland City is, if it would be easy or difficult to distinguish, and if Auckland City is or isn't more than just a political division, and what is defined as "Auckland" in everyday use. Either way, specifying that it's a conurbation can't do any harm, so we may as well change the first sentence. But, out of interest, what does everyone else think of as "Auckland" and "Auckland City"? (I suppose this follows onto the other three cities and if they consider themselves Aucklanders?) Neonumbers 08:00, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

FWIW, even here at the other end of the country "South Auckland" and "West Auckland" conjure up completely different images, and neither image is that conjured up by "Auckland city" (to reduce it to its basest level: rappers, bogans, and yuppies respectively :) . Replace those terms with Manukau, Waitakere, and Auckland cities, and at least there's some key to the way they are differentiated in the public conscience. I think that - for much of the country - Waitakere, Manukau and North Shore are seen as peripheral parts of Auckland, a bit like massive super-suburbs clipped on the sides like the extra lanes on the bridge. [[User:Grutness|Grutness ^talk

]] 10:29, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The article as it is now then, does that reflect all of Auckland? I think it does, but I just want to check that I'm right. That, and does Auckland City need to cover anything more than administrational and geographic matters? History should more or less parallel Auckland's history, I think, though I don't know enough to say that for sure. Neonumbers 23:52, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Best thing might be to compare the city article with the ones for Waitakere, North Shore, Manukau - make it as similar to them in look as possible. That might also give more of an indication of what belongs there and what belongs here, although I don't suppose it would matter too much if there's an overlap of information to some extent between the articles. [[User:Grutness|Grutness ^talk

]] 00:46, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Population update

An anon contributor has updated the population figures for Auckland and several surrounding areas. While the changes are plausible, I'd like to know where they came from. A quick look around the Auckland City Council and statistics NZ articles didn't give me current population estimates. Does anyone have a source to back up these figures? I've left a message on the anon's talk page, but it's an xtra dialup account so it's unlikely they'll see it.-gadfium 18:32, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I found one. Statistics NZ has its population estimates tables, available at this page (you need to click on the link to the Excel table). The sub-regional tables are on Tables 2 and 3. The numbers for Auckland urban area and Auckland City parallel these ones; I haven't checked the other three figures (I'm too lazy). I also haven't done anything about the source except post this message, so if someone could cite that source or whatever needs to be done that'd be good. Neonumbers 11:27, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Auckland Power Crisis

Would anyone care to add a little information on the infamous 1998 Auckland Power Crisis? -- FP 01:35, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As you request. I hope I haven't just done your homework for you.

It wasn't my homework; I just thought it was a significant event for Auckland that belonged in the article :) -- FP 09:49, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

I fear that my addition may have left the History section a little unbalanced - it deals with the birth of Auckland, the loss of the capital, and the power crisis. We need more events in the history of Auckland to be added, or else the power crisis section moved somewhere else.-gadfium 04:14, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Do you think that Auckland might be big enough subject for a Timeline of Auckland history article?

We don't have enough yet for a History of Auckland page, but the individual items are too large for a Timeline of Auckland history page. I'm wondering if we should have a New Zealand collaboration of the week, with History of Auckland as one of the suggested topics. If anyone else agrees, we should move this discussion to the New Zealand wikipedians notice board.-gadfium 08:15, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Translation

Somebody tried to set up a Spanish translation page, but did it very lazily by merely taking the English text and sticking it in. I'll go ahead and translate it. 3:33 am UTC 18 March 2005 S.W. Stiefel, NJ, USA quentin124@hotmail.com

Images of Auckland

Most of the images seem unhealthily fixated on the Sky Tower building - I know Auckland has more visually to offer than one building, and internationally the Sky Tower isn't particularly original. I'm thinking in particular that the image used in the introduction could be improved. It's currently mostly of the Sky Tower with some other visual information about a street ... and looks much like any other city in the world! Why not replace it with an aerial image that shows the harbour, the CBD and some islands? It could even be replaced by the image further down the page. Doing a quick Google Image search for picture of Auckland gives you an idea of what a beautiful city environment we have. We should show it! --Heyseuss 09:06, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)