Christchurch is not a huge city (pop around 350-400,000 depending on how many of the surrounding towns you include). It only takes 15 minutes to get from the city center to the outskirts so there aren't any really far flung suburbs. A fair few controllers in Christchurch (20% maybe) live out of the city in some of the more semi-rural areas or smaller towns but that doesn't sound like you. It's hard to really comment without knowing a bit more about what sort of lifestyle you want and school requirements you may have (and budget) but trademe.co.nz and realestate.co.nz would be a good place to start looking at houses etc. Also maybe look at google maps - the radar center is in Sir William Pickering Drive for what it's worth.