Talk:Christchurch

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[edit] Parker-Hulme Murder

Why is there no reference to the infamous Parker-Hulme murder in this article? The murder has been the basis of several major movies and is no doubt a major part of Christchurch's history. At the very least the two girls who committed the murder should be listed with the "famous people" section...especially Anne Perry aka Juliet Hulme. It almost seems as though the murder is being deliberately excluded from this article. Paco8191 (talk) 05:13, 23 April 2008 (UTC)



Welcome to Wikipedia, Colin, it's good to see another New Zealander here. There's lots of stuff to write about NZ, some of which I've listed on my user:Carey Evans page.

However, it's really hard for me to see how this addition fits into an encyclopedia article about Christchurch city, especially when the link is broken. Maybe it could go on a separate page, not tacked onto a paragraph about the city's population? --Carey Evans

Eleven of these 324,300 persons (5 men and 6 ladies) form a singing group called "The Troupers". What's so amazing is their average age (69), their repertoire (700 lyrics) and their "output" with 125 performances per year to mainly rest homes, hospitals and senior citizens club.
Find more about The Troupers at http://communities.msn.co.nz/theTroupers.
(from Colin Houston)

[edit] City status

An anon user removed the line ...

Christchurch became a city by Royal Charter on July 31, 1856, making it the oldest city in New Zealand.

... without offering any reason for doing so. If it is factually wrong, correct it rather than removing it. I can't see any reason for not including this information on the history of a city. dramatic 00:38, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Conflicting information to this in "The New Zealand Book of Events" (ed. Gordon MacLauglin). Which says that the first city council in new Zealand was the wellington city council, set up in 1841. Dunedin City Council was established in 1865, Christchurch and Timaru both had City Councils in 1868. I realise a city council and a city don't necessarily have the same start date, but the two usually go hand in hand, and if the WCC was established in 1841... Mind you, that sounds mighty early - the place was only settled the previous year! [[User:Grutness|Grutness hello? ]]
See Mayor of Wellington for an explanation: Welly was incorporated as a borough in 1842 but the Ordinance under which that was done was quashed by the Government in London so the Council was disbanded in 1843. Wellington was then gazetted as a city in 1870.

[edit] Maori legend

"Tautahi, who is believed to have occupied a seasonal dwelling on a bank of the Avon River near to where the Barbadoes Street bridge now stands. To date there is no documentary or archaeological evidence to support this contention."

Where does the claim come from then? If the source is Maori oral history, then it's worth stating as such. But i doubt that oral history has ever claimed to be that accurate. Yes, it might be that Tautahi was said to have lived on the Avon river. But does anyone have a specific source for the claim that he was supposed to have lived by Barbadoes street? If not, then I reckon that part of the statement should be taken out.

I've just fixed this up. The previous wording managed to be both vague and insulting - not a good mix. --Snori 16:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Population

It seems rather confusing to give the population of the urban area as 358,000, then give the population of the administrative district, but further down the page have the line "The population is expected to grow to 358,000 by the year 2021". Which population? - And I'd like to see the basis of the first 'Urban Area' figure. If that is based on the Regional Council area it is clearly wrong. The 316,000 figure agrees with the census, and their measurement area includes Prebbleton, Templeton and Kaiapoi, but Excludes Lyttelton and the Harbour bays area. This seems pretty close to the entire urban area to me. dramatic 23:23, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The urban area population is based on the Statistics New Zealand definition of the Christchurch Urban Area. Statistics New Zealand defines boundaries for all urbanised areas in New Zealand with more than 1000 people. I'd like to go through and cite all those figures but I need to figure out a way of doing it that doesn't take up too much space. Ben Arnold 03:05, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
But that is where the 316224 figure comes from : [1] - which if you check the map covers all significant urban areas which might be classed as Christchurch. I see that both figures in the table have now been inflated (if these are 2004 estimates, then that should be noted), making the phrase about population being projected to grow (shrink) to 358000 in 16 years even more contradictory. Note that most Wikipedia articles on NZ towns and cities show only census figures, not current estimates (which need updating too often). dramatic 09:48, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Yeah you're right they're 2004 figures. I updated them yesterday from the 2003 figures. I agree the year should be noted as well as citing SNZ. I think there needs to be a concise way to do it though, and I haven't figured out what that is. As for how regularly we update the statistics, I am happy to update the population figures for the main urban areas and regional councils every year (maybe even territorial authorities). One of the advantages of Wikipedia is that it's a dynamic encyclopedia so the content can be more up-to-date. Ben Arnold 23:37, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Demographics

The picture of a river (the Avon?) does not belong in demographics. Without a caption it does not add information.--Hugh7 09:03, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Antarctic Expeditions

I've changed "Christchurch has played a significant role in the history of Antarctic exploration. Both Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton used the port of Lyttelton as the final departure point for expeditions" to "Christchurch has played a significant role in the history of Antarctic exploration. Both Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton used the port of Lyttelton as a departure point for expeditions". Scott's expedition went to Port Chalmers after leaving Lyttelton. [[User:Grutness|Grutness hello? ]] 00:23, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] true?

"a hot föhn wind that is associated with increases in suicide and domestic violence"

  1. Is this true?
  2. Is it worthy of being in the article?

--Clawed 10:21, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  1. I believe that there's plenty of anecdotal evidence from police and hospital statistics. Not sure if there have been proper studies of the phenomenon.
  2. If we can find a reference, definately
dramatic 06:20, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
After weeding out all the Wikipedia clones, the Meteorological service seems fairly convinced: [2]
dramatic 26 Feb 2005
I don't know if it's true of the Christchurch foehn, but there's a famous line by Raymond Chandler--"those hot dry Santa Ana winds that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen."
—wwoods 03:54, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
But is any of this really relevant to an encyclopaedia entry on a city? The article is about Christchurch, not föhn winds. I say ditch the whole sentence.
wjl 26 March 2005
Of course - it is part of the culture of the city. There are even beers named after it. And the observed effects of the wind are specific to Christchurch/Cantrbury, so they belong in this article rather than the article on föhn winds. dramatic 09:06, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The domestic violence thing is easy to believe. Hot temperatures makes folks crazy. But suicide rates??? With all due respect to the Met Office, that hardly sounds plausible: suicide is linked to severe depression, not warm weather (and the countries with the highest suicide rates tend to be places like Sweden which are cold and dark 6 months a year, not warm tropical countries). I agree that the psychological effects of NorWesters are part of the culture of the Christchurch, but the suicide thing sounds completely off-base. Unless someone can link to an actual study, I'm gonna delete it.

[edit] Name of the City

Source for the name of the city is the council website's page on the Sister City Christchurch, Dorset [3]

Zootland 01:04, 28 October 2007 (UTC) See below about update to reflect minutes of Canterbury Association Zootland 23:50, 8 November 2007 (UTC): Source for naming of Christchurch and its Avon river is Volume 1 of the History of Canterbury by Sir James Hight and C.R. Straubel (Canterbury Centennial Association and Whitcombe and Tombs, Christchurch 1957). Both names' history is given on page 121 of Volume 1 of this three-volume history.

[edit] Mount Cavendish

I created a new stub, Mount Cavendish, I thought someone might have something to add, also it would be nice to get both photos of, and from, to add. WikiDon 06:29, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Born in Christchurch section

I've removed the following section from the article: === Born in Christchurch ===

reasoning:

  1. The fact of people being born here does not add anything to Christchurch. Such information can be of interest for small towns, but in a city it would be expected that a large number of notable people were born there.

[edit] Housing costs

An anonymous user added this to the Economy section:

The area faces a serious economic problem in plummeting housing affordability. Median house prices have escalated more than 100 percent in less than a decade, far ahead of the increase in incomes. Real estate economists blame regional land use planning policies (so-called "smart growth"), which have rationed land for development, with the predictable effect of raising house prices. Similar effects have been noted in Auckland, Australian urban areas, along with some markets in the United States (particularly Portland, Oregon and California urban areas).

These claims need sources to support them. They're not verifiable and they use weasel words. Wikipedia is not the place for original research, so please see What counts as a reputable publication?

[edit] Comparison with Belgium

I deleted the sentence which compared Canterbury to the size of Belgium. First, it's wrong: Canterbury is larger than Belgium. Secondly, even if it were right, it'd still be a meaningless comparison to most readers.

[edit] Another view from space

NASA had another nice space shot here: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_678.html showing the nearby Banks peninsula as well as Christchurch. — RJH (talk) 22:23, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Drive-by reworking

Hello all regulars here: Having seen a number of things to be improved here, I sort of got a bit unleashed, and reworked the whole article in many ways. Trying to follow it in one step is probably hopeless, as I moved too much around, and also rephrased quite a bit. To make it worse, in some steps I cut stuff out, but only inserted it again a step later.

But please do look at it without feeling like someone just 'messed' with your article. I think it is quite improved now, more sorted, some problems fixed, and I will continue during the next few days. Cheers, MadMaxDog 11:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticisms

I've moved the following paragraph from the article to here because it is inadequately referenced. I don't think Campbell Live saying that Christchurch has a reputation as whatever is very authoritative. Much of the material on Campbell Live is tabloid in nature. The rest of the paragraph is entirely unsourced and some of it is speculative.

Citizens of other New Zealand cities (as well as New Zealand media outlets) have publicly discussed Christchurch from a negative perspective. While this is most often for the purpose of light-heartedly jesting Christchurch locals with regard to sporting rivalries etc, is has more recently become the topic of more serious discussion. Amid racism controversies, a popular New Zealand current affairs show 'Campbell Live' has been quoted as saying that Christchurch has a reputation as New Zealand's most racist city [4]. Other complaints include the difficulty of navigating Christchurch due to poor signage and lack of natural landmarks; whether or not this is an intentional act of the local city council to attract passers-through to the local economy is not known.

Are there better references available to document the reputation and other claims made, and is this material of value even if documented?

As a comparison, material about the reputation of various parts of Auckland has been removed in the past.-gadfium 23:50, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

This survey for The Press[5] while not comprehensive, suggests that attitudes in christchurch and auckland are pretty consistent (with possibly slightly more negative attitudes in Auckland). FWIW, I would have guessed the other way round, but it doesn't seem very notable either way.
As for the landmark thing, that's just an urban myth perpetuated by standup comedians joking that Christchurch became a city, after people failed to find their way out of the one-way system (which as an outsider to both cities, seems easier to fathom than Auckland's spaghetti junction). Good call on removing it I think. --Limegreen 00:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
If that kind of argument were true, Hamilton would be empty by now! Got lost there so many times, and ended up heading out to the boondocks without a clue ;-) MadMaxDog 10:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Is it really necessary to have a famous people from Christchurch section? It certainly gives the article the look of a small provincial town rather than a reasonable size city that would obviously produce a number of famous people. Perhaps only 3 or 4 genuinely famouse people (i.e. known interantionally for a good reason - charles upham perhaps?) would be better than every man and dog that has been on TV or swung a cricket bat. I think it would add a lot of class to the article if it went the way of 'born in christchurch' and was removed. User:Homesick_kiwi 16:58, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that notable people sections are unnecessary for larger cities. Indeed, I'm not convinced they add much to small towns either. However, I don't feel strongly enough about them to try to remove them, although I do remove names which don't appear to be sufficiently notable.-gadfium 19:53, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Water Purity

Maybe someone should add some information about the tap water purity I live in chch and know that it tastes alot better than all of the surrounding townships (except the for the ones that use the same water supply) I don't know much about it but my parents use to tell me it is the best in the world perhaps some one with some more knowledge about this should add it thanks Yellow Onion 07:13, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

We'd need a citation from a reliable source, such as the Department of Health. However, good water is really to be expected in New Zealand - if you say the Christchurch quality is good then you should really say that in most New Zealand geography articles, which gets a bit boring. It might make more sense instead to add referenced material to those cities where the water quality is only marginal.-gadfium 19:26, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
The thing that differentiates Christchurch water from most other towns is that the aquifer source is so pure that it is fed to the mains with no pre-treatment or chlorination. I believe that the Health Dept only gives it a "B" rating because it is untreated. The aquifers are under threat of overuse though, and their should be references on the Environment Cantrbury website. (Sorry, don't have time to go chasing them at the moment). dramatic 22:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Ok, that is unusual (I think) and should go into the article with suitable refs.-gadfium 04:02, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
I believe that it is also artesian, further differentiating it from run of the mill NZ water supplies.--Limegreen 05:18, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
All quite interesting - had any luck finding refs? Ingolfson 10:06, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
found this http://www.ccc.govt.nz/Water/ Water Rating is Ba and not gone through any processing its straight from the artesian wells. and for people who haven't been to chch and tried the water it tastes the same as bottled spring/mineral water which is more expensive than petrol here. ive been to cape town south Africa about 11 years ago and the water was terrible but no worst than than places like Cheviot ( 1 1/2 drive from chch) and Hamner Springs (2 hours drive from chch) and i also have a thai friend who said it was "Heaven" so i would think it was unique enough have some thing on this page just my opinion though prehaps someone who has been around the world alot more could give us some comparisonYellow Onion 08:49, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Christchurch name

Zootland 01:02, 28 October 2007 (UTC) I've update the origin of the name Christchurch from volume one of the three-volume History of Canterbury, which cites the minutes of the Canterbury Association, which created the name.

[edit] Christchurch industry

The original entry stated the new industry in Christchurch was developed by the University of Canterbury and the Christchurch Polytechnic. This is incorrect and I have amended it. Both Sir Angus Tait and Gil Simpson effectively dropped out of high school. Dennis Chapman served an apprenticeship at Tait's before the firm sent him to University of Canterbury engineering school. It is true that the university has enabled their early efforts to grow. The university especially has supplied a continuing flow of high class engineering and software graduates, and there is now fruitful synergy between the local tech industry and the university.

However, academics should not underplay the role non-graduates play in establishing new industry. Christchurch has its lesser versions of drop-out giants like Bill Gates. The world's armies of management lecturers have yet to disprove that entrepreneurship to a considerable degree is an aspect of personality.

Zootland 01:16, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I may have reverted something of this style (your addition talked about above) some way back? If I did so, It was not because I disagree with you (I have only a limited knowledge/opinion about it). However, if I remember it correctly, it was not referenced at all, while the older version had some refs or was generic enough to be semi-okay without refs. Ingolfson 07:00, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deans Ave not Rolleston Ave

{{Editprotected}} As the article currently states "The area around this square and within the four avenues of Christchurch (Bealey Avenue, Fitzgerald Avenue, Moorhouse Avenue and Rolleston Avenue)" Rolleston Ave should infact be Deans Ave which was named after the Deans Brothers.

Can you reference that? Growing up in Christchurch, I was taught that the "Four Avenues" were all named after provincial superintendants, hence Rolleston. And thus Hagley Park is not within the "four avenues" dramatic (talk) 08:33, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I think this edit shouldn't be made until it can be sourced. Od Mishehu 08:39, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Found a reliable source supporting the status quo: [6] (last item on the page) dramatic (talk) 08:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, since I think a City Council definition [7] overrides what Te Ara says, I have changed both my mind and the article.dramatic (talk) 20:33, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit War

Note that inclusion of the Māori name is in accordance with Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(New_Zealand). dramatic (talk) 08:55, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Gee, sometimes I wonder what things you miss when you are on "low active" state on Wikipedia. Seems you miss the odd squabble too, which is good. Ingolfson (talk) 07:27, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Famous People section

Lists of Famous People simply don't work for large population centres - they are never complete, the criteria for inclusion are not clear, and in this case not one entry was referenced. It also contains inaccuracies - Lord Rutherford was associated at Christchurch (Early studies at Canterbury University College) but he is from Brightwater in Nelson. dramatic (talk) 18:43, 14 May 2008 (UTC)