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If a council’s zoning plans are wrong, it is hard for anything else to be right. If building enough housing in places where people want to live is forbidden, housing will be scarce, rents and house prices will be too high, and every other ‘wellbeing’ that councils try to deliver will suffer. Read more

I would not usually devote a column for The Australian to problems with a New Zealand local council. Nevertheless, the city in question is the capital, so I will make an exception. Read more

New Zealand’s infrastructure is under intense scrutiny. From Three Waters to Cyclone Gabrielle, from ruptured pipes in Wellington to growing traffic congestion in Auckland, vulnerabilities in New Zealand’s infrastructure network are glaringly apparent. Read more

When Wellington Airport installed licence plate readers to streamline parking and passenger pickup and drop-off, it did not have to beg Wellington City Council to find room in the council’s 10-year plan for funding. Though partially council-owned, the Airport funds its own operations out of its own revenues and makes its own decisions. Read more

Experimental psychology was a bit wild in the 1960s. Scientists would run experiments on beagles, giving them painful shocks. Read more

Wellington has a lot of problems. No one thing will fix all of them. But the current review of council ratings policy could fix an important problem and provide an example for other urban councils. Read more

Housing crisis makes growth all about ‘up-and-out’ not ‘up-or-out’ If you want affordable housing, it isn’t a choice between whether people should be able to build townhouses and apartments downtown or subdivisions at the city’s fringes. Cities need to be able to grow in all directions, guided by where people want to live and the cost of providing infrastructure. Read more