Posts by Jogging Solo
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Yeah, I know - then I changed it to Auckland City and central Wellington. That's what I meant to write, but as you can probably tell, I wrote the above post quite quickly.
Lyall Bay! It's hardly Porirua, is it? As for Newtown, it seems to me to be increasingly, as Aro gentrifies, the stomping ground of bohemian students and artists who may be poor but who by in large come from middle-class backgrounds. Whereas Christchurch has very poor areas adjacent to the city. You have to take to the motorway in Auckland and Wellington to witness the same level of economic deprivation. Therefore my comment about poverty, and related social problems, being out of sight and out of mind for Wellingtonians. In Christchurch it is much more in your face.
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Giovanni - let me just say quickly in response to you (and to Emma!) that I am not addressing Emma, her article and its tone, but some of the cliqued comments about Christchurch in response to it.
But not by a long shot?
Come on, now. Central Wellington is the wealthiest constituency in the country. Virtually everyone is middle-class, or a student.
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Sigh.
Sometimes I feel that Kyle Chapman - whose followers you can count on one hand - exists essentially as an excuse for a bit of bully-boy Christchurch bashing. Because nobody would even know these guys existed if it wasn't for the media's tendency to promote anything that helps solidify the image of Christchurch as a racist place.
It's rich of Wellingtonians and Aucklanders to label Christchurch as having great racial and class tension compared to those cities. A few idiots walking around an outer suburb in black jerseys is laughable and no great threat to racial harmony. I've seen plenty of seedy, poor, uneducated and angry white guys in the outer areas of Auckland and Wellington. Note I say "outer" areas.
Christchurch city, unlike Auckland and Wellington, is made up of a genuine mix of people from all sorts of backgrounds, poor, wealthy and everything in between. In contrast, Auckland City and Central Wellington are by-in-large middle-class only zones: all the "white trash," as some of the posters call them - a disgusting and degrading term - and the poor, uneducated and often disenfranchised and angry people of other ethnic backgounds, live out of sight and out of mind, outside of Auckland city, CEntral Welligton - in Upper Hutt, or in Porirua, or South Auckland.
As for public spaces: No other city in the country has a public space equal to the botanic gardens. And they are well used by everyone.
As for the City Council in the 1980s refusing to give part of Hagley Park to Maori because it was "too close to the expensive suburbs" (someone wrote above) -- what a load of tosh! The Christchurch City Council has been consistently the most left wing council in the country, compared to the corporate-minded Auckland and Wellington City Councils.
In regard to Maori -- treaty negotiations and subsequent partnerships between Ngai Tahu and the Council and local business leaders have been a great deal more successful than they have in other areas of the country. Ngai Tahu is seen as the model for other tribes to emulate.
To balance my rebuttal: Christchurch does have more than its share of problems. There's a terrible problem with public drunkenness; of angry bored and out of control young - by in large poor - men driving missiles around the central city; a high murder rate, etc. etc. Sadly, New Brighton has become a less-than-perfect example of some of the city's failures. There has been attempts to do something about it but none of them have worked very well. All we can keep doing, I suppose, is to keep trying to address the underlying causes of poverty and alienation politically, and backing those efforts up with community driven projects and initiatives....
Rather than sitting back in an inner-city cafe for the well healed, several miles away by motorway from where we have forced by high rentals out own poor out of sight - whether that be Porirua or South Auckland - and sneering about more disadvantaged and less cultured people down South, or in the Hutt, in between visits to art galleries which may have a great emphasis on cultural diversity but only engage with real class and social issues on a theoretical level. Consider the disgusting irony of champagne-fueled art openings for the liberal and conscientious of the Roseneath dress circle.
Hopefully down here in Christchurch we can find ways to deal with some of the deepening poverty and social ills we have been suffering of late. I am confident we can. After all, this is the home of the labour union movement and the red centre of the country - if you look at historical voting patterns - so I have some hope we can sort things out.
In the meantime why not address some of the underlying causes of social problems rather than expressing a dismissive brand of snobbery towards people less educated and urbane than you.
Finally Kyle Chapman is a dickhead, that's never been disputed. Regarding his most recent comments about"non-white" graffiti: I'd love to show him some of the ancient graffiti in Rome and Pompey.
Kyle is an ignoramus, with no support in the community, very few followers and no serious threat to racial harmony. Please, stop using him serve ofa metaphor of the perverse Christchurchland of your imaginations and start recognizing him for what he is: more a convenient buffoon that enables wealthy urban elites to express their snobbery and comfortable self-satisfaction, than a foil to express and feel righteous superiority of morals in comparison to people further South, and often a lot poorer and less educated, than you.