City Across the Water

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 154, 20 September 1927, Page 10

City Across the Water

Charm of North Shore New Zealand’s Seaside Playground WHAT Brooklyn is to Manhattan, a twin city across the water, North Shore will ultimately be to Auckland. That is the vision of Devonport and Takapuna public men who met last night to discuss practical ways of hastening its realisation. Having doubled and redoubled the 30,000 that is its present population, the future maritime city will have a municipal and social life of its own.

T AST night an Expansion League was formed, and it will seize time by the forelock. The readjustment of Auckland tramway fares, in future to be a shade higher to outer suburbanites, is expected to discourage settlement in some of the more distant sections on the city side. The result predicted is a stronger swing toward North Shore, and by adding the weight of aggressive popaganda the Expansion League plans to accelerate the movement. CONSISTENT PROGRESS Past rates of progress signify that the fulfilment of the aspiration need not be vainly sought. Consistent development has been a feature of the expansion in North Shore boroughs. Further away, the attractions of pretty summer resorts have been capitalised through the mobility of the motor-bus. Brown’s Bay, eight or nine years ago, was part of the pasture of an adjoining farm. It has now 300 summer dwellings. Milford, similarly, was within recent memory entirely rural—a riding of the Waitemata County Council. Not that, in any way, the Shore has entirely discarded its rural character. The freshness of green fields among the suburban lots, of hedgerow and pine, is an essential part of its charm. Devonport, it is true, has few empty sections. In all its area (now 1,100 acres, though formerly it was just 640 —a square mile) room for hardly more than another hundred or so houses could be found under the present system. But the blocks of dwellings are relieved by the green of lawn and shrubbery, and by the restful mass of Mount Victoria, dominating the suburban landscape. Rome was not built in a day, nor

even ill generations, but vigorous America showed the possibilities of propaganda by attracting crowds and capital to its “mushroom” cities. Coral Gables and Miami, which grew- to eminence in much less than the normal time allowed for urban development.

The success of advertisement in such cases was mentioned at last night’s North Shore expansion meeting, over which Mr. E. Aldridge, Mayor of Devonport, presided, and which was attended by delegates from the Devonport and Takapuna boroughs, the Waitemata Chamber of Commerce, and the Ratepayers’ Associations of Stanley Bay, Melrose, North Devonport, Bayswater-Belmont, Takapuna, Milford, Castor Bay and Brown’s Bay. The success of propaganda in America was reviewed by Mr. T. Walsh, president of the Waitemata Chamber of Commerce. Mr. J. Williamson, Mayor of Takapuna, advocated that conventions called in the north should be held at North Shore, while Messrs. Guiniven and Moller (Bayswater) said an electric tramway system to link all the Shore boroughs was the most imperative necessity. EXECUTIVE APPOINTED

A motion deciding that a North Shore Expansion League be formed was adopted unanimously, and the following executive appointed: Messrs. E. Aldridge, J. Williamson, O. Moller, P. N. King, M. Biompied, A. B. Webber, D. B. Ballantyne, A. Slinger, A. H. Wilkie, and T. Walsh, secretary. The Mayors of Birkenhead and Northcc te will be invited to co-operate, and in newspaper, film and pamphlet propaganda the delights of North Shore will be pictured and described. Thus not only Auckland, but also the rest of New Zealand, will be informed of the peninsula’s charm.