The confusing politics of immigration
Immigration is likely to be one of the major issues in the election that’s coming up in September – or at any rate, some parties think that it will be, and are trying to push the topic forward.
Immigration is important for New Zealand in general and Auckland in particular.…
66 Comments Sunday reading 16 July 2017
Welcome back to Sunday reading. The best thing I’ve read this week was a post on Reddit’s Los Angeles sub-forum that outlined how parking requirements make Los Angeles too expensive. Read the whole thing – it’s a fantastic exposition of the invisible costs of seemingly innocuous rules:
EVERYTHING built in LA is defined by parking, whether we like it or not.…
Connecting cities: it’s a matter of scale
New Zealand is a long way from the rest of the world. It takes three to four hours to fly from Auckland to the big eastern Australian cities; over half a day to reach the US West Coast or Southeast Asia; and most of a day to reach Europe.…
Sunday reading 9 July 2017
Welcome back to Sunday reading.
This week I wanted to highlight a few important comments from Yonah Freemark (The Transit Politic). Yonah’s been having a look at the high cost to build infrastructure in the US, and the consequences that has for the quality of more or less everything in American cities.…
Build bridges, not walls: How to make Auckland a more equitable city
This piece was originally written for Fightback magazine and published online in March.
As an economist specialising in urban issues, I spend most of my time analysing and debating how transport and housing policy can make society wealthier, healthier, and happier.…
This is what disruption looks like
Over the last few years, there has been a lot of loose talk about ‘disruptive technology’ in the transport space. For instance, in 2014 researchers down in Wellington started talking about how autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, and ride-hailing apps would ‘disrupt’ the entire transport sector.…
Sunday reading 2 July 2017
Welcome back to Sunday reading. If the weather forecast is accurate, we should be in for a classic Auckland winter day: overcast, a bit damp, and a bit windy (but not too cold). Good weather to justify doing just about anything, from going for a bush walk to sitting inside with a pot of tea.…
Reviewing the OECD’s economic review
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the ‘rich countries club’, conducts an economic survey of its members. They just published their latest (2017) edition for New Zealand, which makes for some interesting reading.
While the OECD’s reviews reflect its own views about what’s going right and wrong in its members’ economies, it sends staff to check out things on the ground.…
Sunday reading 25 June 2017
Welcome back to Sunday reading. It’s been a pretty interesting week in New Zealand politics, if you’ve been reading. But that’s not what this is about, so we’re not going to talk about it.
Here’s a thought-provoking factoid about technological progress, from humanprogress.org:…
Sunday reading 4 June 2017
Welcome back to Sunday reading. It is a black week: The erratic man-child in charge of the US government has announced that the US will withdraw from the Paris Agreement, which commits signatories to set and periodically review voluntary targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions.…
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