Population Movements

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30826, 11 August 1965, Page 12

Population Movements

Population estimates made by the Department of Statistics show that in the last year the percentage increase in the population of metropolitan Christchurch was among the highest in New Zealand. The estimated addition of 6300 people in the year ending April 1 meant a 2.6 per cent increase, second only among the five main cities to the 3.1 per cent increase in the Auckland urban area, and high among the fastgrowing smaller cities. The rise in the population of Christchurch accounted for all but 1200 of the estimated increase in the whole of the Canterbury statistical area, a fact which points up the frequently noted differences between rural and urban population trends.

A marked decline in county populations throughout the Dominion began after 1956. The census in that year showed that only 19 of 121 counties recorded a decrease in population since the previous census. But in the next five years half of the counties lost population. The latest estimates show that the decrease has continued in many, though on a lesser scale. Thirty-nine counties are estimated to have declined in population since 1961 and another dozen have virtually the same numbers. These are wholly or largely rural areas. As most of the decreases have been small it may be assumed that the decline in these counties has been slowed or halted. Nothing in the latest figures suggests that any rural area is reflecting the increase in the nation’s population of about 2 per cent each year, for all the counties in which there have been substantial increases are those including major towns, are on the fringes of growing cities, or are hosts to some major project such as a hydro-electric scheme.

The estimates confirm trends in some urban areas which for many years have been losing population to the outer suburbs of cities, as industry and commerce expand within their boundaries. These include Riccarton, Petone. and Newmarket. The borough of St. Kllda. which is by far the most densely populated administrative area in New Zealand, is also estimated to have lost population since 1961. Such decreases are exceptional: and only 16 of 144 cities and boroughs appear to have smaller populations Most of these are minor changes. If the census next year confirms the latest estimates it should show that since 1961 the flow of population from West Coast towns has been reduced, and that in Westport, Greymouth, and Hokitika it has been reversed. Grey and Westland counties should show slight increases, too. The over-all picture suggested by the new estimates is therefore one of considerable expansion in most towns and cities, and a tendency toward stability in rural areas after a period of widespread drift from the countryside Both aspects are promising, the first because urban expansion is fairly widely shared, and the latter because it may point to the end of an undesirable trend in population movements