Category: Urbanism & Cities

Every weekend we dig into the archives. This post by Peter was originally published in September 2014. Back in July former World Bank urban planner Alain Bertaud and his wife Marie-Agnes, a fellow professional in the field, came down to New Zealand at the invitation of the NZ Initiative and the Minister of Finance’s office to deliver a series of talks on urban economics.…

Every weekend we dig into the archives. This post by Patrick was originally published in June 2014. This is a quick post on the Downtown site. Precinct Properties, the owner of the Mall and the two existing towers [Zurich Hse + HSBC Building] between Lower Queen St and Lower Albert St, are expected to lodge a resource consent in a couple of months for a total rebuild of this site.…

Every weekend we dig into the archives. This post by Peter was originally published in September 2014. Urban population density is a hot topic – some people complain that it’s getting too high in Auckland, while others worry that it’s too low to get the urban outcomes we want.…

Last week I took a look at how public transport ridership in Auckland might grow over the next decade, if it continues current strong growth rates and lines up with the transport modelling predictions in ATAP. On a per capita basis, this would reflect an increase from around 55 annual trips per person at the moment, to around 85.…

There were a couple of news articles that caught my attention over the weekend. Public Transport in Christchurch The Press ran a great piece on Saturday about the trade-off between driving and public transport. Commuting by bus could save Christchurch drivers about $7500 a year, but mean spending an extra two weeks in traffic.…

So the Auckland Plan has been adopted and Albany has been confirmed as a “node“, alongside Manukau and Westgate. This begs the question of what we might need to do to Albany, for it to actually fulfil its potential? This job is not made easy by the worst street layout of any major centre in Auckland: Let’s run through the problems we are trying to fix here: We have a university campus but it’s on the complete opposite side of the centre to our rapid transit station.…

It seems every few years the “Auckland needs a city centre stadium” debate rears it’s head again. Most recently this was a few weeks ago after it was revealed the Mayor had pre-feasibility report commissioned by PWC who had identified six potential locations.…

The final version of the Auckland Plan will be adopted by the Council’s Planning Committee tomorrow. The draft version of the plan was consulted on earlier this year, although it didn’t quite get the attention it perhaps deserved because so much of the focus has been on the 10 year budget and the Regional Fuel Tax.…

Every weekend we dig into the archives. This post by Matt was originally published in April 2016. When it comes to the debate about housing and development, there’s been plenty of discussion about the physical impacts of decisions we make, for example the height and bulk of buildings.…