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Wellington (22 August 2014): New Zealand faces a chronic housing shortage the size of three major cities within 20 years, according to a new report from the New Zealand Initiative. The report claims claims the country could reach a shortage of 113,800 houses by 2031 and official figures underestimate the scale of the crisis. Read more
Recently, Transportblog.co.nz bemoaned the fact that Auckland CBD was running out of office space.The pro-transit and compact city advocacy group is concerned because central government is insisting that certain rail usage and CBD employment targets be met before it co-funds the $2.9 billion City Rail Project. These targets include the doubling of rail patronage to 20 million trips a year, and lifting the number of people employed in the CBD by 25 per cent (or 22,000 jobs) if the city wants the project to start in 2020. Read more
What is the raison d’etre of a city? Is it to provide parks and cafes, theatres and libraries? Read more
From their council offices, looking down on the choked roads of Auckland at rush hour, it is easy to see why planners see rail systems such as the City Rail Link as the most viable solution to congestion. Certainly, trains are an important public transport option. Read more
Clearly, New Zealand needs a viable plan in order to deal with its urban problems, especially housing affordability and congestion. But whether intensified, compact development should be pursued, on the basis of greater health benefits in particular, is far from clear. Read more
As the election gets closer, there is no doubt that immigration remains a potent campaign issue. Few other topics elicit such an emotional response as the questions of who should come to New Zealand or, indeed, how many should come. Read more
Wellington (17 June 2014): Local councils looking to tackle housing affordability and congestion by limiting land supply will only make the problem worse, according to the latest research report from The New Zealand Initiative. The report, Up or Out? Read more
Last week Minister for the Environment Amy Adams piled into the Auckland Council over the Unitary Plan, saying the rule set was unlikely to come close to delivering the 300,000 plus houses the city needs over the next 30 years. The minister noted that the plan imposed even more red tape on the already regulation-choked sector, and if anything, was likely to worsen housing affordability in Auckland. Read more
Economist Edward Glaeser, ranked as one of the profession's top 50 practitioners, summed-up 40 years of transport economics at Harvard University in four words when he was visiting Wellington last year: "Bus good, train bad." Glaeser's argument is centred on the risks of bus versus rail. Rail is capital and land intensive as you need to buy the land at market prices in order to put a track on it. Read more