All the talk this week has been about the Auckland housing crisis. We’ve had a lot of questions like ‘why don’t we invest in developing the regions’ or ‘why don’t Aucklanders sell up and move to Palmerston North’. This Whiteboard Friday explores these issues by looking at the economic version of the law of gravity – we call it agglomeration. Like gravity this explains why big cities keep getting bigger – attracting more businesses and people to them. Resisting this pull is difficult – which is why it is hard to get Auckland businesses and Aucklanders to move to Palmerston North.

About the Author

Gareth Morgan

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Gareth Morgan is a New Zealand economist and commentator on public policy who in previous lives has been in business as an economic consultant, funds manager, and professional company director. He is also a motorcycle adventurer and philanthropist. Gareth and his wife Joanne have a charitable foundation, the Morgan Foundation, which has three main stands of philanthropic endeavour – public interest research, conservation and social investment.