Council shows Wellington by numbers

Think you know everything about Wellington? You may already know we have the highest number of tertiary-educated people in New Zealand or that far fewer Wellingtonians travel to work by car than other New Zealand cities. But could you pick where Wellington City’s largest overseas-born residents come from?

And what about some suburbs’ less obvious claims to fame? Do you know which suburb has the highest number of over-85s? What about the greatest number of households with adult children still living at home?

Wellington City Council – in a first for New Zealand – is launching an online resource where all sorts of statistical information about Wellingtonians can be found, both how we are now and how we are changing.

Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown says it is a brilliant resource for the Council to have – particularly with regard to planning.

“Planning for an accessible, compact city must consider local demographics. For example, if we can see a certain area has an ageing population, we can plan our services accordingly.

“Community groups, businesses, students, and people thinking about moving to Wellington can get all kinds of information that could help their organisation grow, target services or help out with people’s research. It’s a wonderful tool for us to have.”

Mayor Wade-Brown says not everyone has the skill to analyse statistics or the money to pay for research.

“This will be of great help to those who need easy-to-find information. It also provides hints and tips for people not familiar with using demographic data.

“And for us in the Council, we have easy access to a breakdown of social demographic information suburb by suburb. Usually information is presented to us at a city-wide level, which can hide some important differences that exist across the city. Now, we can plan more efficiently at a neighbourhood level.”

It’s expected that the Council will make savings by using this resource as it does away with the need to buy separate data sets for research purposes.

The information is drawn primarily from Census data. It will be updated after next year’s Census. The site is now available – go to www.idnz.co.nz/profile/wellington

Mayor Wade-Brown will officially launch the new site on Friday 19 November at 11am at the Town Hall. Media are invited to attend.

(The answers to the questions about overseas-born people is the UK; the over-85s one is Kilbirnie; and Churton Park has the highest number of adult children still living at home)

ENDS

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