Albany (Neuseeland) 5.68

Albany is one of the northernmost suburbs of the contiguous Auckland metropolitan area in New Zealand. It is located to the north of the Waitemata Harbour, 15 kilometres northwest of the Auckland city centre. The suburb is in the Albany ward, one of the thirteen administrative divisions of Auckland Council. One of the city's newest suburbs, it was until relatively recently a town in its own right, and still has a feeling of not being truly a part of the city, which lies predominantly to the southeast of it. Much of the land to the north of Albany is still semi-rural.The Māori name for the area was Okahukura (literally, 'place of rainbows' or 'place of butterflies'). The town was originally known as Lucas Creek. By 1890 it was a fruit-growing area and in that year it was renamed 'Albany' after the fruit-growing district called 'Albany' in Australia, pronounced with a short 'a' as in Albert. The name Albany derives from Alba (Gaelic for Scotland) and its Latinisation.City planningIn 2005, there were plans to turn a major swath of Albany into a planned mini-urban centre, described as a "happy mix of businesses, hotels, shops, apartments, and entertainment an environment of parks and lakes and of tree-lined streets, paths and cycleways linking to the new park-and-ride bus station and the rapid-busway lanes along the Northern Motorway to downtown Auckland", according to a newspaper report. It would be home to 10,000 people. Authorities wanted sound-proofed apartments against outside noise. Initial plans called for hotels, library, municipal swimming pool as well as the headquarters for the North Shore City Council. In some respects, development has proceeded accordingly, but the 2008–09 economic downturn has blunted some of this activity.