
Rubbish numbers distort our perspective
Douglas Adams' classic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy offers salient advice about an awful lot of things. Don't listen to Vogon poetry. Read more
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Douglas Adams' classic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy offers salient advice about an awful lot of things. Don't listen to Vogon poetry. Read more
When Alice tried to recite one of her lessons while down the rabbit-hole in Wonderland, she thought only a few words had come out wrong. The Caterpillar corrected her bluntly: “It is wrong from beginning to end.” By contrast, the Cabinet Paper on the National Policy Statement protecting sensitive soils is not wrong from beginning to end. Read more
Let’s say you’ve bought non-refundable tickets for a movie, and then hear scathing reviews. It’s better to tear up the tickets and make other plans for the evening rather than bloody-mindedly watch the film just because you’ve already paid to go. Read more
The New Zealand Initiative has been a staunch supporter of the coalition government’s housing agenda. While we warned that Kiwibuild would not fix the housing crisis but rather risked diverting the government’s attention from more important reforms, we have had every confidence in Minister Twyford’s wider vision. Read more
“It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes,” said Douglas Adams of the Silastic Armourfiends of Striterax in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The aliens believed they could control their anger by punching potatoes. Read more
At the 2019 Building Nations conference, run by Infrastructure New Zealand, Dr Oliver Hartwich discusses how localism could work in New Zealand, and highlights our research on the topic.
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If there’s one line in the 1967 classic film The Graduate that has aged poorly, it might be Mr McGuire’s advice to a young Dustin Hoffman to find his future in plastics. Now, just over 50 years later, plastics are more commonly cast as retro at best, and an environmental menace otherwise. Read more
If we could fixing the tangled mess of regulation stymieing new home construction, it would help alleviate real misery. The housing shortage leads directly to rents that take up too much of our paycheques, to overcrowding, and potentially to poor health. Read more
Heritage buildings are in the spotlight after a devastating fire at Christchurch's 110-year-old Antonio Hall. The owners had not done any maintenance to it for more than 20 years and this led to calls for tougher rules for owners of heritage properties to take more care of their buildings. Read more
Can local community growth pay for itself? In other words, can economic growth itself pay for the community’s required infrastructure expansion (e.g. Read more