Possibly Lawrence Durrell, not the marquis...

Possible Lawrence Durrell, not the marquis...

We decided some time ago that the safest place to live in New Zealand is Hobart.

If Gerry says "sell" he'll have to grab Christchurch from my cold, dead hands...

While my intitial feelings were that parts of this look great and the plan overcomes my one of my earlier misgivings - that so much of Christchurch was atomised into small areas of land owned by and at the whim of individual owners obviating any overall "vision" (although I also have doubts about vision) or archictectural & design harmony, I still wonder.
The green frame areas and 'campus" feel are promising, but the cynical side of me suggests that this may merely be a revisiting of Edward Gibbon Wakefield's "sufficient price" upon which Christchurch was founded, artificially restricting supply to maintain property value, and incidentally to maintain the class structure of 19 Century England. Some might say Christchurch still maintains this today.Marx has a swipe at this idea in Capital.
I also share the bewilderment at the simple faith in convention centres as a generator of growth and the prominence given to this aspect. Surely a couple of international hotels could provide all the convention space Christchurch is likely to need in these days of peak oil. I'm currently living in Dunedin in the shade of their stadium and so have mixed feelings about that as well.
Finally, I've not seen much comment about the intention to build a cricket stadium in Hagley Park. I would have thought the air would be already full of feathers, although perhaps people are seeing a quid pro quo with the frames and the Avon development.

Next item is the agendum

I thinks it's "memento" - unless it was an automatic rifle...