Shape of the Suburbs
Last weekend a friend asked on Twitter whether anyone had made a New Zealand equivalent of this poster of London boroughs, which took the outlines of the boroughs out of context by arranging them alphabetically while keeping them to the same scale. This revealed both the weirdness of some of the shapes, and the striking […]
Where the Wild Wind Blows
We’re expecting some severe winds overnight and in the morning, and sensible people are battening down their metaphorical (and occasionally literal) hatches. I saw a comment on a friend’s Facebook page from someone overseas saying “but surely Wellington houses are built for the wind?”, and the answer is yes, but gusts of 160km/h are extreme enough […]
Miramar is hacking and wants all the developers
Wellington is running its first Civic Hackathon the first weekend of November to tackle transport issues in and around Eastern Suburbs and the wider city. The Hack Miramar folks have got a bunch of people involved already and they’ve got spots open if you want to join in and they’re looking for freaks, geeks, and […]
Get Informed About Resource Consents
It’s a common complaint: “how could the Council let people build that, and not even notify anyone?” That’s partly down to a misunderstanding of what “notification” means under the RMA: it’s not just about letting people know, but also the start of a long and complex process involving hearings, lawyers and possible appeals, and it only occurs […]
Under the Pollsters’ Radar
At this stage of the election cycle we are drowning in polls. While each media outlet treats its own commissioned research as holy writ, they all have their own strengths and weaknesses, and it takes something like Danyl McLauchlan’s tracking poll charts to smooth out the noise and calibrate them against actual election results. Even with that, there’s a growing […]
Where the Voters Aren’t
You could be forgiven for thinking that all Wellingtonians are obsessed with politics. Advance voting started today, and already some voters are proudly sporting their “YES I have voted” stickers. Yet thousands of Wellingtonians have still not enrolled to vote. Who are these disenfranchised people, and why have they not enrolled? Luckily, the Electoral Commission has […]