20 Things for Auckland
Investor, business commentator and friend of the blog, Lance Wiggs, has written an excellent post on 20 obvious things to remember for Auckland, especially with local body elections coming up. Most of it relates to topics we’ve talked about before. We can easily forget that most people don’t read Transport Blog, find The High Cost of Free Parking obvious or understand that great cities are great to walk in – and lousy to drive in.…
69 Comments Collins Comments on Auckland
Every now and then you see comments that make you want to laugh, cry or just bang your head against a wall at the stupidity of them. Yesterday there were a couple of such comments from Judith Collins in an opinion piece talking about the Auckland mayoralty.…
Reader views: Who’s talking about cities?
The other week, I reposted Melissa Bruntlett’s great reflection about gender and urban activism, and asked: Can Transportblog facilitate a broader conversation about urban issues that allows more voices to be heard?
Judging by the diversity of views and perspectives that came out in the comments, Aucklanders from all different walks of life are clearly passionate about the future of their city.…
Celebrating Auckland’s Transformation
Auckland has come a long way in recent years when it comes to the city and waterfront more interesting and people oriented. This was highlighted beautifully on the weekend as tens of thousands every day flocked to the waterfront to celebrate Auckland’s 175th birthday.…
Auckland and Wellington per capita train use
The news recently that Auckland had surpassed Wellington for rail patronage as well as passed the 12 million trips mark was good however as we and many others have noted, on a per capita basis Wellington is still well ahead. The per capita result got me thinking about how we measure it and whether the population figure used is ideal.…
Population-weighted densities in New Zealand and Australia
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. Either way, density matters – it can have a big impact on: The efficiency of infrastructure provision and public transport services
Urban productivity and levels of competition in industries like retail
Amenity for residents – higher density can support cultural institutions and local vibrancy, but some people may prefer more open space
Preservation of open space and agricultural land on the urban fringes
Cities’ energy efficiency and use of resources.…
Auckland as a Consumer City – And what it might mean for the CRL
In this recent post we discussed agglomeration economies in consumption. Just to re-cap, agglomeration economies describe the external economic benefits that arise from proximity. They’re essentially the economic benefits of cities.
The benefits of agglomeration are realised by both “producers” (typically employees in the form of higher wages or businesses in the form of higher profits) and “consumers” in the form of more diverse/specialised goods and services (NB: I use a broad definition of “goods and services”, which includes all forms of social/cultural interaction).…
How rail was saved in Auckland
Next Monday will be a historic day for transport in Auckland as for the first time the city will have electric trains carrying fare paying passengers. Electrifying the rail network is something that has been talked about for 90 years, mostly in conjunction with a version of the City Rail Link. …
How census mode share has changed over time
On Saturday we finally saw the first glimpses of information on the Journey to Work (JTW) data from the 2013 Census for Auckland (we received the national figures a few months ago). This morning Stu looked at how effective investment in each mode has been since 2006. …
Strong employment growth in the central city
Last week Statistics NZ released their business demography statistics for 2013 which provides a range of information about businesses in New Zealand. One of the really interesting bits of information included within the release are employee counts by geographic area, which can tell us the number of jobs in each area unit.…
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