Notes

Article from the New Zealand Herald
27 August 2010: As Auckland merges to create a supercity, the Herald looks back at how Auckland has changed over the years.

Brief history of the creation of Manukau City and South Auckland.

People were "appalled at the extent of urban sprawl in Auckland but nothing is being done about it," said Fred Thomas, later to be Mayor of Takapuna.

By 1963, it was too late. Any hope that the fertile farmland of south Auckland could be preserved, and the city's growth channelled entirely to the poor northern clay, had disappeared before the bridge was built.

Fifty years earlier, when Manukau County was established, just 5000 people lived in the rolling landscape south of Otahuhu and east of the Tamaki River. Many parts of Manukau could still be reached only by boat or horseback in 1913.