— Deceit, Speculation, and Mistrust has long characterised New Zealand’s approach to land-use. — Many New Zealanders are surprised that affordable housing for all is an internationally agreed upon human right and their perceived right to speculate and make tax-free capital gains on real estate investment is not. In most aspects of society New Zealand acts in good faith but the way it has…

Cities are defined as ‘places where there is an absence of physical space between people’ (Edward Glaeser). The replacement of the Resource Management Act (RMA) has been announced and new legislation will soon go through parliament. The new Acts are too comprehensive for this paper to give a full overview…

If you are interested in regional development. If you believe in evidence-based policy making. Or if you worry about transport carbon emissions. If you are concerned about the lack of progress in improving the nation’s transport infrastructure. …

Georgism Restated — It is the taking by the community, for the use of the community, of that value which is the creation of the community — Henry George, Progress and Poverty (1879), Chapter 33 For someone like myself who didn’t grow up with homeless people living on the streets and knowing families…

Note the full report on New Zealand’s Rack-Rent Housing Crisis can be read here. Nice work Brendon. Just need to start building at the low price end and offering finance to purchase/rent to buy/or simply rent. My observations are that: 1. Rents are way too high (Christchurch rents are starting to soften…

Rural and urban people when surveyed indicated the main good thing of living in a city was convenience and access to amenities, while the main negative thing was bad traffic, traffic jams and public transport. This paper is effectively part two of the Christchurch the Chicago of New Zealand paper…

It is just so weird to me that not too long ago someone with a regular old job could buy a house like an entire house with just their job money I hate media reports celebrating rising house prices, such as, “Will the average house price in Christchurch hit $1m…

The early use of government land sales as a land value capture instrument had a decisive effect on Canterbury’s transport spatial planning history. The establishment of rail in the region illustrates this well. Canterbury Rail-era from 1857 In 1857, the Canterbury province decided to construct the 2.6 km Lyttelton rail tunnel, a major evolution…

Case Study: Kashiwonoha Campus Station — Kashiwonoha campus station is located 32 km northeast from central Tokyo. The campus station land readjustment project is part of the Tsukuba Express suburban railway that opened in 2005. This is a 58.4-kilometre line which offers 130 kilometre an hour passenger services between central areas of Tokyo and multiple satellite…