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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
At a recent Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) event on housing affordability, the most telling moment came when economist Arthur Grimes said: “You can have big cheap cities, or small expensive cities, but just don’t say you can have small and cheap.” This statement seemed to come as a surprise to some, particularly Auckland Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse, who appeared to strongly disagree with Grimes’s position. Her reaction is understandable given that the Auckland Plan aims to deliver affordable housing by increasing the population density of the city. Read more
Wellington (4 June 2014): The New Zealand Initiative has expressed concern about a Fairfax Media report today that the RBNZ is not ruling out restricting mortgage lending according to household income multiples. Such a policy is currently being considered by the Bank of England under its new governor Mark Carney. Read more
With a greater number of local government bodies having adopted a compact city development strategy, or in the process of considering it, The New Zealand Initiative set out to examine whether these urban forms deliver on their stated benefits. The compact city school of thought is built on the belief that cities should be sustainable in their use of resources, and while this takes many policy forms, it is principally expressed in restricting the outwards spread of the urban footprint. Read more
An Insights reader recently wrote in with a thoughtful question: how could we advocate for the release of land in New Zealand cities as a means of tackling the housing affordability crisis and promoting economic growth? They noted that continued growth, driven by population expansion, is not sustainable in the long term. Read more
Wellington (20 May 2014): The New Zealand Initiative has expressed disappointment that proposed reforms of Resource Management Act (RMA) have been abandoned, calling it a missed opportunity to address skyrocketing housing costs. The National Party’s bid to overhaul the legislation was stymied after coalition partners United Future and the Maori Party withdrew support for the reforms citing environmental concerns. Read more
Competition is a transformative force and is responsible for shaping everything from biology to the economy. Governments have set up institutional bodies to foster and encourage it. Read more
Imagine a business that could charge anyone who just happened to pass by its shop window. Does that sound like a business that would strive to become better, more customer-friendly, and more service-oriented? Read more
In a week where the headlines were dominated by housing affordability concerns, Prime Minister John Key said central government would need a compelling reason to allow local councils to collect additional taxes on top of their standard rates revenue. Well, here are 415,000 reasons. Read more
One of the principal arguments put forward for the development of Auckland into an international-sized city is that urban economies of scale generate better outcomes. This is called an agglomeration benefit, or rather the economic advantage that firms and people get from being situated closer to markets, suppliers and places of work. Read more