Christchurch
The city expands
There were no barriers to Christchurch’s growth on the plains, except for the sea to the east and the Port Hills to the south. Laid out in a grid pattern centred on Cathedral Square, it spread along the main tramlines. Early outlying villages like New Brighton, Sumner, Papanui and Upper Riccarton were eventually swallowed up. The downtown area remained the focus until the 1960s, when the first suburban malls appeared.
Christchurch grew rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s, when large tracts of state housing were built. A green belt curbed growth into farm land, but the changes in town planning associated with the Resource Management Act 1991 have allowed peripheral expansion to proceed.
‘More English than England’
Christchurch is sometimes described as the most English of New Zealand cities. Tourism ventures often exploit this, focusing on the central city’s picturesque architecture and promoting such activities as punting on the river Avon. But apart from the remarkable collection of Gothic stone buildings at its heart, Christchurch is unlike any English city in layout and appearance.
Compared to other New Zealand centres, a slightly higher proportion of the overseas residents were from England in the early days. But by the later 19th century the Irish were as numerous as elsewhere and the Scots only slightly fewer.
A class society
Christchurch is also seen by some as having more obvious social distinctions than elsewhere in the country, with a marked ‘upper crust’: the élite living in Fendalton, sending their children to the right schools, shopping at Ballantynes and belonging to the Canterbury Club or Christchurch Club.
The Canterbury Association’s wish to transplant the English class system may have promoted a stronger sense of division. Even today, being able to trace ancestry back to one of the first four ships carries some weight. Yet some commentators insist that social and economic inequalities are no greater in Christchurch than in other New Zealand cities.
Peers and peasants
The son of one of the Canterbury Association founders explained the class differences in Christchurch: ‘[T]he great and obvious distinction between the population of Canterbury and the other provinces of New Zealand is, that Canterbury is populated by representatives of every class and section of English society, from the peer to the peasant, while the population of the other provinces is nothing more nor less than a straggling, struggling mob – an undistinguished herd, made up of mere men and women.’1
Diversity
Like all large cities, Christchurch has its subcultures and nonconformists. The best-known local eccentric is the Wizard (Ian Brackenbury Channell). In the 1970s and 1980s urban communes and alternative lifestylers made a mark: the Avon Loop community (known fondly as ‘Loopies’) promoted environmental awareness and self-sufficiency.
At that time a local punk culture also emerged. A negative side of social change was racial violence, when white-supremacist skinheads periodically attacked ethnic minorities. Despite concerns about such violence, and drugs, the Christchurch crime rate has fallen since 1995.
Lifestyle
Christchurch has a well-tended and attractive environment. Hagley Park at the centre, with its magnificent trees, is one of many parks and reserves. The high standard of public and private gardens has earned the Christchurch the name Garden City. Notable public gardens include Mona Vale, the grounds of the Ilam Homestead, and the Botanic Gardens.
There are popular walking tracks over the Port Hills, and the beaches at Sumner, New Brighton and Taylors Mistake are popular. Residents and tourists enjoy Christchurch’s proximity to the mountains, lakes and rivers for outdoor pursuits such as skiing, snowboarding, fishing, tramping and mountaineering.
The central city has a flourishing café culture, and boutique food outlets in or near Christchurch sell local, often organic, produce such as cheese, bread and walnuts.
City size
Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island. The metropolitan area contains three-quarters of the population of Canterbury and one-third of the population of the South Island.
In 1900 Christchurch had about the same population as Auckland. By 2000, Auckland had three times the population of Christchurch. Christchurch and Wellington, however, kept pace with each other in size and rate of growth. Which city has more people depends on how the figures are compiled. In 2001 the Christchurch urban area (with 334,107 people) was only slightly smaller than the combined urban areas of Wellington, Hutt Valley and Porirua (334,707), but much bigger than the Wellington urban area alone (162,981).
Footnotes
- Edward Jerningham Wakefield, quoted in Steven Eldred-Grigg, A new history of Canterbury. Dunedin: McIndoe, 1982, p. 20. › Back
