Neighbourhoods
Why sustainable neighbourhoods are important
Neighbourhoods are important because they are the scale at which people live their daily lives, but a sustainable neighbourhood is more than just a collection of sustainable homes.
Homes are built in neighbourhoods, and the way neighbourhoods are laid out and organised has significant impacts on how a home performs and on the direct, as well as indirect, costs to households.
In seeking to improve the sustainability of New Zealand’s housing, we can’t ignore the interdependencies between houses and their neighbourhoods, or neighbourhoods and the towns and cities in which they are situated.
Building a Neighbourhood Sustainability Framework
Beacon’s Neighbourhood research team has been developing a framework which could be used to measure the sustainability of New Zealand neighbourhoods. While overseas tools exist, there hasn’t been a tool available which was specific to New Zealand conditions.
