Into the West

Today Nigel had a meeting in Henderson, in Waitakere City, so I went along to have a bit of a look around. I forgot to bring my camera, but really, there’s not much to see in the area where I was. If I’d had my camera I may have wandered around a bit more, but maybe not.

Waitakere City is also known as “West Auckland”, and a resident is often called a “westie”. Depending on how the term is used it can be pejorative or not, but Wikipedia’s description of the stereotype behind it is pretty accurate: “This stereotype depicts people from the outer suburbs as unintelligent, undereducated, unmotivated, unrefined, lacking in fashion sense, working-class or unemployed. Clothing… "uniform" [is] black t-shirt and ripped jeans. Clothing associated with the female westie includes jeans with tassels and tight-fitting tops, often white.”

The same term was used in Australia (I don’t know if it still is), but there it’s apparently being replaced by the term “bogan”. Neither it nor westie are used as much in New Zealand as they used to be.

So there I was in West Auckland, ending up near the new rail station near the headquarters building for Waitakere City Council, and trying to figure out how to get into the Westfield mall. There were no signs on the street, but I saw some stairs leading up to the parking levels, so up I went. At the top of the stairs there were no directional signs of any kind, but across the level I saw a Westfield sign glowing in the doom, so I went to the door and climbed the stairs—only to realise at the top that it wasn’t a public entrance but, apparently, an employee or other locked entrance for The Warehouse. Back down the stairs, further along in the carpark and I found an entrance leading to travellators heading down into the mall.

The extremely pedestrian un-friendly area around the mall isn’t unusual in some urban areas, so Waitakere City isn’t unique in this. Still, I couldn’t help thinking that for a city that fancies itself as a “green” city, Waitakere ought to be at least a little pedestrian friendly.

My first impression of the mall wasn’t favourable: Dark, closed-in and not welcoming. I walked a little further and it opened up into a brightly lit atrium-style area with most of the food outlets around it. Although the mall looked a little tired and in need of some refurbishment, this area was bright and welcoming.

When I was in Newmarket, the stores along Broadway had almost no one in them, and the stores in Westfield’s 277 mall weren’t dramatically better. I was at this mall in Henderson at basically the same general time of day, but it was very busy, with shoppers in nearly every store—some were quite full.

The stores were mostly what I was used to in a mall, with the same national chains, but there were some I hadn’t seen before. The area is, generally speaking, a lower socio-economic demographic than the malls I normally go to, so this could explain some of the differences.

It could also explain some of the people who, it seemed to me, were much rougher than I’m used to seeing. Some looked as if they lived a hard life containing too much drink and tobacco. The youths were all desperately trying to look tough (I can’t remember seeing any teenage boy who did anything but scowl, some fiercely). Many were dressed in their version of hip-hop clothing (hoodies in abundance). While I wouldn’t have tested the theory, I got the feeling that if one were nice to them they’d turn out to be pretty normal kids. And yet, their look said, “keep away”.

I found a bookstore in the quiet, darker lower level, and stayed there longer than anywhere else. It was, in fact, the only store in the mall where I felt comfortable (though the Farmer’s probably would’ve been the same; I didn’t go there because there wasn’t anything I wanted to look at).

So, while my impressions weren’t entirely favourable, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad place—far from it. It’s a very diverse area, and that can be a good thing. But it’s not a place I felt comfortable walking around in, so I didn’t explore the area very much—maybe I would have thought more of it if I had, but I just didn’t feel comfortable enough to do that. Still, being out of one’s comfort zone from time to time is a good thing.