As the first article noted, there is phenomenal interest among local government officials over the idea of trialling new ways of tackling long standing problems through special economic zones.

But where do we get these new ideas, and how do we limit the risks that come with trying something new? The Resource Management Act was a bold new approach that merged planning and environment legislation when it was passed into law in 1991. Had the policymakers known the friction this would create over the following 24 years, it is debateable whether they would have gone ahead with it at all.

A less risky strategy is to look at what other countries are doing and assess the results. This comparative model has been a mainstay of The New Zealand Initiative’s research, and our education, housing and mining policy recommendations are based on successful ideas from abroad.

We will do so again as part of our localism research stream. One of the policies we are looking to study is the devolution experiment taking place in Manchester. What makes this policy remarkable is that a highly centralised government plans to devolve decision making over issues such as infrastructure investment to the city, and give them a share of any economic growth that results.

Switzerland and the Netherlands are also areas of interest. With over 400 Dutch municipalities and 2600 Swiss communes, this bottom-up form of local decision making looks like a governance structure that would drag on economic growth. Yet these highly devolved countries are rated among the most efficient in the world.

Lastly, as long-standing opponents to council amalgamations, we want to know if it is possible to unpick super cities once they are formed. For that we will study the city of Montreal, one of the few major Canadian metros to reverse its municipal merger process after a spate of amalgamations in the 1990s.

This comparative research starts tomorrow, when I will visit each of these jurisdictions to find out how they are tackling similar problems to the ones New Zealand faces. To paraphrase the late Steve Jobs, we should shamelessly steal great policy ideas.

P.S. If you have any tips or want to recommend someone I should be speaking on the topic, please feel free to send me an email.