Thursday, 8 December 2011
Santa and the suburbs
As Christmas nears, Santa will be planning his route across the world to deliver cheer to all. Somewhere during the night he’ll be making his way around New Zealand.
We provided Santa with an extract from our database to help with his planning, including how much land each property had for parking the reindeer and sleigh, the age of properties to determine which are likely to have chimneys, and those that were multi story for safety provisioning. We also let him know which properties were likely to be leaky so he knew not to land on the roof.
But we thought we would have a look at how many places there are in each suburb for him to visit. As he works through his planning he’ll see that half of New Zealand’s residences are in the top half of the North Island, with nearly a third in Auckland alone. Then there are another quarter in the lower half of the North Island, and the remaining quarter in the South Island.
Let’s have a look at where the largest suburbs are, and these are the ones Santa and the elves will be considering for their route planning and freight logistics.
Based on the number of residential properties 7 of the top 10 largest suburbs in the country are in Auckland, with a couple nearby in Tauranga.
Right at the top of the list is Auckland Central with 17,371 of which over 99% are apartments. This does present something of a challenge to Santa due to the lack of chimneys, but at least the flat roofs offer plentiful parking and he can use the stairs at his leisure, if not pleasure!
The next largest is Papatoetoe with nearly ten thousand residences, followed by Henderson. Once he checks his topographic maps he’ll breathe a sigh of relief that the three ‘Mount’ suburbs in the top 10 list are not going to require high altitude flying. Papamoa Beach offers an opportunity for the reindeer to cool their hooves briefly before the journey south continues.
Looking across the rest of the top half of the North Island, not surprisingly there are a heap more large Auckland suburbs. But looking outside of those, and the two big ones in Tauranga then the next top 10 across the area lead out with Whakatane with just over 5,000 places to drop sacks. Tokoroa is not far behind after the Hamilton suburbs of Hamilton East, Nawton and Dinsdale have been ticked off and Te Awamutu is on the same leg of the route most likely. Kamo up near Whangarei would have been dropped in on prior to Auckland, and Otumoetai done with the other big Tauranga ones. He’ll find plenty of holiday makers enjoying the festive season in Taupo and Whangamata.
In the lower North Island we know that he’ll be dropping a heap of cheer in Levin, but the top ten outside that is topped by Wainuiomata with nearly 6,000 residences. Feilding in Manawatu, Hawera in Taranaki,as well as Havelock North and Taradale in Hawkes Bay make the list. Four Wellington City suburbs are in there, the largest being Karori with just under 5,000 places. Paraparaumu Beach just North of Wellington on the Kapiti Coast rounds out the top 10.
As Santa and his sleigh travel around the beautiful South Island they will find plenty of homes in and around Christchurch to bring some welcome cheer to. On his way south he’ll pass through Nelson to drop in on Stoke and Richmond. At some stage he’ll fly the West Coast then either choose a handy alpine pass or perhaps carry on down around the deep south. Either way Mosgiel just out of Dunedin gives him the chance to lighten the load to the tune of 4,401 households. Then there’s all the Christchurch folks in Saint Albans, Halswell, Woolston, Burwood and Avonhead, then Kaiapoi and Rangiora just to the North.
But no matter whether you live in one of these suburbs or not, he’ll be passing through at some stage to help bring some cheer to this wonderful time of the year.