New Zealand should plan for 10 million New Zealanders
Over the last few months I’ve been travelling all over New Zealand and parts of Australia for work. (This is part of the reason I haven’t found time to write blog posts!) I’ve been to Christchurch (twice), Wellington (twice), Hamilton (twice), Tauranga, Queenstown, and probably one or two other places.…
200 Comments Will Auckland be a major election issue?
Simon Wilson has an excellent article in “The Spinoff” about Auckland’s growth challenges and the apparent lack of interest from Central Government in talking about or tackling these major issues. Wilson really highlights that many of the issues facing Auckland have reached crisis point over the past couple of years:
Because let’s call it straight: this city is on the edge of crisis.…
Is Auckland too big?
[This was originally posted in unfinished form this morning. It has since been rewritten.] Is Auckland too big? Some people are asking that question.
For instance, in a Twitter exchange a while back Radio New Zealand producer Tim Watkin stated: @pv_reynolds Patrick I thought you wanted people off the roads here!…
A future for Auckland’s transport network
Lately I’ve been thinking about how to better join the dots between Auckland’s housing challenges and its transport challenges. We’re all familiar with the common stories about Auckland’s problems: Housing is too expensive, pricing young people out of the market and forcing low-income households into crowded or unhealthy accommodation.…
Population Growth in 2016
Last week Statistics NZ released their latest detailed population estimates for the country and they show that Auckland is continuing to grow at a rapid pace. Population increased by an estimated 44,400 people, an annual increase of 2.8% making it the fastest growing region in NZ and of course Auckland already started with the largest base.…
Auckland’s urban growth: a historical perspective
The other week, BNZ economist Tony Alexander made an interesting point about Auckland’s current urban growth (via Interest.co.nz):
The plan set out in Auckland’s proposed Unitary Plan to build 422,000 houses will require a rate of building over 25 years that it previously took 161 years to achieve in the City of Sails, BNZ chief economist Tony Alexander says.…
Devonport population growth and stagnation, 1891-2013
Following on from a previous post, this is a quick review of population growth in Devonport over the last 125 years. These figures are for the former Devonport Borough, which was created in the 19th century and persisted until 1989 when it was merged into North Shore City.…
Central Auckland population growth, 1891-2013
I’ve been investigating how different parts of New Zealand have grown in the last 125 years, inspired by a 2013 Motu study. As part of that, I noticed that there’s actually pretty good data for ‘central’ Auckland, i.e. the isthmus (other parts of Auckland are a bit trickier, but hopefully I can work through that).…
The “consumer city” and urban growth in Christchurch
This article was originally posted on Making Christchurch, a group blog set up by Barnaby Bennett in the wake of the 2011 Canterbury Earthquake, at the invitation of Transportblog commenter Brendon Harre.
Why do cities grow and change? And how can cities harness those dynamics?…
Auckland Population change heat map
Included in the Housing NZ presentation describing what changes they wanted for zoning in the Unitary Plan that I wrote about the other day was this interesting graphic showing the level of change in the population of Auckland from the 1996 to each of the census’ since.…
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