Auckland, Wellington and Madeleine Sami’s awesome biceps

Oh noez! Is it true? Are Bats theatre and Te Papa and the City Gal­lery and the Cuba Car­ni­val mere piffle in the face of the mighty Auck­land?

 

Can­’t we all just get along? Find out after the jump.

 

 

Inside, the story “The Cul­ture Wars” attempts to stir up some con­tro­versy by declar­ing that Auck­land – not Wel­ling­ton! – is the “cre­at­ive cap­it­al” of New Zea­l­and. Whatever that means.

 

Now, the last time Metro opined on the cap­it­al, in the form of Dami­an Christie’s art­icle list­ing all that was rub­bish about the cap­it­al, chaos ensued, so I thought it was import­ant to check out this new art­icle – at least to com­ply with the Wel­ling­tonista’s health and safety policy.

 

How­ever, upon read­ing the art­icle, it becomes obvi­ous that it’s not really about Wel­ling­ton. It’s more about how Auck­land has all these great and var­ied cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions and events, but some­times has trouble attract­ing audi­ences and does­n’t have the same repu­ta­tion that Wel­ling­ton does.

 

Com­plain­ing that Wel­ling­ton’s “cre­at­ive cap­it­al” label is noth­ing more than coun­cil-gen­er­ated spin is all very well, but you can­’t blame the 04 for the des­ol­ate feel­ing of Aotea Square.

 

The art­icle does end on a fairly upbeat note for Auck­land, and has some good sug­ges­tions about what can be done to cham­pi­on the arts in Auck­land. So it left me feel­ing really dis­ap­poin­ted that it had been styled as an “Auck­land versus Wel­ling­ton” battle. Because – let’s be hon­est – when has any­one in Auck­land ever giv­en a damn about Wel­ling­ton?

 

The art­icle’s author, Simon Wilson, is noted as being a “former Wel­ling­to­ni­an”, and I won­der if that’s the crunch. There’s noth­ing like mov­ing to a land of oppor­tun­ity to make your former home seem ter­ribly inad­equate.

 

Metro is always at its best when the stor­ies focus on Auck­land; wheth­er cel­eb­rat­ing Auck­land, invest­ig­at­ing a social issue or cham­pi­on­ing a cause. But when it starts to play the “We’re bet­ter than [oth­er New Zea­l­and city]” game, then it’s no bet­ter than, say, a Gore res­id­ent with a chip on her shoulder about the North Island.

 

Though, giv­en the nation­al dis­tri­bu­tion of Metro, per­haps it was a delib­er­ate move to stir up Wel­ling­ton read­ers into buy­ing the mag.