A Quarter Acre Pavlova Paradise Lost? The Role of Preferences and Planning in Achieving Urban Sustainability in Wellington, New Zealand

10.26686/wgtn.17059838.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Nadine Dodge

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Carbon Emissions ◽

Urban Form ◽

Path Dependency ◽

Regulatory Regime ◽

Medium Density ◽

Stated Choice ◽

Travel Mode ◽

Unmet Demand ◽

Compact Development

This thesis investigates the scope for compact development to accommodate population growth in Wellington, New Zealand. The topic is particularly significant for New Zealand as the great majority of the population lives in urban areas, historical development has been dominated by low density urban form, and transport and urban form are two of the main domains in which the country can reduce its carbon emissions. The influence of urban planning and residents’ preferences on achieving sustainable outcomes is investigated. Historical and current planning rules and transport policies in the City are analysed to determine their influence on the provision of compact development. Wellington’s transport policy shows a pattern of path dependency: historical decisions to favour car oriented investment have driven subsequent transport investments and influenced the ease of using different transport modes. Planning policies show a similar pattern of path dependency: planning rules enacted in the 1960s endure in present planning despite being packaged with different justifications and regulatory regime. Current planning rules severely restrict infill development in most existing neighbourhoods, which reduces the availability of housing in accessible medium density neighbourhoods and likely increases the cost of this type of housing. A stated choice survey was conducted of 454 residents of Wellington City to investigate the extent to which there is an unmet demand for compact development and alternatives to car travel. The survey held presentation mode constant across two completion modes (internet and door to door with tablet completion), allowing the impacts of recruitment and completion mode to be examined. Survey recruitment mode appeared to influence both response rates and the representativeness of the survey, while completion mode appeared to have little or no impact on survey responses. Using the stated choice survey results, a latent class model was developed to examine the preferences of residents and the trade-offs they are willing to make when choosing where to live. This type of model allows for the identification of preference groups as a means of understanding the diversity of preferences across the population. The study found that there is an unmet demand for medium density, accessible housing, but that affordability is a barrier for households to choose this type of housing. There was also an unmet demand for walking and cycling, with more residents currently driving than would prefer to use this mode, and more residents preferring to walk and cycle to work than currently use these modes. The ability to use a desired travel mode appears to be related to the neighbourhood in which a person lives, with residents of medium and high density neighbourhoods being more likely to use their preferred travel mode. This study also modelled future development trajectories for Wellington based on demand for housing, neighbourhood and transport attributes. This preference based growth model was contrasted with the City’s plan for development over the next 30 years. Comparing the two scenarios, the planning based trajectory performed better than the demand based scenario in terms of both carbon emissions and achieving compact development.

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Living in the 'liveable' city: Housing, Neighbourhood, and Transport Preferences in New Zealand cities

10.26686/wgtn.17062097.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Frederick Holmes

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Urban Form ◽

Latent Class ◽

Latent Class Model ◽

Low Density ◽

City Development ◽

Transport Mode ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Unmet Demand ◽

Car Travel

This thesis investigates preferences for housing, neighbourhoods, and transport in Auckland, New Zealand, supplemented by a comparison with similar research in Wellington and Hamilton. The topic is significant for New Zealand as there is an increasingly urban population, and the interconnected areas of urban form and transport can help the country reduce carbon emissions and provide a healthier, more enjoyable lifestyle for its people. The influence of residents’ preferences and their relationship with urban form on achieving compact city development is investigated. Historical and current planning rules and policies provide context for an analysis of how urban planning, preferences, and location and travel choices interact. Auckland’s housing and transport policies show a pattern of path dependency: decisions favouring greenfield development, sprawling low-density suburbs, and car-centred transport have driven subsequent investments and influenced the ease of using alternative transport modes. Such rules have also reduced the availability of housing in accessible, medium- to high-density neighbourhoods and may have contributed to the rising costs of this type of housing. A stated choice survey of 3,285 Auckland households was conducted to investigate the extent to which there is an unmet demand for compact development and alternatives to car travel. Using the survey results, a multinomial latent class model was developed to examine the preferences of households and the trade-offs they may be willing to make when choosing where to live. This type of model allows for identification of preference groups as a means of understanding the heterogeneity of preferences across the population. There was an unmet demand for accessible, medium-density housing, with some households willing to trade off dwelling size and neighbourhood type for higher accessibility or lower prices. The study also found that more people currently drive than would prefer to, with long journey times, safety concerns, unreliable services, and a lack of infrastructure acting as barriers to active and public transport. Households preferring low density are more likely to occupy their preferred dwelling type and be able to use their preferred transport mode. In contrast, those preferring high accessibility or driven by price are more likely to experience a mismatch between their preferred and current dwelling type, and are less likely to be able to use their preferred transport mode.

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Living in the 'liveable' city: Housing, Neighbourhood, and Transport Preferences in New Zealand cities

10.26686/wgtn.17062097 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Frederick Holmes

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Urban Form ◽

Latent Class ◽

Latent Class Model ◽

Low Density ◽

City Development ◽

Transport Mode ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Unmet Demand ◽

Car Travel

This thesis investigates preferences for housing, neighbourhoods, and transport in Auckland, New Zealand, supplemented by a comparison with similar research in Wellington and Hamilton. The topic is significant for New Zealand as there is an increasingly urban population, and the interconnected areas of urban form and transport can help the country reduce carbon emissions and provide a healthier, more enjoyable lifestyle for its people. The influence of residents’ preferences and their relationship with urban form on achieving compact city development is investigated. Historical and current planning rules and policies provide context for an analysis of how urban planning, preferences, and location and travel choices interact. Auckland’s housing and transport policies show a pattern of path dependency: decisions favouring greenfield development, sprawling low-density suburbs, and car-centred transport have driven subsequent investments and influenced the ease of using alternative transport modes. Such rules have also reduced the availability of housing in accessible, medium- to high-density neighbourhoods and may have contributed to the rising costs of this type of housing. A stated choice survey of 3,285 Auckland households was conducted to investigate the extent to which there is an unmet demand for compact development and alternatives to car travel. Using the survey results, a multinomial latent class model was developed to examine the preferences of households and the trade-offs they may be willing to make when choosing where to live. This type of model allows for identification of preference groups as a means of understanding the heterogeneity of preferences across the population. There was an unmet demand for accessible, medium-density housing, with some households willing to trade off dwelling size and neighbourhood type for higher accessibility or lower prices. The study also found that more people currently drive than would prefer to, with long journey times, safety concerns, unreliable services, and a lack of infrastructure acting as barriers to active and public transport. Households preferring low density are more likely to occupy their preferred dwelling type and be able to use their preferred transport mode. In contrast, those preferring high accessibility or driven by price are more likely to experience a mismatch between their preferred and current dwelling type, and are less likely to be able to use their preferred transport mode.

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Are More Profiles Better Than Fewer?: Searching for Parsimony and Relevance in Stated Choice Experiments

Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board ◽

10.3141/1719-22 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 1719 (1) ◽

pp. 165-174 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Peter R. Stopher ◽

David A. Hensher

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Degrees Of Freedom ◽

Choice Model ◽

Fractional Factorial ◽

Sources Of Information ◽

Stated Choice ◽

Complex Design ◽

Data Collection Instrument ◽

Main Effects ◽

Better Than

Transportation planners increasingly include a stated choice (SC) experiment as part of the armory of empirical sources of information on how individuals respond to current and potential travel contexts. The accumulated experience with SC data has been heavily conditioned on analyst prejudices about the acceptable complexity of the data collection instrument, especially the number of profiles (or treatments) given to each sampled individual (and the number of attributes and alternatives to be processed). It is not uncommon for transport demand modelers to impose stringent limitations on the complexity of an SC experiment. A review of the marketing and transport literature suggests that little is known about the basis for rejecting complex designs or accepting simple designs. Although more complex designs provide the analyst with increasing degrees of freedom in the estimation of models, facilitating nonlinearity in main effects and independent two-way interactions, it is not clear what the overall behavioral gains are in increasing the number of treatments. A complex design is developed as the basis for a stated choice study, producing a fractional factorial of 32 rows. The fraction is then truncated by administering 4, 8, 16, 24, and 32 profiles to a sample of 166 individuals (producing 1, 016 treatments) in Australia and New Zealand faced with the decision to fly (or not to fly) between Australia and New Zealand by either Qantas or Ansett under alternative fare regimes. Statistical comparisons of elasticities (an appropriate behavioral basis for comparisons) suggest that the empirical gains within the context of a linear specification of the utility expression associated with each alternative in a discrete choice model may be quite marginal.

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Urbanization and Carbon Emissions in India and China

Environment and Urbanization Asia ◽

10.1177/0975425318783544 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 113-126 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Kala Seetharam Sridhar

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Carbon Emissions ◽

Urban Form ◽

Urban Policy ◽

Geographical Area ◽

Urban Land Use ◽

Land Use Regulations ◽

Per Capita ◽

Positive Effect ◽

India And China

This article understands, from an empirical perspective, the determinants of carbon emissions, using internationally comparable data, and cross-national regressions for India and China. Next, it explores the relationship between urban land use regulations and carbon emissions in India’s cities. Urbanization has no impact on carbon emissions per capita or per unit of geographical area. Electricity consumption in China and electricity produced from coal in India have a positive effect on carbon emissions. GDP per capita has a positive effect in India and not so in China, but per capita GDP squared has a negative impact on emissions in both the countries. Does this imply that urbanization should be ignored in the two countries? The answer is no, because a city’s urban form, to which policy contributes, is correlated with carbon emissions. More suburbanized cities which sprawl more also emit more carbon. India’s land use regulations relating to building height restrictions are conservative, hence Indian cities sprawl, which lead to carbon emissions. Hence, the focus of urban policy has to be on the development of compact cities. The article concludes with caveats of the data.

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Car Sharing In a Compact City: Pinning Down the Benefits and Barriers

Passive Remote Study of the Aerosol in the Upper Atmosphere of the Earth ◽

10.47363/jeesr/2020(2)123 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-8

Author(s):

Ralph Chapman ◽

◽

Lucia Sobiecki ◽

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Urban Development ◽

Full Advantage ◽

Carbon Emissions ◽

Policy Support ◽

Sustainable Transport ◽

Vehicle Ownership ◽

Compact City ◽

Car Sharing ◽

Transport Patterns

New Zealand’s sprawling urban development and high levels of car dependency have resulted in significant environmental impacts, including increased carbon emissions and pollution. Car sharing can support sustainable transport patterns by offering an alternative to private vehicle ownership. Internationally, it has become increasingly popular but is still in the early stages of development in New Zealand. A survey of 356 Wellington residents and interviews with 13 car share stakeholders collected data on interest in car sharing and barriers facing the service in New Zealand’s capital. The results suggest that car sharing could become an important mobility option in Wellington and further policy support for car sharing could enable Wellington to take full advantage of its benefits.

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Evidence based medicine? Access to information & medicines regulation in New Zealand

10.26686/wgtn.17006779.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Amy Hill

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Regulatory Regime ◽

Pharmaceutical Companies ◽

Evidence Based ◽

Access To Information ◽

The Public ◽

The World ◽

Medicines Regulation ◽

Based Medicine

This paper explores one very important issue in the regulatory regime for medicines in New Zealand and around the world- the deficit of information about medicines available to doctors, patients and independent researchers. Much of the information about safety, efficacy and quality of drugs is held and controlled by pharmaceutical companies and regulators. The public is entitled to this information in full.

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Carbon Lock-In and Sustainable Growth Challenges : Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

International Journal of Scientific Research in Science Engineering and Technology ◽

10.32628/ijsrset207560 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 01-25

Author(s):

Aminatou Kemajou Pofoura ◽

Huaping Sun ◽

Maxwell Opuni Antwi ◽

Charles Kwarteng Antwi

Keyword(s):

Carbon Emissions ◽

Path Dependency ◽

Sub Saharan Africa ◽

Financial Resources ◽

Low Carbon ◽

Income Per Capita ◽

Short Run ◽

Per Capita ◽

Sub Saharan ◽

Lock In

This research seeks to investigate the risks of carbon lock-in by examining the potential factors influencing carbon dioxide emissions levels in Sub-Saharan Africa. Given this, we employed a panel Sub-Saharan Africa comprised of 35 countries in the sub-region, from 2000 to 2014 with cross-sectional dependence among variables. We used the Two-step robust System Generalized Method of Moments to estimate the influencing factors of carbon emissions level that create path dependency. The main findings are: (1) income per capita, urbanization, and financial resources contribute to the increase of carbon emissions level in the Sub-Saharan Africa countries, in the short-run; (2) we noticed that in the short-run, the impacts of fossil fuels per capita, energy intensity and total energy consumption are insignificant; (3) in the long-run, income per capita, urbanization and financial resources increase carbon emissions level; (4) from various factors that increase carbon emissions level, these factors form a path dependency that slow the introduction of low-carbon systems, thus, creating carbon lock-in in the Sub-Saharan Africa countries. Considering this, policymakers and governments should ensure the strict compliance of environmental regulations by financial institutions and organizations, promote low-carbon cities during economic transformation, and encourage investments in low-carbon projects. The government should also educate and build awareness on the effects of environmental pollution on population health, provide incentives for energy conservation and promote the use of clean products to avoid future risks of lock-in in the sub-region.

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