Sprawl link to fat tenuous

For some time now urban planners have been trying to convince people that the suburbs are bad for us. They claim that living in the "burbs" means that suburbanites are dependent on cars and don't get enough exercise and contributes to obesity. According to urban plannerslLiving in high density housing around transport nodes is better for our health.

Now a study has come out to put that far fetched theory to rest.

"There's a lot of talk about redesigning cities and the expectation that they will affect people's health and weight in particular, but what these results tell us is that those expectations are probably incorrect," said Professor Matthew Turner of the University of Toronto and a co-author of the study.

Moreover, data was released from the Flinders University Achieving a Healthy Home Environment study which surveyed the homes and lifestyles of 280 families in the southern suburbs of Adelaide and found that the size and set-up of homes contributed largely to how fit and healthy young children were. Larger section meant healthier kids.

Sprawl link to fat tenuous - 05 Apr 2008 - NZ Herald

Bold steps needed to arrest slide

Revenue taxes are needed to finance necessary government spending, but they are a drag on the economy. This opinion piece penned by the author of the 2001 Tax Review, Rob McLeod, chairman of the Business Roundtable explains how tax cuts will help the NZ economy.

Rob McLeod: Bold steps needed to arrest slide - 03 Apr 2008 - nzherald

Press Release

Pakuranga Councillor Dick Quax has been quick to jump to the defence of Manukau’s large immigrant population following the attack on the Asian community by New Zealand First deputy leader, Peter Brown.

“Manukau City is the melting pot of New Zealand. Forty one percent of all Manukau people were born overseas”.

According to Cr Quax that presents a huge and exciting challenge and opportunity for the city.

“A very large number of people from Asia have made their home here especially in the eastern part of Manukau. We are better of economically, socially and culturally as a result of the immigration from Asia”.

“People here still recall the racist speech New Zealand leader, Winston Peters made in Howick leading up to the 1996 election. We don’t want him back and he can take his hate mongering elsewhere”.

We are a tolerant and welcoming city said Cr Quax himself an immigrant who came to New Zealand as a youngster with his family in the 1950s.

A Cool Look at Global Warming Speech to the NZ Business Round Table by The Rt. Hon. Lord Lawson

In October 1989, Nigel Lawson, the longest-serving Chancellor of the Exchequer since the First World War, resigned after a very public row with the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.

For ten years he had been one of the Government's chief policy makers, and for most of that time a key member of the Cabinet.

Lord Lawson served as Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1983 and 1989 under Margaret Thatcher, prior to this he served as Secretary of State for Energy between 1981 and 1983 and Financial Secretary to the Treasury between 1979 and 1981.

He has been a Member of the House of Lords since 1992

NZCPR guest

Williamson Right to Query Global Warming

Well, it seems my local PM, Maurice Williamson (National) has committed the most heinous crime known to the Labour Party and TV One. The crime he is charged with is not being a global warming alarmist. What I like about Williamson he researches issues and is not afraid to speak his mind. He doesn’t follow the common herd led by an idle media which has never looked at both sides of the climate change debate.

Williamson is smart enough to know that earth’s climate has always changed and informed enough to doubt anthropogenic global warming.

Oh, and one more thing there has been no global warming since 1998.

Claims senior Nat MPs deny climate change | POLITICS | NEWS | tvnz.co.nz

News Release from Owen McShane The Centre for Resource Management Studies

On the face of it, all the signs are that house prices will fall across the board – and indeed have already started falling.

Given that the CRMS has been predicting the bursting of the housing bubble for many years it would seem reasonable to expect the Centre to expect the market to finally correct itself and restore the "good old days" when the median house price was no more than three times the median household income.

However, price is largely determined by the relationship between supply and demand. While demand may well be falling it may also be that supply is continuing to fall just as quickly.

The global financial uncertainties which are squeezing home buyers are also squeezing those who supply both the sections and the dwellings to build on them.

All around the country, proposed residential subdivisions, both large and small, are being abandoned because the developers, large and small, cannot afford to service the holding costs or pay the compliance costs and development contributions, especially in advance of any sales.

Their financiers are increasingly unwilling to carry the risk.

We have long had a situation where any proposal to develop residential property of any kind in any location attracts objectors – and whether they number in their ones or twos, or in the thousands, they can delay projects for years.

Many of those objectors are now "dancing in the streets" because developers are withdrawing their proposals. Needless to say these happy objectors are already comfortably housed and have enjoyed their capital gains.

However, these withdrawals from the market may mean that supply remains so constrained that house prices will remain high and a jumbo load of New Zealanders will continue to leave for Australia every day.

Those who are delighting in abandoned developments in their neighbourhoods might soon begin to wonder who will be left to staff the hospitals and schools, and to build the houses, and to manage the farms, and even to pay their own pensions or for their own increasing demands on health care?

We can only hope that Councillors will realise that this is the time to make life a little easier for those who house our population, and our young skilled people in particular, rather than regard them as greedy

Brisbane to get 30,000 extra new homes - Breaking News - National - Breaking News

More than 30,000 new homes have been earmarked for Brisbane under a strategy to tackle a severe lack of supply.

Queensland not only faces a housing affordability crisis, but commercial space is at a record low, with the CBD market the second tightest in the country behind Perth.

The state government's Urban Land Development Authority was established last year to get land and housing on the market quicker.

Brisbane to get 30,000 extra new homes - Breaking News - National - Breaking News