If I ruled the world – the reality of population growth in NZ

Penny - Population expert

Based in New Zealand, Penny primarily looks after our Kiwi clients but also lends her expertise to the Australian context. Penny has extensive experience as a Communication Manager in Local Government and has a degree in Business and Communications. She also brings a breadth of generalist management experience in fields as varied as research, civil defence, project and event management, marketing and training. Penny’s knowledge combined with the .id tools help clients work with their communities to empower grass roots decision-making, advocacy and grant applications, and focus on strengthening council-community relationships. Penny has a rural property and enjoys growing and eating food and wine, which she runs, walks, bikes or swims off, when she’s not in the art studio.

You may also like...

3 Responses

  1. Phil Hayward says:

    One of the factors that could change everything for ChCh, is this. The USA is an example of a nation with a significant number of cities that have had house price affordability problems and price bubble volatility. But the USA also has some cities that have stable, affordable house prices. The annual Demographia Reports have the data. The reason for the price stability is that they freely allow abundant rural land to be developed for housing (with private sector involvement in installing insfrastructure). There is enough land that the process is competitive – no price gouging by land bankers.

    Some of the affordable cities in the USA are growing very rapidly with people and businesses relocating simply because those cities are affordable and other places are not. Some people sell a house for $1 million in a city like Los Angeles, and move to a city like Houston and get one just as good for $200,000. The difference is quite a lot of spare cash to be injected into Houston’s local economy.

    Raf Manji is one of those who has accepted the logical argument from the housing policy expert Hugh Pavletich, that there would be major potential for Christchurch to position itself in this way, and grab massive amounts of growth from insanely-unaffordable Auckland.

  2. Vanessa McDonald says:

    I agree with Phil.

    Absolutely it is more than possible for Chch to grow to this level. Unlike Australia, NZ does not rely on mining to create National wealth. There are hundreds of other industries that NZ is already a strong player in (such as software development and sustainable energy). Population growth and can be delivered by investment in these industries in an area that can still deliver on lifestyle.

    The growth in Chch after the quakes was phenomenal considering the extent to which the critical infrastructure was destroyed. So long at Chch keeps up with global trends, gets rid of the “poppy slashers”, supports small business to grow and removes barriers such as transport limitations (ie ensure public transport is a key feature of all town planning decisions), the growth potential for Chch is unlimited!

  3. Penny Bloomberg says:

    Thanks for the comments!

    Certainly the potential for growth in Greater Canterbury (Christchurch City, Waimakariri and Selwyn) will not be constrained by land availability. The same can be said for many areas in New Zealand … Invercargill, Palmerston North/Manawatu, or just down the road from Christchurch the mighty Timaru (my home town!).

    But there needs to be more incentive to attract significant internal migration numbers (say from Auckland as suggested). The opportunities in the construction industry as the Christchurch rebuild continues are an example at the moment. Construction dominates growth in industry of employment figures in Greater Christchurch. How long the rebuild adds heat to the Christchurch economy remains to be seen, but I guess we will all be watching to see what industries step in behind that growth

    As to the relative affordability of Christchurch, the NZHerald have a cracking infographic series which tracks Home Affordability versus Income across New Zealand. While Auckland stands out on its own, Greater Christchurch and Canterbury are unfortunately not so far behind – the infographic showing Canterbury affordability not nearly as attractive as Southland or the Manawatu/Wanganui region.

    Go to http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10881119

    It is fascinating to track through the changes since 2000.

Leave a Reply to Phil Hayward Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

.id blog