At least it gives me an opportunity to make nice graphs

Idk but if you pay me $799 than I can work it out

Two things remain on my to-do list:
1/ Assess how well the model performs at predicting the outcome of previous elections ("out-of-sample" performance); and
2/ Incorporate economic variables, such as unemployment, inflation, and interest rates, into the model.

Note the model accounts for:
- Sampling size ("uncertainty")
- House effects for individual pollsters
- Public versus internal polls
- Trends (by party)

The main findings are (see above figures for eye-candy):
1/ Support for the Government (light blue) and Opposition (rose) blocks is neck-and-neck, as are National (dark blue) and Labour (red); and
2/ Support for the smaller parties is sitting at similar levels to the last general election.

Put simply, turbo-charging urban development can complement the provision of infrastructure to rural areas, and vice versa.

I enjoyed writing the post and hope you enjoy reading it. Ka kite! Thanks again to @greaterauckland.bsky.social for facilitating these conversations.

The post finishes by observing how improving infrastructure in New Zealand's remote / rural communities can also deliver tangible value to urban areas, by providing access to obscenely beautiful natural environments. Like Wharariki Beach.

Infrastructure "cross-subsidies" from urban to rural areas are already happening, of course, and have happened for eons. For me, the focus should be on ensuring New Zealand has a sufficiently large and prosperous urban core to sustain these cross-subsidies into the future.

The post discusses how adopting policies to strengthen the urban core, such as upzoning to enable housing, can support remote, rural communities.

How? Well, it spreads the fixed costs of providing infrastructure over more people, reducing costs per person. E.g. the road to Rangiwhakaoma.

Fwiw Motu Research is an independent economics and policy research institute based in Wellington, New Zealand.

In our work, we seek to help decision-makers grapple with complex social, environmental, and economic issues.

Put Q's here or send me a message 💪💪💪

More information about us:
www.motu.nz

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Alternatively, if you can't make it along to either of these two events but are keen to catch-up separately, then please send me a message and we can try and set something up.

Second, from 5.30-7.30pm I'm contributing to a panel event titled "Auckland 2050: Building the Future City" at the Auckland University of Technology, where I'll be making the case for a bigger and better Auckland.

You can register for this event here:
tpf.org.nz/auckland-205...

First, from 10.30-11.30am I'll be giving a talk on urban policy reforms in New Zealand at the University of Auckland. Notwithstanding a decade of progress, I'm going to make the case for wider and deeper reforms.

You can register for this event here:
www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/urban-poli...

It'll depend on the context but high land prices supporting higher density development seems intuitive to me. But we might have achieved better outcomes from allowing 4-10 storeys in more places.

Thanks to Matt for his efforts, several people for helpful comments on an earlier draft, my employer Motu for supporting unfunded research, Land Use Policy for publishing what is an unusual paper, and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam for paying the open access fee.

Onwards and upwards!

Main takeaways:
- the evidence suggests upzoning in Auckland led to more supply and lower rents
- these findings hold under plausible assumptions and are very robust to changes in those assumptions
- all available evidence indicates upzoning had large effects

The conclusions sum up where we stand.