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Christchurch Central City
Christchurch Central City or Christchurch City Centre is the geographical centre and the heart of Christchurch, New Zealand. It is defined as the area within the Four Avenues (Bealey Avenue, Fitzgerald Avenue, Moorhouse Avenue and Deans Avenue) and thus includes the densely built up central city, some less dense surrounding areas of residential, educational and industrial usage, and green space including Hagley Park, the Christchurch Botanic Gardens and the Barbadoes Street Cemetery.
It suffered heavy damage in the September 2010 Canterbury earthquake and was devastated five months later, in the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Following this second earthquake, the Central City Red Zone was set up and, with a gradually shrinking area, remained inaccessible except to authorised contractors until June 2013. However, proposals to relocate the city centre elsewhere, to avoid future damage, were considered both uneconomical (as much of the infrastructure was still mainly intact) and unnecessary, as the rebuilt city centre would be to modern building standards so as to be able to withstand similar quakes and the associated liquefaction in the future.
Christchurch Central City is built on land that has been formed by gravel and other sediment within the last 7,000 years or thereabouts.
At the centre of the city is Cathedral Square, surrounding the Anglican cathedral, Christ Church. The area around this square and within the four avenues of Christchurch is considered the central business district of the city.
The city centre is laid out in a grid pattern, interrupted only by the curvilinear alignment of the Avon River / Ōtākaro, and the two diagonals High Street and Victoria Street. Christchurch has four pairs of one-way streets. The grid pattern within the outermost one-way streets is very regular, as this is the area that was laid out in the original survey. The surrounding area, i.e. the belt between the outer one-way streets and the avenues, was developed later in a progressive fashion and does not have the regularity of the core area.
Like most of the city, the centre is relatively flat. Before the earthquakes, Christchurch was home to many high rise buildings, but many of these were demolished following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Tall buildings left include Pacific Tower and Forsyth Barr Building, which dominate the skyline and can be seen throughout the city.
Māori were the first occupants on the area covering modern-day Christchurch. There were permanent or semi-permanent settlements on the margins of the estuary (notably at the mouth of the Otakaro/Avon) and on the first areas of higher, drier ground up the Avon and Heathcote Rivers. There were two kāinga on the site of Central Christchurch: Puāri near Victoria Square, an important food-gathering place for Māori and Tautahi Pā, located further east of the Puāri kāinga.
The European settlement of Christchurch was undertaken by the Canterbury Association, which was founded in London in 1848. That year, the Canterbury Association sent out Captain Joseph Thomas, accompanied by surveyors, to select and prepare a site for settlement. Thomas originally placed the principal town of the proposed settlement at the head of Lyttelton Harbour / Whakaraupō, but when he realised there was insufficient flat land there to meet the Canterbury Association's requirements, he relocated Christchurch to where he had previously placed a town called 'Stratford' at a point on the Avon where those coming up the river first encountered slightly higher, drier ground. Back then, the Avon River / Ōtākaro was navigable as far as 'The Bricks' just upstream of the Barbadoes Street bridge. The site is these days marked by a riverbank cairn. The site got its name when the Deans Brothers in the 1840s had shipped bricks for their Riccarton homestead, located further up the river, which they unloaded in this location.
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Christchurch Central City
Christchurch Central City or Christchurch City Centre is the geographical centre and the heart of Christchurch, New Zealand. It is defined as the area within the Four Avenues (Bealey Avenue, Fitzgerald Avenue, Moorhouse Avenue and Deans Avenue) and thus includes the densely built up central city, some less dense surrounding areas of residential, educational and industrial usage, and green space including Hagley Park, the Christchurch Botanic Gardens and the Barbadoes Street Cemetery.
It suffered heavy damage in the September 2010 Canterbury earthquake and was devastated five months later, in the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Following this second earthquake, the Central City Red Zone was set up and, with a gradually shrinking area, remained inaccessible except to authorised contractors until June 2013. However, proposals to relocate the city centre elsewhere, to avoid future damage, were considered both uneconomical (as much of the infrastructure was still mainly intact) and unnecessary, as the rebuilt city centre would be to modern building standards so as to be able to withstand similar quakes and the associated liquefaction in the future.
Christchurch Central City is built on land that has been formed by gravel and other sediment within the last 7,000 years or thereabouts.
At the centre of the city is Cathedral Square, surrounding the Anglican cathedral, Christ Church. The area around this square and within the four avenues of Christchurch is considered the central business district of the city.
The city centre is laid out in a grid pattern, interrupted only by the curvilinear alignment of the Avon River / Ōtākaro, and the two diagonals High Street and Victoria Street. Christchurch has four pairs of one-way streets. The grid pattern within the outermost one-way streets is very regular, as this is the area that was laid out in the original survey. The surrounding area, i.e. the belt between the outer one-way streets and the avenues, was developed later in a progressive fashion and does not have the regularity of the core area.
Like most of the city, the centre is relatively flat. Before the earthquakes, Christchurch was home to many high rise buildings, but many of these were demolished following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Tall buildings left include Pacific Tower and Forsyth Barr Building, which dominate the skyline and can be seen throughout the city.
Māori were the first occupants on the area covering modern-day Christchurch. There were permanent or semi-permanent settlements on the margins of the estuary (notably at the mouth of the Otakaro/Avon) and on the first areas of higher, drier ground up the Avon and Heathcote Rivers. There were two kāinga on the site of Central Christchurch: Puāri near Victoria Square, an important food-gathering place for Māori and Tautahi Pā, located further east of the Puāri kāinga.
The European settlement of Christchurch was undertaken by the Canterbury Association, which was founded in London in 1848. That year, the Canterbury Association sent out Captain Joseph Thomas, accompanied by surveyors, to select and prepare a site for settlement. Thomas originally placed the principal town of the proposed settlement at the head of Lyttelton Harbour / Whakaraupō, but when he realised there was insufficient flat land there to meet the Canterbury Association's requirements, he relocated Christchurch to where he had previously placed a town called 'Stratford' at a point on the Avon where those coming up the river first encountered slightly higher, drier ground. Back then, the Avon River / Ōtākaro was navigable as far as 'The Bricks' just upstream of the Barbadoes Street bridge. The site is these days marked by a riverbank cairn. The site got its name when the Deans Brothers in the 1840s had shipped bricks for their Riccarton homestead, located further up the river, which they unloaded in this location.