The local context mirrors the national both in geography and population distribution. The majority of the region is relatively sparsely populated, while the geographically constrained harbour environs and isthmus is densely populated (Figure 9).
This is reflected in the 7 Auckland TA with the majority, 85%, of the population falling in the four cities (North Shore, Waitakere, Auckland, and Manukau). However, as indicated by population density (Figure 9) there is considerable in population variation at the local level.
While CAU are often used to show community level data (Figure 10) the variation in population capture between urban and rural CAU limit their effectiveness in representing such data. In effect there is a relationship between geographic CAU size and population density as CAU are constructed to capture roughly equivalent populations. As a consequence rural CAU tend to be geographically large and dominate the extent of regional maps.
Comparing the standard CAU (Figure 10) and cartogram CAU (Figure 11), this rural capture effect becomes neutralised as the cartogram distorts geographical space to ‘equivalise’ population space. CAU are then representative of their constituent population rather than demographically ‘empty’ space.
The concentration of population in urban Auckland becomes immediately apparent in Figure 11 as the northern and southern extent of the map becomes compressed with the centre expanding accordingly. Although this has the apparent effect of marginalising Rodney and Franklin Districts, the cartogram directly represents the actual distribution and concentration of the Auckland population.
In terms of population growth (Figure 12), the strongest growth is occurring with new developments across the region, in particular Greenhithe, Western Heights, the Auckland CBD (apartments), East Tamaki-Botany, and Ihumatao.
