Is the Isthmus becoming a retirement village?

We’re continuing to look at the recently released census results. A few weeks ago I looked at how travel to work and education had changed and John looked at how our cities have grown over the last 130 years. Today I wanted to look some of that growth in a little more detail.

As John noted, Auckland’s population grew between 2018 and 2023, but not by as much as it had between 2013 and 2018. In total, Auckland’s usually resident population grew by almost 85,000 in the five years between 2018 and 2023.

A more detailed look shows that this growth was highly uneven – and in quite a few areas, population declined. This is highlighted in the map below, which shows the change in population at a Statistical Area 2 (SA2) grain. You can see there has been huge growth in a few areas, such as Hobsonville Point, Flat Bush and Takaanini, with the darkest blue areas combined seeing over 50,000 new residents – but you can also see decline in many suburbs, particularly on the isthmus.

Some of the decline in population is understandable, such as fewer students in the city centre following COVID. But the swathe of decline across the central and western isthmus looks eerily similar to the Council’s Unitary Plan zoning maps. Essentially, the areas where we’ve made it the hardest to build new housing are the places where population has declined the most. Meanwhile, the places where more housing was permitted – like those greenfield areas on the outskirts, and West Auckland – have seen population growth.

The data allows us to go a bit deeper still.

For many years, Auckland has had, and still continues to have, the youngest population of any region in New Zealand. But the region is getting older: Auckland saw the second highest regional increase in median age, which increased by over a year from 34.7 to 35.9 since the last Census.

That’s almost twice the increase of NZ as a whole, which went from a median age of 37.4 to 38.1 – and only the West Coast saw a larger increase in median age.

We can see that change in age reflected in the chart below. For existing Auckland residents, they will shift by one age band between each census – and you can certainly see that with the 50+ age bands. Where there is change is in the under-50 population – which is what we’d expect, as most of Auckland’s growth will come from either babies being born or migration.

This is perhaps better shown in the chart below, which looks at the change in population for each age band after adjusting for the existing population getting older.

Looking at just that swathe of population decline in the central and inner western isthmus, we can see quite a different pattern: there’s a big drop-off of people who at the last census were in their late 20’s and early 30’s. These are people likely wanting to buy a home and start families, but for whom the restrictions on new housing and the resulting property price increases have pushed them away. Looking at the age profile, you can see a much smaller proportion of kids in the central isthmus, compared to the region as a whole.

By comparison, looking at the existing West Auckland urban area, we do see declines in older age groups but some notable jumps in the late 20’s and early 30’s. The age profile also looks much more like that of the region as a whole.

The growth in the 30’s age-groups is very noticeable in those high-growth areas.

As noted above, while some of the growth in these areas will be people who weren’t in Auckland in 2018, I suspect a decent proportion of it will be from younger people/couples forced out of the isthmus due to high house prices, in part because these areas have been locked in amber by over-zealous planners. Even Auckland Council’s proposal in response to the government’s requirements around allowing more housing doesn’t address this because the council spent all their time working out how to not allow growth in these central areas.

It’s a concern for other reasons too, as many of those high-growth areas have at best weak public transport options – meaning people are possibly moving from areas with some of the best public transport connectivity to areas with some of the worst. This means we’re likely to get more people driving as a result.

Finally, because I mentioned it above, I’ve also taken a look at the median age across Auckland. As you’d expect, the median age is the oldest around coastlines and eastern beaches, with younger populations in South Auckland.

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