Decently & In Order - The Government of the City of Auckland 1840-1971

Chipping to dust jacket. Faded cover. Inscription on front endpaper.

No authority which has helped to supervise the growth of as restless, vital and some might say uppity a city as Auckland could itself have an uneventful story. This centennial history of the Auckland City Council, while paying due heed to to its everyday functions, captures in lively fashion the essence of the Council's contribution to the shaping of modern Auckland.

During the century the Council has been concerned with morals, aesthetics and the better life as well as with roads, water supply and rapid rail. If most things have been done decently and in order, on some occasions standards have slipped.

There is too little awareness of how municipal activities constantly - and in sum, deeply - impinge on urban life. The verdict might be that the Council has matched in virtue the metropolis of which it manages the heart.

- from the inside cover.

Published in 1971 by Collins Bros. & Co. Ltd. for The Auckland City Council.