More people, more infrastructure: where is the pressure greatest?

Steven Joyce’s announcement last week of an additional $11bn for infrastructure spending over the next four years is a necessary response from the government to New Zealand’s persistently strong net migration and population growth. It has been abundantly clear over the last 18 months that Auckland’s infrastructure networks have become increasingly stretched by the increased number of people living in the city, despite the major roading projects that have been undertaken over the last decade. And it’s not only the roading network that has come under pressure. Our estimates putting the city’s undersupply of housing at the end of 2016 at 38,600 dwellings. Even if the construction industry had the capacity to increase the residential build rate to start addressing that undersupply, serious question marks remain over the city’s ability to cope with the pressure that these additional households would place on the wastewater network, for example.