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What is the raison d’etre of a city? Is it to provide parks and cafes, theatres and libraries? Read more

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From their council offices, looking down on the choked roads of Auckland at rush hour, it is easy to see why planners see rail systems such as the City Rail Link as the most viable solution to congestion. Certainly, trains are an important public transport option. Read more

Clearly, New Zealand needs a viable plan in order to deal with its urban problems, especially housing affordability and congestion. But whether intensified, compact development should be pursued, on the basis of greater health benefits in particular, is far from clear. Read more

As the election gets closer, there is no doubt that immigration remains a potent campaign issue. Few other topics elicit such an emotional response as the questions of who should come to New Zealand or, indeed, how many should come. Read more

Last week Minister for the Environment Amy Adams piled into the Auckland Council over the Unitary Plan, saying the rule set was unlikely to come close to delivering the 300,000 plus houses the city needs over the next 30 years. The minister noted that the plan imposed even more red tape on the already regulation-choked sector, and if anything, was likely to worsen housing affordability in Auckland. Read more

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