Category: Urban Issues

Going slowly for maximum pleasure

It was a beau­ti­ful Sun­day in Welling­ton today. The air was crisp and cool but the sun was bright and the first signs of spring were vis­i­ble. For exam­ple, as I wheeled along the water­front prom­e­nade this after­noon, a few brave young men and women were in sleeve­less tops or short shorts, antic­i­pat­ing tem­per­a­tures that […]

Cos we ain’t not no hollaback girls

You know what sucks? Get­ting yelled at on the street (unless it’s some­one yelling “Hey Welling­ton­ista, you’re awe­some, come and have some free drinks in my bar if you like” in a non-threat­en­ing way. Please do that). So Hol­laback! wants to do some­thing about it. We’ve got your back!  Hol­laback! is an inter­na­tion­al move­ment to end […]

Overpass My Ass

We’re sor­ry it’s tak­en the Welling­ton­ista so long to weigh in on The Over­pass. If truth be told we’ve all been kind of dumb­found­ed by the hor­ror of it all. We’ll have more on the whole thing soon, but if you’re as appalled as we are (and if you aren’t, you might want to read […]

Notional Significance: Clearing

 [See all Notion­al Sig­nif­i­cance posts] The offramp leads me down into what, for want of a bet­ter term, I will call the heart of John­sonville. The local RSA greets me with a Bofors gun and an ad for its epony­mous restau­rant (“Fam­i­ly Friend­ly Envi­ron­ment”). Along with the Sal­va­tion Army, Super Liquor, a ser­vice sta­tion and […]

Notional Significance: Gorge

[See all Notion­al Sig­nif­i­cance posts] The stretch of Hutt Rd from Kai­warawhara to Ngau­ran­ga is a long, dry slog through an arti­fi­cial val­ley. The west­ern side is almost nat­ur­al, cov­ered by tena­cious regen­er­a­tion, but often cut, but­tressed and bat­tered to keep the slope from fail­ing, occa­sion­al­ly sliced by gul­lies and roads that scrab­ble up to […]

Oh god no

Remem­ber when Welling­ton Air­port, after the howls of protest and out­right mock­ery, backed off on its cringe-induc­ing Welly­wood sign idea and promised to go away and think of some­thing bet­ter to cel­e­brate our film indus­try? Well, they’ve had a good, long think about it, and this morn­ing’s paper announces that they’ve come up with a […]

Notional Significance: Reclamation

[See all Notion­al Sig­nif­i­cance posts] Kai­wharawhara is a node, a knot, a tan­gle of paths and his­to­ries. It’s where the epony­mous stream meets the har­bour, though quakes and recla­ma­tions have long since nudged the mouth sea­wards from its orig­i­nal posi­tion at the fault line, engulf­ing fore­shore, ship­wrecks and shell­fish beds in the process. It’s where […]

Notional Significance: Skyway

[See all Notion­al Sig­nif­i­cance posts] The stretch of motor­way that leaps out from the bluff was known in the Six­ties as the “Kai­war­ra-Thorn­­don Sky­way”, incon­gru­ous­ly com­bin­ing the Jet­son­ian opti­mism of the term “sky­way” with a man­gled con­trac­tion of “Kai­wharawhara” that today would only be used by Pake­ha blokes of a cer­tain age. Both the sky­way […]

Notional Significance: Gully

[See all Notion­al Sig­nif­i­cance posts] The path bends with the motor­way, peel­ing away from the hills, pre­sent­ing a widescreen panora­ma of res­i­den­tial Thorn­don. I can see what remains of the gul­lies into which the high­way has wedged itself: from the all-but-van­ished Honeyman’s Gul­ly (once a duelling ground for lawyers, then filled in for the less […]

The cupboards are bare

The Welling­ton­ista is not just about bring­ing the snark to the deserv­ing. Some­times we drop the cyn­i­cal worn-out hip­ster thing to bring food to the deserv­ing. We need to tell you that the Down­town Com­mu­ni­ty Min­istry food bank is just about out of food. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, more peo­ple need their help than ever before. Yes­ter­day their […]