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Making sense of Wellington Council’s prioritisation of a new convention centre, while the city’s wastewater pipes crumble and streams fill with sewage, is a bit tough. It isn’t how you’d run a household: the new kitchen might take a back seat if the rest of the plumbing is wrecked – and especially if your partner had just been made redundant. Read more

The United Nations is correct to consider New Zealand's housing crisis as a substantial human rights issue. But while the UN is often excellent at seeing problems, it isn't so good at suggesting appropriate solutions. Read more

Solving New Zealand’s housing crisis is hard. Writing good policy reports is too. Read more

Moving Auckland’s port might make sense – someday. But I do wonder about some of the talk of moving Auckland’s port to put in a waterfront stadium, or museum, or other large, iconic, and expensive facility. Read more

The greatest social scandal of our time barely raises eyebrows anymore. Every year for the past 16 years, urban consultancy Demographia releases their international ‘Housing Affordability Survey’. Read more

Last week, Labour finally began delivering on its urban growth agenda. Housing affordability was one of the two main themes of the 2017 election. Read more

The Prime Minister had declared 2019 “the year of delivery”. Voters will eventually judge the government on whether it has succeeded. Read more

The Government can pass whatever legislation it likes regulating the relationship between landlords and tenants. Some of it might make sense; some of it might wind up harming the people it’s intended to help. Read more

A Twitter-storm has raged over the last week about Auckland Council’s rules requiring community consultation before private developers can name new roads. Apparently, some Aucklanders believe that holding up housing projects while developers comply with council road-naming requirements is unacceptable red tape. Read more

Suppose I told you that anticompetitive activity right here in New Zealand was behind a transfer of wealth amounting to, at the very least, hundreds of billions of dollars. The victims of the cartel are New Zealand’s poorest, who have had to endure hardship so substantial that its effects are directly visible in New Zealand’s poverty and material deprivation statistics. Read more