⭐ New Zealand polling update⭐ As we wait on new polling data following the recent budget here in New Zealand, I thought I'd crank the handle on my model that aggregates political polling data and infers the "average" levels of support for individual parties.

After a ten-year hiatus from blogging, the hard-working people at @greaterauckland.bsky.social (Greater Auckland) have kindly agreed to publish some of my rando musings as a guest blog post titled, "Why it takes a city to save a village, and vice versa." www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2025/05/13/w...

Why it takes a city to save a village, and vice versa - Greater Auckland

This guest post by Dr Stuart Donovan looks at how strengthening the urban core can turn liabilities into assets. The header image of Rangiwhakaoma is by the author. I recently travelled to the remarka...

greaterauckland.org.nz

A great LinkedIn post inspired by a talk by @studonovan.bsky.social “Making the most of our city means allowing more housing where the market wants it to be.”

Do you have: ❓ a passion for research ❓ a PhD (or, are close to getting one) ❓ the desire to live + work in New Zealand If you answered ✅ ✅ ✅, then you might want to consider applying for Research Fellow or Senior Fellow positions with us at Motu Research. More deets: www.motu.nz/about-us/wor...

To my dear friends in my beloved Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, New Zealand -- I'm pleased to be visiting your verdant shores on *2 April* for two public events that some of you might be interested in coming along to. Find links to details + register below.

🚨 urban economics research siren 🚨 In this recently published (open access) paper in "Land Use Policy", my co-author (Matthew Maltman) and I review critiques of the economic evidence on the effects of upzoning in Auckland. We find these critiques have little to no merit. doi.org/10.1016/j.la...

Hi fwiends, I'm pleased to be contributing to a discussion on housing and infrastructure policy that is being organised by the Law and Economics of New Zealand and hosted by KPMG Wellington on 13 February. Deets and register (in person or online) here: eventbrite.co.nz/e/pipe-dream...

"Before [racial zoning] was overturned by a court, Atlanta had an explicitly racist zoning code ... To comply with the court ruling, 'R-1 White Districts' became 'Dwelling House Districts' ... and 'R-2 Colored Districts' became Apartment House districts." www.atlcitydesign.com/blog/2021/1/...

Exclusionary policies of the past and present: How single-family zoning structures inequality — Atlanta Department of City Planning

By Kendra Taylor, Project Manager, Office of Housing and Community Development Racial and economic segregation are so prevalent today that it is easy to assume that segregation arises naturally thro...

atlcitydesign.com

🚨urban economics research siren 🚨 A new (open access) paper considers the effects of upzonings in Lower Hutt, New Zealand. tldr - housing permits ⬆️ by ~10-18% - rents ⬇️by ~21% vs counterfactual These effects are for the metropolitan region. sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Going it alone: The impact of upzoning on housing construction in Lower Hutt

This paper studies a sequence of zoning reforms enacted in Lower Hutt, a constituent municipality of the wider Wellington metropolitan region of New Z…

sciencedirect.com

One of my final fun projects as a consultant in Australia was to contribute to a project that sought to incorporate the benefits of bus priority into a macroscopic ("strategic", or four step) transport model. You can read more about the process here. veitchlister.com/bus-priority...

Measuring and incorporating a wider set of bus priority benefits in strategic modelling - Veitch Lister Consulting - VLC

In transport modelling, we usually get reasonable insights from our tools. But sometimes we get the feeling that something is missing.

veitchlister.com

Does housing affordability and security affects fertility? According to this study the answer is "yes": When people aged 20-25 years are given social housing (via lottery), then they are 32% more likely to have a child and end up having 33% more children in total. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Kia ora from Island Bay, Wellington, New Zealand, where the clouds are doing something a little special.

"Impacts on the value of adjoining properties are not a matter for consideration under the planning scheme ... The development contributes to Brisbane's housing in that it is diverse in type and form, offering choice to different household types and income levels ..." www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01...

Lower home values a fair price for more housing, planner says

Apartment owners in the Brisbane suburb of St Lucia fear a new development nearby will lower their property prices, but urban planners say housing affordability is more important.

abc.net.au

Pleased to confirm that we have absolutely, positively arrived in Wellington, New Zealand. And it was "on a good day", as they say. In a few weeks, I'll get busy trying to help make this place into a shining city on a hill. But for now, bring on the summer holidays.

Concentrating ~all of your city’s new less-expensive housing on polluted and dangerous main streets while reserving the quiet side streets exclusively for people wealthy enough to afford single family homes, which are the most expensive and luxurious type of housing, is profoundly classist.

Observing The City@observingthecity.ca · 2y ago

Patios can only be on main streets. New housing can only be on main streets. Bike lanes can't be on main streets. Young person - enjoy your dinner right next to unfettered vehicle traffic and fumes, make your way back to your apartment to enjoy in the noise and fumes at night.

A single sentence, that if embraced by urbanists, mayors, city councillors & the dude who works in finance but is convinced he intuitively knows how to design a street, would greatly improve cities. This sentence would also make community engagement sessions far more productive.

1. Developer files a DA to build some units. 2. City of Sydney says they’re too tall, ‘uncharacteristic’. 3. Developer reduces number of units, reaches agreement with City of Sydney. 4. Land and Environment Court rejects application because there’s not enough units. www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

‘You can’t always get what you want’: Court knocks back controversial Elizabeth Bay apartment block

A NSW court refused consent for the luxury development over housing supply concerns, in a decision quoting the Rolling Stones’ 1969 hit and Coldplay’s Fix You.

smh.com.au

The Point Chev to Westmere Cycleway is open and safer summer rides to the beach are on! 🚲 🌳 🏊‍♂️

I really don't think it's a good idea for local councils to impose their own noise standards. This should be something that is set / managed nationally via building codes.

Jessica de Heij@jdeheij.bsky.social · 2y ago

New builds in Dunedin are required to have acoustic insulation performance for 30db to 35db. Isn’t this another measure to make it harder to build new housing? Wish Council would be as concerned about this as they would be about boyracers in the middle of the night. www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin...

🚨urban economics research siren🚨 This new paper analyses the effects of upzoning in Auckland by first specifying and second estimating an urban economic model. The results imply upzoning led to: - a 24% increase in floorspace; and - a 15 to 27% fall in house prices. Paper here: t.co/VhlUfIgsTD

Over on LinkedIn, I've fired shots at some erroneous economic reasoning on the effects of planning regulations. This sounds nerdy, and it is, but it's also important because we need to understand when and how our planning policies can do harm. www.linkedin.com/posts/stuart...

Stuart Donovan on LinkedIn: Reality check

this is a well-intentioned but harmful perspective. Unfortunately, it's also like kool-aid to the planning profession because it makes it seem like our…

linkedin.com

Montana's winning housing reform strategy… Make it easier to build here... to protect there.

I did some field research awhile back to see how the Dutch do bike lanes in industrial areas and—folks—they're better than the shit we have in the city.

Paris definitely wasn’t always this way. This is very recent. It wasn’t magic. It just took vision and leadership. Your city could choose leadership too. Great pic via @JBPssx

Horrifying jump in demand for homelessness services being driven by years of unsustainable rent increases. I’m especially worried at half the monthly increase being rough sleepers — which either means precarity has intensified within the homeless cohort or there’s a huge sea of hidden homelessness.

Extra 10,000 Australians becoming homeless each month, up 22% in three years, report says

Almost half were couch surfing or living in short-term accommodation, UNSW and Homelessness Australia say

theguardian.com

A reminder that when we don’t build housing for people, they don’t just disappear into the ether.

Ron Kneebone@ronkneebone.bsky.social · 2y ago

Another favourite old issue of Social Policy Trends: This one from April 2021. It shows "crowding"-- the number of people living in a rental unit -- increases with rent. This may be people looking for roommates to help cover the cost or 1/2 www.policyschool.ca/wp-content/u...

With all the doom and gloom these days, there's one bright spot that caught my eye. Pakistan is set to completely replace its entire grid with solar energy. This is a poor country that absolutely struggled to cobble together the US dollars to buy petroleum...

FYI I'm very excited to move back to New Zealand in just under 3 weeks. Prepare yourself for increasingly enthused tweeting.

today, I caught the train into Brisbane city centre for my skin check-up. Did I look at the timetable to plan my return journey? No, because our train services run frequently, I could run my errands relaxed in the knowledge that -- whenever I turned up at Central Station -- I'd be able to get home.

Today I'm off to get my regular (every 9-months) skin cancer check up. And a reminder for all of us who live in Australia and New Zealand that regular check ups are a relatively effective and low-cost preventative measure.