Talk:North Island

message: I just reverted someone's edit that would have changed the "Wellington" link from "Wellington city" to "Wellington", because this list also contains other cities in the greater Wellington region: Porirua, Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt.  But then I realized that this list is not consistent about how it handles cities within greater Auckland.  In particular, it links just to "Auckland" (as the largest city), but then also links to "Hibiscus Coast" and "Pukekohe" - both of which are under the governance of the Auckland Council (and are thus part of the Auckland 'super city').  I think that "Hibiscus Coast" and "Pukekohe" should probably be removed from this list, because they're part of the Auckland 'super city', and because their populations are already counted in the total for "Auckland"  Does anyone have any objections to this? Ross Finlayson (talk) 14:10, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: It depends on what we're trying to say here. Your revert changed back to the narrow definition of Wellington's city environs, but now you're trying to include outlying parts of Auckland into Auckland itself. That's not consistent. So we need to determine what we're trying to say. With increasing urban spread, Hibiscus Coast has become a suburb of Auckland, so it really should be removed from the list. Note that it has never been a city in its own right. However, if we were to base the list on the Auckland Council ruled area, we would have to include Wellsford and Warkworth, which would be absurd to most Aucklanders as they are small townships far to the north of the suburbs and separated by rolling farm country. The same thing applies to Pukekohe, which is Auckland Council ruled, but is a town that is not contiguous with Auckland's suburbs. There needs to be a debate here about what to include. A side issue is that even on the present state of the list, the population figures are wrong. Akld guy (talk) 20:02, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, the reason why I'm suggesting not being 'consistent' in the treatment of Auckland and Wellington - i.e., including only "Auckland" on the list, but including "Wellington" (city), "Porirua", and the "Hutt"s - is that Auckland is a 'super city', but Wellington is not (right?).  But the concept of 'super city' is rather vague, and perhaps rather silly in this case - because the Auckland Council also rules Great Barrier Island, which is perhaps the most rural part of NZ (it's not even on the power grid!).  As an Aucklander, I agree with you that considering Warkworth and (especially) Wellsford to be part of Auckland sounds silly; fortunately, they're not yet large enough to be considered on this list.  The Hibiscus Coast is definitely considered to be part of Auckland now.  Pukekohe is on the edge (pun intended), but should be removed in any case if its population is counted as part of Auckland's. Ross Finlayson (talk) 20:13, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The list appears to be based on this StatsNZ chart, which defines the urban areas listed. Akld guy (talk) 20:19, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps - though that chart doesn't include "Hibiscus Coast". Ross Finlayson (talk) 23:32, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I meant that the cited ref goes to a generic StatsNZ site. Possibly it was originally more specific but StatsNZ has changed the link. By digging around, I found the link I cited. Akld guy (talk) 01:43, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  The list of "Cities and towns"