What’s neat to read? A few go-to sources for great thinking about what’s physically between (and under) the streets and roads, and getting a steer for how to act on that

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In no particular order…

Obviously, start with the landing page of this very website and scroll to the categories. Click and you’ll get a handy bundle of posts in that category – there’s heaps of goodness!

Specifically on housing, here’s a set of useful sources (including some fun imaginary technology which we wish was a real gadget)

The Housing Innovation Society are awesome for all things collective housing (a crucial element of a healthy housing ecosystem and something mainstream New Zealand does far worse, more weakly, than our comparator nations. Māori, however, continue to do it really rather well.)

Coalition for More Homes – simple, beautifully explained, practical and with every detail covered (yes, down to setbacks and roof angles)

Community Housing Aotearoa is a great source (they’re the peak body for providers of all sorts of community housing)

A primer in Māori housing is a great start and I recommend Te Matapihi

Broader urban development insights:

The Urban Advisory’s free knowledge hub – these folk are massive nerds who are great at communicating housing and urban development insight. Also great for explainers like the capital stack for urban development

Motu Economics’ Stu Donovan is a great follow on Twitter and Linkedin (also does urban economics courses through Motu)

The resources from the National Science Challenge “Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities” are pretty epic on all sorts of fronts – swim around in their lovely website, and go look at Beacon Pathway in particular and Kay Saville-Smith‘s work

Better Things Are Possible is a great eclectic collection of smart insights on all the ways of taking the good intentions and bringing them to life on the ground.

Great watches, simply beautiful and explainers of many urban issues and opportunities, the About Here videos

For a slightly nerdier version of the above, more on the reading than watching: the incomparable Strong Towns (personal favourites: the urban Ponzi Scheme of Growth series. Ohh NZ, it us.)

Indigenous urbanism in general: start with Imagining Decolonised Cities (and its symposium and google contributors there, then dip into ideas like The Māori City and Tāone Tupu Ora (and even go visit the fruits of some co-governance in action, in Õtautahi)

For the urban issues and opportunities relating to infrastructure (spoiler: with a good broad definition, it’s most stuff): I recommend the ever-growing crop of exploratory, explanatory (and firmly recommendatory) reports from Te Waihanga the NZ Infrastructure Commission. And they do podcasts too!

Greater Auckland, formerly Transportblog and the original inspiration for Talk Wellington, way back in 2014! They are an absolute powerhouse of great material and still going after 15 years, renewing themselves with a great new model. Use their stuff heavily, cite them, and support them! Same goes for Greater Ōtautahi.

General urban design and urban form stuff: GW’s urban design toolkit is helpful, as is Kāinga Ora’s (though note it’s also an insight into how the latter operates in the constrained environment we have, not necessarily a best-practice guide)

Quarter-Hour Paradise – a fun (paused) project with familiar places growing before your eyes into really great 15-minute neighbourhoods.

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If you have go-to sources for thought leadership on non-transport urban issues, please add them in the comments so we can all learn together! (For transport, head over here.)

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Image credits:

Banner – Low Carbon Kāpiti

Staircase: Covent Garden staircase, i.pinimg.com

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