Sunday reading 26 April 2015

Every week we read more than we can write about on the blog. To avoid letting good commentary and research fall by the wayside, we’re going to publish weekly excerpts from what we’ve been reading.

Joe Cortright, “Our Shortage of Cities“, City Commentary.

Cortright makes a convincing argument that the exploding demand for urban living is not being met by supply. How does a city grow urban land? Stuart (above) provides a good start of places in Auckland that are sitters for urban intensification. Here is Cortright:

But in economic terms, high and rising prices are sending a clear market message: cities are valuable. More people want to access the advantages that cities provide, and in the face of growing demand we have a shortage of great urban spaces. The market is signaling that we need to build more and better city neighborhoods. Instead of discouraging developers from creating new housing, the most effective solution to this problem is to increase the supply of new urban neighborhoods.

..In many cities, zoning restrictions, discretionary approval processes and excessive parking requirements—and now, potentially, new taxes on developer–makes new development difficult and expensive.

The Economist, “The paradox of soil: Land, the centre of the pre-industrial economy, has returned as a constraint on growth“.

A welcome latecomer to the discussion on urban economics and the constraints on growth due to land use regulation, the Economist has recently published a series of excellent articles. This one considers the growth implication of land use regulations and presents some possible solutions including a land tax.

Concern over land has come roaring back. The issue is not overall scarcity, but scarcity in specific places—the cities responsible for a disproportionate amount of the world’s output. The high price of land in these places is in part an unavoidable concomitant of success. But it is also the product of distortions that cost the world dear. One estimate suggests that since the 1960s such distortions have reduced America’s GDP by more than 13%.

The good news is that the world’s urban-land scarcity is largely an artificial problem. The bad news is that that does not make it a soluble one. Redressing strict land regulation is among the most politically fraught of policy issues.

Robyn A. Friedman, “Companies Trade Suburbs for City Life“, The Wall Street Journal.

 Large companies are moving back into the city in an attempt to attract and retain workers—particularly younger workers who are postponing homeownership and favor renting in walkable neighborhoods with easy access to restaurants, shopping and cultural opportunities.

Companies are relocating to not only be closer to skilled workers but also to keep those workers happy. “They need to be where the brain trust wants to be,” said Rick Lechtman,eastern U.S. director of the National Office and Industrial Properties Group at Marcus & Millichap in New York. “Employees work 10- or 12-hour days at their desk and don’t want to be in the middle of nowhere.”

Matt Wade. “How treating pedestrians better will boost the economy“, The Age. In this fascinating piece researchers explore the agglomeration benefits of walking improvements. We will surely revisit this work in more detail, as it is consistent with much of the Blog’s articles and initiatives. Having a robust evidence base for something that is so plainly obvious is an indication of how far we are along the path to returning to the tradition of urban living.

Economic change, especially the growing importance of knowledge-based firms, has made the walkability of business centres all the more important. The exchange of ideas and information is crucial for the productivity of knowledge industries. That’s one reason why knowledge-intensive businesses – like finance, insurance, IT and professional services – tend to cluster together in CBDs. Much of the sharing of ideas and knowledge takes place face-to-face. And those face-to-face encounters are very often the result of a walking trip. It might sound old school but walking is vital to our premier business hubs.

The study identified big variations in the routes available to CBD walkers. Some walkways allowed pedestrians to travel at a maximum average speed of 4 kilometres an hour. But others allowed speeds of just 1 kilometre an hour because of obstacles like unfavourable traffic light phasing. Those slow pedestrian routes have a significant impact on productivity. SGS Economics and Planning concluded Melbourne’s economy could be boosted by $1.3 billion a year if the flow of pedestrians around the CBD was optimised. Terry Rawnsley, an economist at SGS Economics and Planning, said a similar improvement in Sydney’s CBD could yield a $2 billion lift to the city’s economy.

Ben Heather, “Forgotten law puts squeeze on damp homes and dodgy landlords“, Stuff.co.nz. What if New Zealand had stronger tenancy laws? Turns out that we already have some, but they have been mostly ignored.

The law, passed in 1947, requires homes to be “free of damp”, but it has been largely forgotten. Tenancy tribunals have often sided with landlords, even when dampness was causing serious health problems to tenants.
Now, in a study published in New Zealand Universities Law Review, academics from Victoria and Otago university argue that it is time to resurrect the “free of damp” law to help families who are failing to win redress from tribunals.

Ben L, “Dutch scenes in a British context, lessons for New Zealand“. CAA.org.

Take a look at these powerful images from the blog Alternative Department of Transport, created by transposing typical Dutch cyclists into a British street environment… which could just as easily be a New Zealand street environment.

Straight away it becomes blindingly obvious why women, children and the elderly are so underrepresented among regular cyclists in NZ. It also demonstrates why most people put themselves in a majority group who would love to cycle more but don’t feel safe doing so.

Business owners have a bad record of guessing how their customers visit them. Here are a few links of studies that show the gap between the estimated and actual travel mode to commercial streets. #Protip: if business owners stand in the way of sensible transport infrastructure, it’s time to call in the surveyors.

• Aaron Black, 85 Percent of People on Polk Street Arrive Without a Car, StreetsBlogSF
• Noah Kazis, Study: Vancouver Merchants Badly Misjudge Effect of Protected Bike Lanes, StreetsBlogNYC
• Stephen Miller, TA Survey: Customers on Foot Bring Big Business to East Village Retailers, StreetsBlogNYC.

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