Postcard from South Africa #1
Greetings from Durban, South Africa, where it can get very hot and humid (apparently 44 degrees and 80% humidity on Christmas, although I wasn’t here for that) and the thunderstorms are pretty impressive (fork lightning is badass).
Naturally occurring electricity is one thing, but the manmade power grid is another.…
19 Comments The New Zealand vehicle fleet: fact and fiction
The inaugural New Zealand Transport Fuels Summit was held at the end of October, and the blog was invited to attend. I was able to make it to one of the two days, and I’ll try to write up some of my notes in the future.…
An ode to oil
Crude oil is a fantastically useful energy source, and has become enmeshed in our daily lives. It’s used to make petrol, plastics, and asphalt. Oil products are used in almost all motor vehicles today, but that wasn’t always the case:
The electric motor predates the internal combustion engine, and many early motor vehicles ran on electricity rather than gasoline.…
The real surprise from the census data, part 2
Following on from a post here, I thought I’d take another look at the Auckland city centre’s population, now there is some more information available.
90 years of change in the inner city
I came across a fascinating paper here thanks to one of the other bloggers – it’s a thorough exploration of the changing population and demographics of inner-city Auckland, including the suburbs.…
Housing Accord first year results
The results for the first full year of the Housing Accord between the government and Auckland Council have just been released.
It’s a politically charged topic – witness the government talking it up (“First year Auckland Housing Accord target exceeded“), and Phil Twyford from Labour rather unfairly talking it down (“Fourth housing report confirms failure“).…
Aussie apartment boom: the cities
As explained in my last post, Australia is currently in the middle of a major apartment boom. Of course, the picture changes depending on which city you look at. The following graph shows the share of attached dwellings for the “large Australian cities” – the ones which are bigger than Auckland, at 1.9 to 4.7 million people: Sydney has been building mainly attached dwellings for the last 12 years – 60% to 70% of all dwelling approvals.…
Aussie apartment boom: the national picture
It’s not something you hear much about in New Zealand, but Australia is currently in the middle of a major apartment boom. The number of dwelling approvals – what we would call building consents here – for attached dwellings is at an all-time high.*…
Transport and Economic Growth
Gross domestic product, or GDP, is a pretty important statistic for economists. It’s probably given even more importance by the general public who may not be aware of its limitations (and that link is a very incomplete list of them), but I digress.…
Is the City Centre Deprived?
*16/10/2014: updated with interactive map*
Radio New Zealand recently ran an article titled “Slum warning over Auckland CBD”, which began:
Auckland’s central city is home to some of the region’s poorest people, living in tiny overcrowded apartments which are threatening to turn some areas into slums.…
Northward drift no more
As a youngster in Social Studies class, I remember being regaled with stories of the Northward Drift, that well-known phenomenon of people moving from the South Island to the North Island, and to Auckland from everywhere that wasn’t Auckland. How we thrilled to the tales of those intrepid folk, heading north on their oxen-drawn wagons (we assumed) to the land of plenty.…
Processing...