The case against publicly owned golf courses, part 2
Last week I started taking a look at publicly-owned golf courses. I argued that they are different from public parks in several important respects. While public parks are freely available to all Aucklanders, golf courses are only open to paying golfers.…
97 Comments Showing street transformation through Streetview
In a bid to show that it’s possible to transform streets to be more people friendly a Brazilian urban planning group has scoured Google Streetview to put together examples of change. They currently have over 35o examples including a number from Auckland such as the shared spaces and Jellicoe St.…
Greater Auckland competition winners
As first announced by Matt, we had two copies of Britomart: The Story to give away to people who signed up as paid Greater Auckland members by the end of last weekend.*
We’ve been blown away with the response. Thank you to everyone who has become a member or donated. …
Development update: September 2015
I didn’t manage to get a “development update” post out last month, but I’ve now finished doing a pretty major update to the RCG Development Tracker page. Among other things, there’s been a new tranche of Special Housing Areas, a bit more info on things happening around Westgate, and I’ve updated a lot of apartment projects around the city (which ones have begun construction, expected completion dates, etc).…
Beach Rd Stage 2 opens Friday
This Friday at 7:30am the second stage of the Beach Rd walking and cycling project will officially open – almost exactly 1 year after stage 1 opened. This extends the current Beach Rd cycleway another 400m from Mahuhu Cres to Britomart Place making it more connected to the city than it was previously.…
Sunday reading 13 September 2015
Jonah Lehrer, “A physicist solves the city“, NY Times. This article is a few years old but still thought-provoking. It discusses a physicist’s analysis of the data on cities. The key finding is that resource consumption increases more slowly than city size, while economic activity and human interaction increases more rapidly.…
East Auckland State Highways?
In the latest saga that the issue of transport in East Auckland, the local MPs are calling for some of the roads to be turned into State Highways.
Pakuranga MP Maurice Williamson is pushing for Pakuranga Rd and Ti Rakau Drive to become state highways.…
Briefing Papers 3: “Bubble trouble”
AUT’s Briefing Papers initiative has kindly allowed us to syndicate their recent series on housing. The third paper is by University of Auckland economist Ryan Greenaway-McGrevy:
As of May 2015, the average house price in the greater Auckland region was $828,502.…
Reminder for Greater Auckland signups
Quick reminder – people who sign up as paid members of Greater Auckland by Sunday will be in the draw to win one of two copies of Britomart: The Story, a beautiful hard-bound 228 page book with stunning photography from Britomart Group.…
How important is public transport for reducing congestion?
In July, I started taking a look at the economics of public transport fare policies. In the first part of the series, I took a look at how traffic congestion can be a rationale for public transport fare subsidies. (Parts 2 and 3 dealt with different issues.)…
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