Voting in the Fourth Annual Wellingtonista Awards is open from December 1-15. Then come find out the results at our Awards Night at Mighty Mighty on December 17!

To vote, visit this page.

Wellington is awesome, no doubt about it, but we still have ideas about what would make it even more awesomer. We use this category to gauge public opinion about what’s most important. 

A liquor store that delivers at night: The party is rockin’ and reelin’ in Wellington, New Zealand (RIP Lux Interior) and you realise the supply of hooch is dangerously low. Instead of finding out where the sober driver has gone to (making-out upstairs) you speed-dial the Delivery Liquor Outlet and the party is saved! Sadly this is all a fiction because in reality there is no liquor store that delivers (and you don’t actually have any friends).

Better public transport: There’s one theme that emerged in many guises in our reader’s suggestions, and that’s public transport. Trains and buses need to be integrated, reliable, fast, convenient and – not to put too fine a point on it – not falling to bits.

Bike lanes: The other transport theme that came out of the nominations was cycling, and in particular the need for more dedicated bike lanes. Wellingtonians are great walkers, and put up with the shortcomings of public transport, but apart from a few dedicated souls, few of us bike. Perhaps a good network of safe, convenient bike paths will be what it takes to get to critical mass.

More people: We are going to go out on a limb here and nominate "more people in the inner city" for the most needed category. Our readers have nominated people-watching various kinds of drunken idiocy under the "best regular entertainment" category, witness:

  • Drunken bridge and tunnel bogans on Courtenay Place
  • Watching newcomers’ reactions to Blanket Man
  • Watching the emo kids rolling around the ground on Manners Mall (soon to be no more)
  • Green teens getting boozed on Courtenay.

Hillllarious! While drinking is arguably an inescapable part of inner city culture, what we are envisioning is a well-planned, flourishing people-friendly city, comfortably crammed with people. What we have now but more so. While we will never be Tokyo or New York (in spite of what those Newtown T-shirts say), we could aspire to be a small but perfectly formed city that attracts more potential "Wellingtonians of the Year". More people would also be a boon for those of us who feel, from time to time, that Wellington is too much of a village.

A wet house: Congratulations, NIMBYs of Island Bay. You succeeded in blocking a safe place for incurable homeless alcoholics to live in. Here’s hoping an alternative location can be found.