Christchurch Central City

This is Christchurch Central City, the geographical center of Christchurch, New Zealand. It's the area inside Bealey, Fitzgerald, Moorhouse, and Deans Avenues, which means it includes the central city, some less dense residential, educational, and industrial areas, and green spaces like Hagley Park and the Botanic Gardens.

The land here was formed by gravel and other sediment over the last 7,000 years. Right at the center is Cathedral Square, surrounding the Anglican cathedral, Christ Church. The area around this square and within the four avenues is considered the central business district. The city center is laid out in a grid pattern, broken up only by the curves of the Avon River / Ōtākaro and two diagonal streets, High Street and Victoria Street. You'll notice four pairs of one-way streets too. The grid inside those outer one-way streets is very regular, as that was the original survey area. The belt between those outer one-way streets and the avenues developed later and isn't as regular.

Like most of the city, it’s pretty flat. Before the earthquakes, there were many high-rise buildings, but a lot of them were demolished after the 2011 earthquake. The Pacific Tower and Forsyth Barr Building are still here, dominating the skyline.

Māori were the first people here, with settlements on the estuary margins and higher ground along the Avon and Heathcote Rivers. There were two kāinga right on the site of Central Christchurch: Puāri near Victoria Square, which was important for food gathering, and Tautahi Pā, further east.

European settlement started with the Canterbury Association in London in 1848. Captain Joseph Thomas was sent out to pick a site. He first chose Lyttelton Harbour, but it wasn't flat enough. So he moved Christchurch to a spot on the Avon where he'd already marked out a town called 'Stratford,' where the river met slightly higher, drier ground. Back then, the Avon River / Ōtākaro was navigable up to 'The Bricks,' just past the Barbadoes Street bridge, a site now marked by a cairn. The Deans Brothers had unloaded bricks there in the 1840s for their homestead further upriver.

Christchurch is one of only four cities in the world planned with a central square, four surrounding squares, and parklands. Philadelphia was first, then Savannah and Adelaide, and then Christchurch. Joseph Thomas’s plan, laid out by surveyor Edward Jollie by March 1850, was a standard rectangular grid. Jollie wasn't allowed to add crescents, but the Avon River ran across the site, and High Street and Victoria Street also broke the grid. The central 'Square' was meant to be a grand city center, with a cathedral and grammar school. East and northwest of it were Latimer and Cranmer Squares, which are actually rectangles. The original grid went from Salisbury Street to St Asaph Street and from Barbadoes Street to Rolleston Avenue/Park Terrace. Between these streets and the Town Belts (now Bealey, Fitzgerald, and Moorhouse Avenues) were 'town reserves' that were sold later.

This central city was heavily damaged in the September 2010 Canterbury earthquake and then devastated five months later by the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake. After that second quake, the Central City Red Zone was set up and was inaccessible to most people until June 2013, though its area gradually shrank. There were ideas to move the city center, but they decided against it because much of the infrastructure was still intact, and a rebuilt city center would meet modern building standards to withstand future quakes and liquefaction.