Guest Post: Why bike lanes need to be designed for women
A guest post by Marita Hunt
A handful of recent articles on cycling, gender and the climate demonstrate the value of centralising women when designing cycling infrastructure.
In February, a paper called Pedalling Towards Equity: Exploring Women’s Cycling in a New Zealand City by Marie Russell, Cheryl Davies, Kirsty Wild and Caroline Shaw was published in the Journal of Transport Geography.…
69 Comments The Auckland productivity premium
The Motu Institute recently published new research into the urban productivity premium in New Zealand, or the degree to which firms and workers in big cities tend to produce more and earn higher wages. This is an essential issue for urban and transport policy as it gets to the heart of why we have cities.…
Optimal heritage zoning: an empirical perspective
Back in July, I went down to Wellington for this year’s New Zealand Association of Economists conference. I really enjoy NZAE – people attend because they’re genuinely excited about sharing their ideas and learning from other people. (Stu Donovan and John Polkinghorne were also there.)…
Isolated in the quarter-acre pavlova paradise?
The other week, the NZ Herald reported on some new research into Kiwis’ sense of social connectedness. The results, unfortunately, are fairly dismal:
New research has found that New Zealanders are losing touch with their neighbours – and it’s affecting our wellbeing.…
The moral case for immigration
In a post several weeks back, I talked about the economic case for immigration and population growth. In it, I hypothesised that:
New Zealand has a strong feedback loop between net migration and economic growth. When growth prospects get worse – as they did in the 1970 and 1980s – it dissuades people from coming here and encourages Kiwis to leave for greener pastures.…
Can public transport save households money?
People sometimes argue that we should provide more public transport because it will reduce households’ transport costs. But is that actually true?
I took a look at this issue in a recent working paper on Location Affordability in New Zealand Cities that I presented at the 2014 New Zealand Association of Economists conference.…
The importance of housing choices in cities
Good cities should provide choices to their inhabitants. Any big (or small!) city is composed of a variety of people with various preferences, needs, and budgets. Look around you: Aucklanders are a bloody diverse bunch, and we’re getting more so as I type these words.…
Location affordability in New Zealand cities – is greenfield growth really affordable?
Several weeks ago I attended the annual New Zealand Association of Economists conference in Auckland. Geoff Cooper, Auckland Council’s Chief Economist, had organised several sessions on urban issues, and as a result there was a lot of excellent discussion of urban issues and Auckland’s housing market.…
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