Auckland Council
The Auckland Council is the local government council for the Auckland Region in New Zealand. The governing body consists of 20 councillors, elected from 13 wards. There are 149 members of 21 local boards who make decisions on matters local to their communities, it is the largest council in Oceania, with a $3 billion annual budget, $29 billion of ratepayer equity, 9,870 full-time staff as of 30 June 2016. The council began operating on 1 November 2010, combining the functions of the previous regional council and the region's seven city and district councils into one "super council" or "super city"; the Council was established by a number of Acts of Parliament, an Auckland Transition Agency created by the central government. Both the means by which the Council was established and its structure came under repeated criticism from a broad spectrum during the establishment period; the initial Council elections in October 2010 returned a centre-left council with Len Brown as mayor. Brown was re-elected in October 2013, again with a supportive council.
The 2016 mayoral election was won by Labour MP Phil Goff, who had a landslide victory with his nearest rivals, Victoria Crone in second place, followed by Chlöe Swarbrick. The Auckland Council took over the functions of the Auckland Regional Council and the region's seven city and district councils: Auckland City Council, Manukau City Council, Waitakere City Council, North Shore City Council, Papakura District Council, Rodney District Council and most of Franklin District Council; the Auckland Regional Council was formed in 1989. One of the mainstays of its work was expanding the parks network, it brought into the Auckland Council 26 regional parks with more than 40,000 hectares, including many restored natural habitats and sanctuaries developed in co-operation with the Department of Conservation and volunteers. A variety of public transport-focused projects like the Northern Busway as well as significant rail and public transport investments were realised through the Auckland Regional Transport Authority, much of it supported by retaining Ports of Auckland in public hands to fund the improvements with the dividends.
Until 2010, the Auckland Region had seven "City/District" authorities, plus one "Regional" authority. In the late 2000s, New Zealand's central government and parts of Auckland's society felt that this large number of Councils, the lack of strong regional government were hindering Auckland's progress, that a form of stronger regional government, or an amalgamation under one local council, would be beneficial. Others pointed to the fact that a previous integration of the many much smaller Borough Councils did not bring the promised advantages either, reduced local participation in politics, with editorialists pointing out that the proponents of the'super city' have not made any promises of savings in light of past rises in rates and utilities bills. In 2007, the government set up a Royal Commission on Auckland Governance to report on what restructuring should be done; the report was released on 27 March 2009 and the government subsequently announced that a "super city" would be set up to include the full metropolitan area under an Auckland Council with a single mayor and 20–30 local boards, by the time of the local body elections in 2010, though it changed some key recommendations of the Royal Commission.
Some recommendations of the Royal Commission which have not been adopted or implemented: 6A The Auckland Council should include a vision for the region in its spatial plan. 6B The Mayor of Auckland's annual "State of the Region" address should describe progress towards the attainment of the vision. 19C: "Leadership support and development programmes for elected councillors should be strengthened." 21D: Auckland Council CCOs and their statements of intent should be subject to performance review by the proposed Auckland Services Performance Auditor. 21A 22A Two Māori members should be elected to the Auckland Council by voters who are on the parliamentary Māori Electoral Roll. 22B There should be a Mana Whenua Forum, the members of which will be appointed by mana whenua from the district of the Auckland Council. 22D The Auckland Council should ensure that each local council has adequate structures in place to enable proper engagement with Māori and consideration of their views in the local councils’ decision-making processes.
Where appropriate, current structures and/or memoranda of understanding should be transferred to local councils. 24F Auckland Council should consider creating an Urban Development Agency, to operate at the direction of the Auckland Council, with compulsory acquisition powers. The Auckland Council should determine the extent to which responsibilities for the delivery of stormwater services are shared between local councils and Watercare Services Limited. 26I Watercare Services Limited should be required by legislation to promote demand management. 26M Watercare Services Limited should be required to prepare a stormwater action plan. 27D The Auckland Council should prepare an e-government strategy as an intrinsic part of its proposed unified service delivery and information systems plan. 28A The Auckland Council should work with consumers, the industry, central government agencies to develop a climate change and energy strategy for the region, including monitoring and reviewing electricity security of supply performance, industry planning and regulation impacting the Auckland region.
30A The Auckland Council should develop a Regional Waste Management Strategy, including strategies for management of organic waste and integration o
Māori culture
Māori culture is indigenous to New Zealand and originated from, is still part of, Eastern Polynesian culture. Māori culture forms a distinctive part of New Zealand culture and is found throughout the world, due to a large diaspora and incorporation of motifs into popular culture. Within the Māori community, to a lesser extent throughout New Zealand as a whole, the word Māoritanga is used as an approximate synonym for Māori culture, the Māori suffix -tanga being equivalent to the qualitative noun ending "-ness" in English. There have been four distinct but overlapping cultural eras—before Māori culture had differentiated itself from other Polynesian cultures, before widespread European contact, the 1800s in which Māori began interacting with European visitors and settlers, the modern era since the beginning of the 20th century. Culture in the modern era has been shaped by increasing urbanisation, closer contact with New Zealanders of European descent and revival of traditional practices. Traditional Māori arts make up a large section of New Zealand art and include whakairo, kapa haka, tā moko.
The patterns and characters represented record the genealogies of Māori. Practitioners follow the techniques of their ancestors, but today Māoritanga includes contemporary arts such as film, television and theatre; the Māori language is shortened to te reo. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it looked like te reo as well as other aspects of Māori life would disappear. In the 1980s however, government-sponsored schools taught te reo, educating those of European descent as well as Māori. Māori cultural history is inextricably tied into the culture of Polynesia as a whole. Aotearoa is the southwestern corner of the Polynesian Triangle, a region of the Pacific Ocean with three island groups at its corners: Hawaiian Islands, Rapa Nui, New Zealand; the many island cultures within the Polynesian Triangle share similar languages derived from a proto-Malayo-Polynesian language used in southeastern Asia 5,000 years ago. Polynesians share cultural traditions such as religion, social organisation and material culture.
Anthropologists believe that all Polynesians have descended from a south Pacific proto-culture created by an Austronesian people that had migrated from southeastern Asia. The other main Polynesian cultures are Rapa Nui, Marquesas, Tahiti and Cook Islands. Over the last five millennia, a sequence of complicated and remarkable transoceanic treks were performed in an unprecedented accomplishment of navigation and curiosity; the final segments of these feats were across extreme and unmatched distances: to Hawaii and Aotearoa. Polynesian seafarers were ocean astronomers. Polynesians would travel long distances by sea; the strong female presence among early settlers in New Zealand suggests Polynesian migration voyages were not accidental but deliberate. The most current reliable evidence indicates that initial settlement of New Zealand occurred around 1280 CE from the Society Islands. In 1769 the experienced Society Island navigator Tupaia joined Captain Cook in the Endeavour on his voyage south. Despite a gap of many hundreds of years Tupaia was able to understand the Māori language, similar to the language he spoke.
His presence and ability to translate avoided much of the friction between other European explorers and Māori in New Zealand. European sailors, including Cook, found Polynesian sailors lost at sea, suggesting that by mid 18th century knowledge of long distance navigation was not ubiquitous. Researchers label the time from about 1280 to about 1450 the Archaic period or "Moa-hunter period" - after the moa, the large flightless bird that formed a large part of the diet of the early settlers. During this period Māori adapted to their new environment, but culturally they changed little from the tropical Pacific peoples they were derived from. Many edible plants were brought from the home islands and of these kūmara was to become the most important. In the far South, however, it was too cold to grow any of these crops. Large quantities of tī tubers were eaten that were slow-cooked in large umu or hāngi to get rid of poison and to produce a sweet pulp. Shellfish, fish and seals were common foods. Native dogs and rats were brought from the Pacific Islands.
The introduction of rats undoubtedly had more impact on New Zealand wildlife than any other organism apart from humans. The dogs were used for hunting but as food; the new environment offered challenges to the settlers. Its cold climate meant that tropical staple crops needed careful cultivation to survive, some failed to grow locally. Kūmara was an important crop. Much of the activity to produce kūmara became ritualised – it was associated with Rongomātāne, a high-ranking atua. Kūmara featured in some whakataukī: "Kaore te kūmara e kōrero mo tōna māngaro" encouraged people to be modest. Seasonal activities included gardening and the hunting of birds. Main tasks were segregated for men and women, but there were a lot of group activities involving food gathering and food cultivation; these early colonists explored New Zealand to find suitable stones for tool-making. The main stone source areas included Mayor Island and Kerikeri for obsidian.
Northwestern Motorway
The Northwestern Motorway, part of State Highway 16, is the major western route and secondary northern route out of Auckland in New Zealand. Twenty-one kilometres in length, the motorway runs from Stanley St in Parnell through the Central Motorway Junction, west through urban Auckland and Waitakere before continuing northwest and terminating outside of Kumeu, its western terminus is at Brigham Creek Road in Whenuapai. A large part of it forms the middle section of the Western Ring Route; the first section of the Northwestern Motorway, from Waterview to Te Atatu, was finished in 1952.. The section between Waterview and Rosebank peninsula is known as "The Causeway"; the next section opened for traffic in 1955 offering a two-laned 7.8 km section from Great North Road to Lincoln Road. The section involved bridges over inlets of the Waitematā Harbour, which cut the journey between central Auckland and its airport at Whenuapai by 8 km; this section was upgraded to four lanes. In 1957, the motorway was extended westwards by one km to Lincoln Park Avenue, between the current Lincoln Road and Royal Road interchanges.
In 1961, it was extended again by 2.7 km to Hobsonville Road at. Traffic could now travel 11.5 km on the Northwestern Motorway, the journey between Auckland and Whenuapai was cut by a total of 9 km compared with local roads. In 1966, the current Auckland International Airport opened at Mangere, Whenuapai reverted to a military airport; this affected the use of the motorway. Motorway construction recommenced in the late 1970s, to connect the Northwestern Motorway at Waterview to the Auckland city centre, bypassing Great North Road; the first section to open was in 1979, stretching 2.4 km from Newton Road to Western Springs, at the current site of the eastbound on/off-ramps for St Lukes Road. At the same time, ramps opened as part of the Central Motorway Junction from Newton Road to Nelson Street and Hobson Street, connecting the Northwestern Motorway to the city centre. Traffic could access the Southern and Northern Motorways indirectly from the Nelson Street and Hobson Street intersections. In 1981, the 2.4 km section between Great North Road at Waterview and Motions Road near Western Springs opened, leaving a small 1 km gap where traffic had to use Great North Road.
This gap was filled in 1983. In 1988, ramps were installed at the Central Motorway Junction to allow direct access between the Southern Motorway and the Northwestern Motorway; the following year, ramps opened between Grafton Gully and the Northwestern Motorway, allowing motorway traffic direct access to the eastern city centre and the port. In 2006, two new ramps were installed to directly connect the Northwestern Motorway and the Northern Motorway. On 7 August 2011 a 3 kilometre, 4-lane extension of the Northwestern Motorway opened from Hobsonville Road to Brigham Creek Road in Whenuapai, along with a 6 kilometre, 4-lane extension of State Highway 18 motorway from the end of the Northwestern Motorway at Hobsonville Road to the western end of Upper Harbour Bridge in Hobsonville. From 2012 to 2016 extra lanes were added between St Lukes and Westgate in preparation for the opening, on 2 July 2017, of the Waterview Connection. List of motorways and expressways in New Zealand Northwestern Cycleway
Suburb
A suburb is a mixed-use or residential area, existing either as part of a city or urban area or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city. In most English-speaking countries, suburban areas are defined in contrast to central or inner-city areas, but in Australian English and South African English, suburb has become synonymous with what is called a "neighborhood" in other countries and the term extends to inner-city areas. In some areas, such as Australia, China, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, a few U. S. states, new suburbs are annexed by adjacent cities. In others, such as Saudi Arabia, Canada and much of the United States, many suburbs remain separate municipalities or are governed as part of a larger local government area such as a county. Suburbs first emerged on a large scale in the 19th and 20th centuries as a result of improved rail and road transport, which led to an increase in commuting. In general, they have lower population densities than inner city neighborhoods within a metropolitan area, most residents commute to central cities or other business districts.
Suburbs tend to proliferate around cities that have an abundance of adjacent flat land. The English word is derived from the Old French subburbe, in turn derived from the Latin suburbium, formed from sub and urbs; the first recorded usage of the term in English, was made by John Wycliffe in 1380, where the form subarbis was used, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In Australia and New Zealand, suburbs have become formalised as geographic subdivisions of a city and are used by postal services in addressing. In rural areas in both countries, their equivalents are called localities; the terms inner suburb and outer suburb are used to differentiate between the higher-density areas in proximity to the city center, the lower-density suburbs on the outskirts of the urban area. The term'middle suburbs' is used. Inner suburbs, such as Te Aro in Wellington, Eden Terrace in Auckland, Prahran in Melbourne and Ultimo in Sydney, are characterised by higher density apartment housing and greater integration between commercial and residential areas.
In New Zealand, most suburbs are not defined which can lead to confusion as to where they may begin and end. Although there is a geospatial file defining suburbs for use by emergency services developed and maintained by Fire and Emergency New Zealand, in collaboration with other government agencies, to date this file has not been released publicly. New Zealand company Koordinates Limited requested access to the geospatial file under the Official Information Act 1982 but this request was rejected by the New Zealand Fire Service on the basis that it would prejudice the health & safety of, or cause material loss, to the public. In September 2014 a decision was made by the Ombudsman of New Zealand ruling that the New Zealand Fire Service refusal to release the geospatial file without agreeing to terms which included, among other restrictions, a prohibition on redistribution of the geospatial file, was reasonable. In the United Kingdom and in Ireland, suburb refers to a residential area outside the city centre, regardless of administrative boundaries.
Suburbs, in this sense, can range from areas that seem more like residential areas of a city proper to areas separated by open countryside from the city centre. In large cities such as London and Leeds, suburbs include separate towns and villages that have been absorbed during a city's growth and expansion, such as Ealing and Guiseley. In the United States and Canada, suburb can refer either to an outlying residential area of a city or town or to a separate municipality or unincorporated area outside a town or city; the earliest appearance of suburbs coincided with the spread of the first urban settlements. Large walled towns tended to be the focus around which smaller villages grew up in a symbiotic relationship with the market town; the word'suburbani' was first used by the Roman statesman Cicero in reference to the large villas and estates built by the wealthy patricians of Rome on the city's outskirts. Towards the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the capital, was occupied by the emperor and important officials.
As populations grew during the Early Modern Period in Europe, urban towns swelled with a steady influx of people from the countryside. In some places, nearby settlements were swallowed up as the main city expanded; the peripheral areas on the outskirts of the city were inhabited by the poorest. Due to the rapid migration of the rural poor to the industrialising cities of England in the late 18th century, a trend in the opposite direction began to develop; this trend accelerated through the 19th century in cities like London and Manchester that were growing and the first suburban districts sprung up around the city centres to accommodate those who wanted to escape the squalid conditions of the industrial towns. Toward the end of the century, with the development of public transit systems such as the underground railways and buses, it became possible for the majority of the city's population to reside outside the city and to commute into the
New Zealand
New Zealand is a sovereign island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses—the North Island, the South Island —and around 600 smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 2,000 kilometres east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and 1,000 kilometres south of the Pacific island areas of New Caledonia and Tonga; because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans. During its long period of isolation, New Zealand developed a distinct biodiversity of animal and plant life; the country's varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks, such as the Southern Alps, owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington. Sometime between 1250 and 1300, Polynesians settled in the islands that were named New Zealand and developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight New Zealand. In 1840, representatives of the United Kingdom and Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, which declared British sovereignty over the islands.
In 1841, New Zealand became a colony within the British Empire and in 1907 it became a dominion. Today, the majority of New Zealand's population of 4.9 million is of European descent. Reflecting this, New Zealand's culture is derived from Māori and early British settlers, with recent broadening arising from increased immigration; the official languages are English, Māori, NZ Sign Language, with English being dominant. A developed country, New Zealand ranks in international comparisons of national performance, such as quality of life, education, protection of civil liberties, economic freedom. New Zealand underwent major economic changes during the 1980s, which transformed it from a protectionist to a liberalised free-trade economy; the service sector dominates the national economy, followed by the industrial sector, agriculture. Nationally, legislative authority is vested in an elected, unicameral Parliament, while executive political power is exercised by the Cabinet, led by the prime minister Jacinda Ardern.
Queen Elizabeth II is the country's monarch and is represented by a governor-general Dame Patsy Reddy. In addition, New Zealand is organised into 11 regional councils and 67 territorial authorities for local government purposes; the Realm of New Zealand includes Tokelau. New Zealand is a member of the United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ASEAN Plus Six, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Pacific Community and the Pacific Islands Forum. Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sighted New Zealand in 1642 and named it Staten Land "in honour of the States General", he wrote, "it is possible that this land joins to the Staten Land but it is uncertain", referring to a landmass of the same name at the southern tip of South America, discovered by Jacob Le Maire in 1616. In 1645, Dutch cartographers renamed the land Nova Zeelandia after the Dutch province of Zeeland. British explorer James Cook subsequently anglicised the name to New Zealand. Aotearoa is the current Māori name for New Zealand.
It is unknown whether Māori had a name for the whole country before the arrival of Europeans, with Aotearoa referring to just the North Island. Māori had several traditional names for the two main islands, including Te Ika-a-Māui for the North Island and Te Waipounamu or Te Waka o Aoraki for the South Island. Early European maps labelled the islands North and South. In 1830, maps began to use North and South to distinguish the two largest islands and by 1907 this was the accepted norm; the New Zealand Geographic Board discovered in 2009 that the names of the North Island and South Island had never been formalised, names and alternative names were formalised in 2013. This set the names as North Island or Te Ika-a-Māui, South Island or Te Waipounamu. For each island, either its English or Māori name can be used. New Zealand was one of the last major landmasses settled by humans. Radiocarbon dating, evidence of deforestation and mitochondrial DNA variability within Māori populations suggest New Zealand was first settled by Eastern Polynesians between 1250 and 1300, concluding a long series of voyages through the southern Pacific islands.
Over the centuries that followed, these settlers developed a distinct culture now known as Māori. The population was divided into iwi and hapū who would sometimes cooperate, sometimes compete and sometimes fight against each other. At some point a group of Māori migrated to Rēkohu, now known as the Chatham Islands, where they developed their distinct Moriori culture; the Moriori population was all but wiped out between 1835 and 1862 because of Taranaki Māori invasion and enslavement in the 1830s, although European diseases contributed. In 1862 only 101 survived, the last known full-blooded Moriori died in 1933; the first Europeans known to have reached New Zeala
Tram
A tram is a rail vehicle which runs on tramway tracks along public urban streets. The lines or networks operated by tramcars are called tramways; the term electric street railways was used in the United States. In the United States, the term tram has sometimes been used for rubber-tyred trackless trains, which are unrelated to other kinds of trams. Tram vehicles are lighter and shorter than main line and rapid transit trains. Today, most trams use electrical power fed by a pantograph sliding on an overhead line. In some cases by a contact shoe on a third rail is used. If necessary, they may have dual power systems—electricity in city streets, diesel in more rural environments. Trams carry freight. Trams are now included in the wider term "light rail", which includes grade-separated systems; some trams, known as tram-trains, may have segments that run on mainline railway tracks, similar to interurban systems. The differences between these modes of rail transport are indistinct, a given system may combine multiple features.
One of the advantages over earlier forms of transit was the low rolling resistance of metal wheels on steel rails, allowing the trams to haul a greater load for a given effort. Problems included the fact that any given animal could only work so many hours on a given day, had to be housed, groomed and cared for day in and day out, produced prodigious amounts of manure, which the streetcar company was charged with disposing of. Electric trams replaced animal power in the late 19th and early 20th century. Improvements in other forms of road transport such as buses led to decline of trams in mid 20th century. Trams have seen resurgence in recent years; the English terms tram and tramway are derived from the Scots word tram, referring to a type of truck used in coal mines and the tracks on which they ran. The word tram derived from Middle Flemish trame; the identical word la trame with the meaning "crossbeam" is used in the French language. Etymologists believe that the word tram refers to the wooden beams the railway tracks were made of before the railroad pioneers switched to the much more wear-resistant tracks made of iron and steel.
The word Tram-car is attested from 1873. Although the terms tram and tramway have been adopted by many languages, they are not used universally in English; the term streetcar is first recorded in 1840, referred to horsecars. When electrification came, Americans began to speak of trolleycars or trolleys. A held belief holds the word to derive from the troller, a four-wheeled device, dragged along dual overhead wires by a cable that connected the troller to the top of the car and collected electrical power from the overhead wires. "Trolley" and variants refer to the verb troll, meaning "roll" and derived from Old French, cognate uses of the word were well established for handcarts and horse drayage, as well as for nautical uses. The alternative North American term'trolley' may speaking be considered incorrect, as the term can be applied to cable cars, or conduit cars that instead draw power from an underground supply. Conventional diesel tourist buses decorated to look like streetcars are sometimes called trolleys in the US.
Furthering confusion, the term tram has instead been applied to open-sided, low-speed segmented vehicles on rubber tires used to ferry tourists short distances, for example on the Universal Studios backlot tour and, in many countries, as tourist transport to major destinations. The term may apply to an aerial ropeway, e.g. the Roosevelt Island Tramway. Although the use of the term trolley for tram was not adopted in Europe, the term was associated with the trolleybus, a rubber-tyred vehicle running on hard pavement, which draws its power from pairs of overhead wires; these electric buses, which use twin trolley poles, are called trackless trolleys, or sometimes trolleys. The New South Wales, government has decided to use the term "light rail" for their trams; the history of trams, streetcars or trolley systems, began in early nineteenth century. It can be divided up into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of motive power used; the world's first passenger train or tram was the Swansea and Mumbles Railway, in Wales, UK.
The Mumbles Railway Act was passed by the British Parliament in 1804, horse-drawn service started in 1807. The service was restarted in 1860, again using horses, it was worked by steam from 1877, from 1929, by large electric tramcars, until closure in 1961. The Swansea and Mumbles Railway was something of a one-off however, no street tramway would appear in Britain until 1860 when one was built in Birkenhead by the American George Francis Train. Street railways developed in America before Europe due to the poor paving of the streets in American cities which made them unsuitable for horsebuses, which were common on the well-paved streets of European cities. Running the horsecars on rails allowed for a much smoother ride. There are records of a street railway running in Baltimore as early as 1828, however the first authenticated streetcar in America, was the New York and Harle
Peninsula
A peninsula is a landform surrounded by water on the majority of its border while being connected to a mainland from which it extends. The surrounding water is understood to be continuous, though not named as a single body of water. Peninsulas are not always named as such. A point is considered a tapering piece of land projecting into a body of water, less prominent than a cape. A river which courses through a tight meander is sometimes said to form a "peninsula" within the loop of water. In English, the plural versions of peninsula are peninsulas and, less peninsulae. List of peninsulas Isthmus
