⭐ 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...

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/...

🚨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...

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...

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...

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.

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...

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.

🚨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...

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.

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

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.

Great post by @studonovan.bsky.social 👏

in 1990 seattle grabbed swaths of land to upzone hoping to create 100k homes. the debate that upzones cause displacement is a myth. over the next 30 years, the black population cratered in single family zoned areas and grew where housing growth was allowed. density has saved our city’s diversity

at 11:30pm on a very rainy Saturday night here in Brisbane, I managed to get my first (multi-level Bayesian) model coded in Stan working. While this may sound trivial, I sense it's an important milestone -- as Stan opens up a lot of potential avenues for new research.

If you're in New Zealand and interested in transport, then you might want to consider joining us at the Transport Knowledge Hub Conference being organised by the Ministry of Transport on Wednesday 11 December in my new home of Wellington. www.transportknowledgeconference.co.nz

The Fifth Estate article on design standards is a good example of how bad journalism can poison the housing discourse and lead us to believe a “truth” that never existed. 🧵 thefifthestate.com.au/columns/spin...

fwiw advancements in technologies for geothermal electricity generation will confer huge benefits to the world, especially places like New Zealand that have huge geothermal potential.

Whatever your views on McDonald's, the land use planning system is an absolutely terrible way for the National Public Health Service to intervene. It's bad in its own right. And also suggests their priorities, in time of budget restraint, are a steaming mess. www.nzherald.co.nz/business/eri...

I find AI (Copilot) quite useful for coding, especially when learning a new language. For example, I've been estimating Bayesian models in R / RStudio using brms for years. The latter is great but doesn't offer much flexibility, e.g. for transformed parameters. To convert my model into Stan ...

An interesting junction has been reached: Interest rates in New Zealand are typically higher than Australia but, with today's cut, the positions have shifted. And with the RBNZ predicting further cuts while the RBA holds, the interest rate gap between NZ and AU looks set to widen before it narrows.

The German state of Hesse is replacing their fleet of hydrogen trains with diesel trains due to chronic reliability issues. Hopefully US policymakers are paying attention. www.railtech.com/all/2024/11/...

I recently posted almost the same thread to BlueSky (where I have ~1.2k followers) and X (where I have ~5.0k followers) about a working paper that I had co-authored. Despite having less than one-quarter of the followers on BSky, the latter platform has generated *almost* as much engagement as X ...

In this working paper that was published today, Matthew Maltman and I review some of the economic evidence on the effects of ✨upzoning✨in Auckland in 2016. tldr: We find remarkably robust evidence that upzoning led to more housing and lower rents in Auckland. Wow! www.motu.nz/our-research...

It's quite possible that in the last 24 hours our child's eyesight and possibly life has been saved by antibiotics administered via an IV drip to treat (periorbital) cellulitis. I appreciate, and I cannot emphasize this enough, modern medical treatment.

Immaculate

Zoning is the most perfect form of segregation: a technocratic, class-based form of apartheid that somehow manages to position itself as merely an extended form of property rights.

You know moving house is getting real when you have to pack the gold-edged tea pot that your mother-in-law gave you as a gift.

I honestly didn't realize that New York City still applied minimum parking requirements. New Zealand, with a population of a nudge over 5 million in a remote corner of the south Pacific, has removed MPRs nationwide -- before one of the greatest cities the world has ever seen? Amazingly absurd.

Building from Andrew's kind compliment about our urban economics short courses: 1) I am beginning to plan the schedule for short courses in the coming year 2) you can register your interest and preferred location for courses using the form below. bsky.app/profile/stud...

House under offer top shelf rum salvaged from neighbours skip on me.