What's Good in the (Neighbour)Hood? Examining the Wellbeing of Urban Regeneration using Administrative Data

Abstract

New Zealand (NZ) faces substantial housing challenges with a housing crisis brought on by housing shortages, rising housing costs, poor quality stock and overcrowding issues. Kāinga Ora is the primary government agency responsible for social housing and urban development in New Zealand. It has made significant investments towards increasing the housing supply, with plans to increase housing supply by 40,000 homes in the next 15 years. Over 90% of Kainga developments are in NZ’s largest city, Auckland, with 90% of those dwellings being social housing. These investments aim to improve wellbeing, liveability, social connections, and place-based identity through the provision of affordable homes, shared community spaces and active transport options. Urban regeneration has the potential to alleviate our housing burden and thereby have positive long-term impacts on community wellbeing. The purpose of this research is to identify and quantify the wellbeing impacts of urban regeneration in NZ. Evaluations of major urban developments are often overlooked, resulting in uncertainty about the long-term effects of urban regeneration on the community. There is substantial scope for comprehensive empirical research that provides social return-on-investment information. To this end, this research empirically estimates the impact of urban regeneration on wellbeing. New Zealand has adopted a well-being approach that supports public policy advice. The use of “big data” allows researchers to derive data-driven evidence to support this advice. The wellbeing framework used in this research draws on the NZ Treasury’s Living Standards Framework (LSF). Wellbeing outcomes of urban regeneration are grouped across three domains: (1) human capital – education and labour market outcomes; (2) physical and mental health and (3) crime and safety. Wellbeing outcomes in this research are constructed from administrative data from the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI), administered by StatsNZ, which houses a wide range of administrative and survey data collected from government organisations.