If someone asked you how much of New Zealand was built upon, what would your guess be? 5% or 10%? More? Less? And to what extent would this affect your views on urban development and expansion?

There is a widespread view that too much of New Zealand is being built upon: along with cows, the main thing we are growing are houses, and that not only are there too many houses but they are also eating into valuable farmland and nature.

There are many reasons for this view, but at a popular level the main reason might be that growth and development happen in areas where people tend to move or travel. People also tend to go where other people are and then complain about there being ‘too many people’. Many folk see new development and extrapolate out to development they cannot see, which often does not exist.

A look at the numbers bears that out: less than 1% of New Zealand is built up, including landfill and highways. Clearly New Zealand is not filling up. Compared to other countries in Europe, New Zealand has very few people and very little land built upon. About 9% of the United Kingdom is built up and 15% of the Netherlands. Even the United States, with more than 300 million people, has only 5% built on land.

Of course, not all of New Zealand can be developed, but the notion that there is cause for concern at this point in time (or in the next few hundred years) is untrue.

As it is, New Zealand is both absolutely and relatively undeveloped. This is to be expected for a nation that is only 170-years-old and with a population of 4.4 million people and covering an area equivalent to the United Kingdom.

This background is important to understand as some of the key objections to so-called urban sprawl in housing policy, or the notion that New Zealand should be extremely concerned with towns taking up a bit of land, are well rehearsed.

There may be legitimate reasons why local authorities don’t like urban sprawl much, particularly around infrastructure, but abstract concerns about land being taken up should not be one.

Priced Out: How New Zealand lost its housing affordability was released by The New Zealand Initiative this week.