At least it would gather dust if it was a tangible thing, rather than a virtual space. I've even considered deleting it. My other blog seems much more useful.
Though this blog still has some uses. Google rates it. So as I have a very important other site on the go, it's time to use this one to give it a plug. I'm not an online guru by any means, but I know enough to know that inbound links are like veins of life for a new site.
Connecting Waterview is a new community website for my suburb, Waterview, in Auckland, which aims to mitigate the effects of a motorway connection - the so-called Waterview Connection - which is planned to go right through the area. Thankfully, the New Zealand Transport Agency have decided that the bit that goes closest to us will be a tunnel. However, they seem to think that it's acceptable to stick a 7 story unfiltered emissions vent and an enormous control building right in the middle of the neighbourhood - next to a primary school. It's town planning in the dark ages. And it needs to change.
Waterview is a small suburb but not unimportant. It has one of the most diverse communities I've lived in, which is a heart-warming thing. People are friendly too - at my place, the fence adjoins five other properties, and I know all my neighbours' names – and their dogs' and kids' names too. I also know people across the road, down the road and several streets over. I've never lived anywhere where I've been so connected to the people in my 'hood.
It seems a shame that the motorway project has been dubbed 'The Waterview Connection' when the real Waterview Connection is what's going on inside the community. And that's what I love about the Connecting Waterview site – it aims to build on that and make it better, despite the big old bad-ass motorway and tunnel.
And that can only be a good thing.
I project managed and wrote the site, so I am biased, of course. It was even a paid job, but if I added up the time I've spent on it, I would be working for well under the minimum wage. But hey, life isn't always about cash.
This time, it's about community.
Through Connecting Waterview, I hope our community's better off.
So Google – and the rest of you – go find it. Use the links, or find it at www.connectingwaterview.org.nz
And while you're there, add your name to the Waterview Connection submission.
Waterview will thank you for it. And so will I.
