Pic courtesy of https://dgunderblog.wordpress.com/

We know that the old suburbs in central Auckland were developed around the tram network. Indeed the tram network was the creator of the corridors we now know as Dominion Road, Mt Eden Road and Sandringham Road (and many others).

But, how do we emulate the kind of dense development the tram network created but without adding huge costs? Buses. Yes, dedicated busways added into existing transport corridors. Would it work? Well, in places globally that have introduced right of way bus lines, they work very well. Some were even built as a part of the development. They serve local areas and connect to Rapid Transit for longer journeys. Here is a couple of great blog posts about such a place. The subject is Almere in the Netherlands.

http://www.humantransit.org/2010/10/guest-post-richard-lenthall-on-the-busways-of-aimere-netherlands.html

http://www.humantransit.org/2010/10/aimere-netherlands-as-bus-oriented-development.html

How does this relate locally? Imagine if you will, a reinvigorated Whangaparaoa Road with pockets of…

By Kaylah Burke

Image: NZUSA 2014 Income and Expenditure survey

Rising rent prices in Auckland might mean future tertiary students will choose to study elsewhere in New Zealand.

The New Zealand Union of Students’ Association says Auckland students are paying the highest regional rent rates in the country, according to its 2014 Income and Expenditure survey.

Auckland is the only city in New Zealand where maximum student allowance for a single applicant does not cover regional rent rates.

The July 2015 Auckland suburb report by Barfoot & Thompson, showed that the average rent for a three bedroom home in the city centre was $806 per week.

The students’ association survey shows that the average cost to rent in Auckland is $15.90 more than the second most expensive city, Christchurch.

Auckland University student Aron Roberts-Radford and his flatmate pay $400 a week to rent in central Auckland.

After five months of living…

Welcome to The Orewa Urbanist. This site will mostly cover the Orewa area but also the surrounding Hibiscus Coast region and will ink to various sources of valuable information from around the world. If you’re unsure what ‘urbanism’ is, sit back and enjoy.

For background, I ride a bike when I can, I use public transport when I can, walk and yes, drive a car. I live in a 2 bedroom terraced apartment (with my wife and son) in the Kensington Park development at the northern end of Orewa. This is a quality medium density development and is, I believe, one of the very best in Auckland.

This blog is not about favouring modes of transport or types of dwelling you may wish to live in but more to perhaps open your mind to possibilities you may not have thought of. Well designed density is not something to be scared of.

By Chuan-Zheng Lee

I get that racism stirs emotions, but I try to give attempts at statistical analyses a fair hearing. About half of the work released by Labour on Saturday is actually sound. This half is also the half that has received the most criticism. Bayesian inference is a perfectly good means of developing probabilistic models about things like “based on their name, of what ethnicity is this person?” Reading Rob Salmond’s explanation of it yesterday, there’s nothing obviously untoward about this part of their methodology. I know a lot of people have felt offended about an apparent conflation of last name with role in the housing market, but strictly speaking, Labour’s analysis doesn’t imply it.

In statistical jargon, what Mr Salmond’s Bayesian analysis computes is an expectation (over Bayesian probabilities) of the number of buyers of each ethnicity, among those who bought a house between February and April with an unidentified agency representing 45% of…

By Lamia Imam

The current National government stopped recording the number of overseas residents buying houses in New Zealand. There’s actually no way for us to know the extent of damage non-residents are causing by buying up houses that apparently are rightfully ours. The way the Herald chose to present the problem in yesterday’s story is not only xenophobic but statistically unsound. The story is about a large chunk of buyer’s name being “Chinese”. Basically we have resorted to racially profiling buyers to explain why Kiwis are unable to buy their own homes? This is particularly heinous, given other surveys show that British and American buyers also make a chunk of the foreign purchase of Kiwi homes. And on top of that, Labour’s solution is really not a solution but rather an idea with little policy merit.

Keith Ng over at Public Address has broken down the actual number, addressing the…