Wellington Metropolitan vs Wellington Urban As someone who has lived in Wellington off and on for 20 years I now regard it as my home town In all of this one crucial fact is overlooked the Wellington Metropolitan area includes the Kapiti Coast as far as Waikanae There are several thousand people who commute to other parts of the urban area everyday and the Suburban rail network goes to Paraparaumu with a planned extension to Waikanae Almost everyone I know thinks of the Kapiti area as part of Greater Wellington So I am left wondering why the boffins in Wellington refuse to include this area in the Urban data Yes I know there is the stretch of road past Paekakariki but that s no different from the Haywards Road or the Hutt Road In reality in spite of the classifications Wellington remains the second largest Metropolitan Area in New Zealand by my calculation the population including the Kapiti suburbs is around 415 000 still around 30 000 more than Christchurch If Christchurch gets to include non contiguous suburbs eg Halswell Lyttelton then so should Wellington Not only that Banks Peninsula was included in Christchurch in 2006 so that Bob Parker could become mayor of Christchurch and promote Christchurch as the second largest city in NZ The reality is Christchurch has an inferiority complex and I can say that because I m from there It doesn t change the fact that Wellington has more people and is more important than Christchurch no matter which way the geographers and politicians want to spin it Instead of merging the pages how about creating a new one for GREATER WELLINGTON which could include Kapiti