COMMENT:
In Auckland, they want to keep Eden Park viable by staging six rock concerts a year. In Christchurch, they just want to make sure politicians, who have finally got off their nervous, wimpy butts and agreed to build a new stadium, will get the job done.
Let's start with Eden Park. Before the 2011 Rugby World Cup, it was described by some journalists as a "big boys' toy totally surplus to requirements" and "an utter dog of a stadium that will taint the World Cup".
Time has a funny habit of sorting clickbait from reality, and when the tournament, which was itself bagged by one Auckland academic as "a fairytale dream" which would "highlight differences in the country and drive communities apart", came to a triumphant end, not a murmur was heard about Eden Park, the venue 61,079 people had crammed into for the final.
Let's say immediately that I believe a golden opportunity was missed when after what is now Spark Arena was built near the central railway station, a national stadium for rugby, league, football and rock music wasn't erected nearby, rather than apartment blocks that look as if they were based on plans from East Germany circa 1970.
I wouldn't have been opposed to a stadium over the water down at the end of Queen St, if those promoting it in 2006 hadn't been suggesting the Oracle baseball stadium in San Francisco was built over water, too.
There was too much of a whiff of PT Barnum about that for my tastes. I've been to Oracle Park, which is on ground next to San Francisco Bay, not on piles over it.
Likewise, the 2018 plans for a stadium on a wharf failed the sniff test, too, given that it was initially announced it wouldn't cost the public a cent. Well, except for a measly $4 million from the council to get things moving.
Which brings us back to Eden Park.
How crappy is it really? As it happens, it's a lot better than the stadium in Yokohama where the All Blacks were whipped by England at last year's World Cup. Getting there on the weird rail system out of Tokyo was a nightmare and the stadium doesn't feel like it's had an upgrade since they held the Fifa World Cup final there in 2002.
Travelling to Eden Park is also no worse than catching the train and then walking through suburban streets to Twickenham in London. Having been trapped in a carriage crammed full of burping, farting England fans on the notoriously unreliable rail service from Twickenham, don't tell me that every stadium in the rest of the world is a pleasure to get to. For every Melbourne Cricket Ground, walking distance from the city centre, there's a Stade de France, 12km away from the Champs-Elysees.
Rain on the fans? Fair call, but you can get wet in a lot of the seats at Murrayfield in Edinburgh, too, and at least in Auckland, there's less chance of frostbite.
The Millennium Stadium in Cardiff is wonderfully placed in the middle of the city, and they can close the roof, so you never get drenched.
Mind you, every now and then in the past, the grass has rotted on the pitch, and the surface became a cross between a sandpit and a silage pile. Eden Park, if the naysayers looked past the (admittedly eye watering) price list for hot dogs and pies, provides a sensationally good playing surface.
Sure, I'd love to see a ground in Auckland dedicated to rugby, with spacious park and ride areas, a retractable roof that didn't inhibit grass growth, and delectable food at 1970s prices.
Meanwhile, in this universe, we have what we have.
There could be improvements at Eden Park, and they would certainly get a boost if the six rock shows idea gets the green light.
It was unfortunate the trial run for music at the park was hitched to raising money for Sir Ray Avery's lifepods for babies. A charity that had something already working and available would have been a much easier sell when the protests started.
There will be organised opposition to the new concerts, which is why the Eden Park Trust Board has made such an effort in the past two years to get local residents on board.
I understand the Nimby (not in my back yard) mentality. Who would want an arena built across the road if you lived in a quiet street? But I've never felt much sympathy for the vociferous lobby group of residents who, when they bought a house near Eden Park, apparently didn't notice that the big place by Sandringham Rd was a sports ground, used for rugby and cricket since 1925.
The park board has discovered some residents, however, who knew what Eden Park was, and liked the idea of living nearby.
If lessons have been learned from the Avery concert fiasco, the board may get its wish to stage six shows, to the benefit of those who use the park and, maybe, the ratepayers of Auckland, if more costs are met by the board.
Meanwhile, in Christchurch, they've finally got some traction on a stadium for sport and concerts.
Way back in June 2013, an agreement was signed between the government and the Christchurch City Council that named 14 anchor projects.
Along with the central library and town hall, one was a "rectangular" stadium for 35,000 people.
Most of the major projects have been completed. But building the stadium became a political issue, much along the lines of concerted efforts to stop the beautiful Hagley Oval being used for international cricket.
An art gallery? Tick. Fix the museum? Tick. But the letters pages and talkback phone lines in the city were blitzed by those who obviously didn't believe there was any cultural value in chasing an oval ball, or listening to Fleetwood Mac or Elton John.
In a debate before the 2016 council election, standing mayor Lianne Dalziel was reported as saying a new stadium would be "a waste of time". Dalziel retained her mayoralty in a landslide, with an increased majority.
Politicians hadn't been persuaded at all by a survey of 770 people in February 2016 that found 94 per cent of those questioned favoured a new multi-purpose stadium, and 88 per cent of those for the stadium accepted that it could mean an increase in rates.
The survey was paid for by the Canterbury Rugby Union, and noisy, well organised opposition howled it down.
No matter that Research First, who conducted it, is a well-regarded company, established for more than a decade, and also works for central government, the Waikato Institute of Technology, Canterbury University and the Christchurch City Council itself.
Thankfully the tide has turned. The existing stadium at Addington was designed to be used only until 2017. It's now costing $1 million a year to keep it functioning.
As the stadium for the best-performing Super Rugby side in New Zealand, it's a bad joke. Even Alex Wyllie doesn't go there because he finds it so uncomfortable. When winter hits, it really is like watching rugby on a construction site.
Now the land the stadium will be built on near the centre of the city is being worked on, even if it's only to clear the ground to make way for the build.
When will construction start? Not until next year, because there's still a project group being formed, which in turn will commission the plans for the build.
If that sounds like promises around KiwiBuild, the reality is that in the council there's finally a solid core of people who are determined to get the job moving, and for the first time, you can sense urgency over the stadium build.
The date for completion is 2024, a crazy 13 years since the major earthquake that devastated the city.
Why such a long delay? Because neither in Christchurch, nor at the Beehive, were there enough politicians with the backbone to stop looking nervously over their shoulders at the ballot box. It's a disgrace they didn't blaze ahead and add the last link in a chain of projects promised seven long years ago.
TVNZ to broadcast the event live, featuring Ish Sodhi as guest commentator.