Auckland is a city-region under intense political pressure. Migration and development are transforming streetscapes and communities. Local government has to plan and budget for significant investments in infrastructure as the city grows, and there is no strategy that pleases all sectors of residents at once. Property owners love their rising asset wealth, but central government...

Editorial note: Local government in New Zealand exists within a fairly well-defined narrative. New Zealand is the most centralised nation within the OECD. Central government is by far the dominant partner in the central-local relationship and recent innovations in local government have tended towards further centralisation, such as the amalgamation into Auckland’s Super-City. While there...

This report looks at the reasons for creating the unitary Auckland Council, and asks whether it has solved the problems of the old local government structure. The report notes mixed results, with one key goal being met while the other has not. Five years on, the new design is still very much a work in...