What’s good in the neighbourhood? Examining the short run wellbeing impacts of urban regeneration using administrative data.
New Zealand faces major housing challenges, including shortages, high costs, and poor-quality homes. Kāinga Ora, the government agency leading social housing and urban development, has built nearly 10,000 new homes since 2018 and plans to add 35,000 more over the next 15 years. This research evaluates the wellbeing impacts of Kāinga Ora’s urban regeneration projects, using administrative data from Stats NZ’s Integrated Data Infrastructure to measure outcomes across education and labour markets, health, and crime and safety. Applying a staggered difference-in-differences approach to Auckland data from 2018–2021, the study finds no significant short-term effects on area-level wellbeing overall, though stronger effects appear among social housing residents and those in areas of high regeneration intensity. Health impacts are mixed, and crime shows a small reduction. These results likely reflect temporary disruption during ongoing regeneration, but they offer valuable early evidence to guide future policy. The Wellbeing Outcomes Framework developed in this study provides a foundation for tracking longer-term wellbeing impacts as projects are completed.