Our aim is to identify a set of housing research projects that together constitute coherent research programmes designed to help understand the economic, social and environmental impacts of the New Zealand housing market and the impact of economic, social and environmental changes on housing, especially in nonmetropolitan regions.
Housing research is crucial to broader policy-making since housing is the fulcrum around which many economic and social factors are balanced. All people need to be housed. The nature of that housing, and of the neighbourhood in which they are housed, affects their well-being and those of others around them. Outcomes of certain population groups, particularly children and other vulnerable groups, may be linked to their housing circumstances. Economic forces have a major bearing on these housing outcomes; and housing market developments have strong macroeconomic effects. Housing issues impinge crucially on environmental outcomes through urban sprawl, in-fill effects (especially on infrastructure), energy usage, and transport requirements.
The breadth of these interactions underlie the importance of adopting multidisciplinary approaches to understanding the nature of housing interactions with economic, societal and environmental issues. For instance, full understanding of the environmental interactions requires reference to urban planning and architectural design as well as to economic approaches that emphasise individual decisions.