Header image
CHALLLENGES FACING GOVERNMENT

WHAT ARE THE ISSUES?

Dear Minister:

To match population growth, we need more homes. For every new family, a new home must be built — but not the way we’ve done it before.

How to avoid traffic congestion:
Build towns that eliminate the need to drive.

How to avoid digging up roads for pipes: Build towns that build and pay for their own rainwater harvesting, with storm water and waste water management in its greenbelt. No inbound or outbound pipes.

How to avoid needing new or wider roads: Build towns that eliminate the need to drive. No commuters. All jobs, schools and shops within the car-free town walls. No car dependency.

How to not burden the grid: Build towns with a 4 ha. solar array with container-sized vanadium batteries that locally produce electricity.

How to become a regional economic engine: Develop a local economy that pays the council more in rates, and central government more in taxes than it uses in services.

How to solve the education crisis:
Build towns that build and pay for every classroom on the village and town plazas. Sports fields in the Greenbelt. Provide parallel-market affordable homes to ensure teachers live locally.

How to address the threat of AI: By developing a local economy with over 250 local-to-local jobs, the citizens of the town have a vested interest to avoid unemployment through AI, and they have the power to support a circular economy.

How to overcome loneliness in a digital world: By eliminating cars and working/living locally, friendships naturally grow. Building a central plaza with its public seating, cafes and children’s play areas in each village is a timeless pattern to reinforce social connection.

How to reduce the need for welfare: The town is based on a self-supporting economic plan that actively works to ensure 100% employment for the able, restoring dignity; making taxpayers not beneficiaries.

How to address the ageing crisis: Integrate elders into the society, even those suffering severe disability or dementia. Provide low-cost elder housing for the ambulatory, town-insured on-plaza nursing care for the infirm; borrow from Holland dementia-design.

How to retain NZ’s best and brightest: The town plan includes the development of a Singapore-style economic approach focused on empowering the private sector to drive innovation, investment, and high-value job creation. This is supported by a strong commitment to affordable housing and a broader goal of reducing the overall cost of living. The aim is to create a high-quality, low-cost lifestyle that makes staying — and returning — attractive for top talent.

How to maximise the benefit of immigration: To maximise the benefits of immigration, the town is structured as a network of 20 villages, each shaped by its founding community. Some villages will centre around specific migrant populations — such as a French Village or a Chinese Village — to support first-generation migrants through cultural familiarity and community connection. While each village will contribute to a shared national identity, they will be established on the strength of a clear economic plan, outlining their unique contributions to the town’s prosperity.

How to create a carbon negative development (generates carbon credits): To create a carbon-negative development capable of generating carbon credits, the town is designed to eliminate the need to drive — permanently removing an estimated 8,000 cars from daily use by ensuring all essential services, workspaces, schools, and recreation are within walking distance. All energy will be generated from renewable sources such as solar and wind, and waste will be converted into energy through advanced processing systems. These reductions in emissions will be formally measured and lobbied for recognition under accredited carbon credit schemes.”

How to protect from a global economic meltdown: To protect, the town operates as a self-supporting local economy designed to function independently at all times, but especially in the face of wider financial disruption. $200 million in development profits is retained through a Town Development Company, which is transitions to community ownership by its town citizens. These funds are reinvested into local and regional businesses and industries to strengthen supply chains, create employment, and ensure long-term economic resilience.

How to build low-cost housing for everyone:
Use the Urban Development Act 2020 (UDA) to consolidate all permissions under a single law.

○ Use UDA to buy & subdivide land at rural value
○ UDA builds roads, infrastructure, parks, etc.
○ UDA manufactures homes in an on-site factory
○ Use a Town Development Company (TDC)
○ TDC reinvests back into the MarketTown
○ TDC becomes a Town Management Company

There’s much more — but the point is this:

>    The solution already exists.
>    It just needs a champion.

Minister, it’s your move…  Read More

Urban Development Act 2020

The Power of Permission

 The most powerful tool of governance is not taxation, regulation, or punishment—it is permission. And the most powerful drive in people is not fear, but the will to live well—to secure health, stability and a future for themselves and their children.


More than half the work of development is the cost of permission. Money and time that could be going into building is tied up in red tape. National started the UDA to fix this, but Labour turned it into a social housing developer. No new law is needed, just a change in direction. Use the UDA to build MarketTowns.   More

Threat: AI/Robotics

Preparing for an AI/robotics economy.

AI is advancing fast. Entire professions—doctors, lawyers, accountants—are being reshaped by automation. Robotics is transforming manufacturing, farming, even aged care. Many of the jobs we’ve relied on will disappear, not from economic decline, but because machines can do them faster, cheaper, and more reliably.

The MarketTown answer is to identify and support the full range of locally-owned businesses that provide livelihoods, services, and opportunities—ensuring meaningful work and 100% employment for all. These main-street businesses keep wealth circulating locally and keep its people, not its machines, at the heart of the community’s future.   More

Threat: An Aging Population

Policymakers talk about our ageing population — reports, reviews, and strategies — yet little changes. The problem is seen through the wrong lens: a car-based society where the default answer is segregation in retirement villages and nursing homes.

To see how it can be done better, look to the historic towns of Europe, where older people are visible everywhere — part of daily life, not hidden away. In the Netherlands they design specifically for elders with advanced dementia, where care and community coexist.

Keeping elders within their community lowers the cost of care because they still have a place and a role — they contribute, they belong. For the elder, it prevents the slow drift into forbearance – acceptance of their redundancy and irrelevance, and from this depression that comes not of age, but of isolation and purposelessness.

 

Threat: Losing young families

It used to be simple to move from childhood to adulthood — finish school, get a job, buy a home, start a family. Today, that path has collapsed. Secure jobs are scarce, homes are unaffordable, and the natural support systems that once sustained young families have disappeared.

Across Europe, Japan, and now even China, the young are not having children. The same warning signs are appearing here.

The MarketTown is an answer to this trend.
It lowers the cost of housing and builds a local economy that keeps living costs in balance — where income meets expenses. It reduces the cost of raising children through its very structure: a car-free town that allows free-range childhoods instead of paid daycare and constant supervision.

Its economy is designed to create first-time and entry-level jobs, helping teens and young adults gain experience and income — becoming contributors, not dependents.

Threat: Economic Meltdown

As the global economy becomes more interrelated, the risk of global meltdown increases. The best way to protect against this is to lower dependency on it. A local economy needs the global economy to thrive, but when, for whatever reason, it fails, a local economy has the basics covered.

Controlling the access to and cost of food, water, housing and energy is a start. Then reduce the cost of living by elimination: Eliminate the need to drive by placing all day-to-day destinations in walking distance. Eliminate the need for childcare by raising children in walkable villages.  Eliminate dependency on social services by positive support. Lower the cost of police and justice by the inherent low tolerance for crime.

Threat: Derivative Reality

Society’s decision makers were born in an analogue era where much of life was face-to-face: nonderivative reality. Younger generations grew up with an evolving derivative reality, where  experience comes via digital transmission.

No one voted for this change. No government mandated it. But its impact is profound. Most notably is the absence of reality checks. Citizenship is replaced by algorithms programmed to attract clicks.

The more we digitise, the more we need to humanise. In the MarketTown this happens by design. Social networking is face-to-face. Each village has a central plaza with a gathering point where people connect in real life, not online.

WHAT CAUSED THESE PROBLEMS

Why do homes cost so much?

Many reasons — but nearly all trace back to misguided legislation: the RMA, the Building Act, and layers of regulation shaped by lobbying rather than good governance. Over 50% of development costs are the cost of permission.

Yet “fixing” the market by driving down existing house values would devastate ordinary homeowners still paying their mortgages.

The real answer is not to patch a broken system — it’s to start fresh: Manufacture (not construct) low-cost, high-quality homes within a self-contained town designed for modern life: walkable, car-free, locally employed, socially-interactive, and environmentally sound.

Median target: $500,000 for a townhouse. 3X annual household income for all.

To learn how, read More

Why is social media antisocial?

It promises connection but delivers isolation — replacing community with clicks; substituting conversation with threads. Humans are hard-wired to connect face-to-face. Replacing that with digital screens leads to social starvation.

How to Build a Socially Interactive Town

A socially interactive town makes connection natural. Car-free streets, plazas, and shared space invite people to meet, talk, and engage in daily life. Instead of isolating residents behind driveways and devices, it encourages spontaneous encounters and civic belonging.

Shops, schools, and workplaces are woven within walking distance, supported by mixed housing that keeps generations and incomes side by side. Public spaces are scaled for human comfort, not traffic flow, fostering the rhythms of conversation, cooperation, and connection.

The more we digitise, the more we need to humanise. We need to intentionally design physical space that offers a healthier alternative to life in cyberspace.

.  More

Why have we polarised into haves and have-not?

A desirable community soon gentrifies: those who can pay more move in. Teachers, tradespeople, and service workers, pensioners and young people are forced out. Over time, the community loses its vibrance and diversity.

The MarketTown prevents this by setting aside 20% of housing in a parallel market—homes that remain permanently affordable, protected from speculative pricing. This ensures that every community can keep the workers, families, and neighbors who make it thrive.   More

Why the crisis in education?

 

Children learn by watching adults. Isolate them in campuses, and they turn to the Internet for role models—then we wonder why they struggle as citizens.

The MarketTown places its classrooms on its village plazas, where children see and interact with adults daily; where they see what they are being taught in the classroom is to prepare them to become productive, contributing members of society.   More

Why are our young leaving?

Too often, young people are isolated from the world they are about to inherit. Without guidance, work experience, or the chance to put down roots, they drift toward screens, temporary jobs, and distant housing—leaving them unprepared for adult life.

In a MarketTown, that transition is built into the community. Apprenticeships, civic projects, and entry-level jobs connect teens to real work and responsibility. Affordable starter homes and mixed-use neighbourhoods let them live near where they learn and work.    More

Why so hard to have a family?

For parents, nothing matters more than the safety of their children. But safety today is far different than the old days.

Beyond safety, the goal is a socially interactive environment where children learn how to grow into capable, confident adults. That means a good education — one that equips them with real skills and knowledge — and a community whose values help define what “doing well” truly means.

In the MarketTown, the meaning of success is not dictated by ideology or policy; it’s shaped by the ethos of each family and its community.

That’s why the MarketTown is both car-free — ensuring safe streets — and divided into twenty villages, each with its own distinct character and sense of belonging.

Affordability comes next. Housing, food, and daily life must remain within reach of what a young family can earn. Every aspect of the MarketTown is designed to make that possible.

If you are such a young family, read More

Why do we isolate elders?

In car-based developments, losing a driver’s licence can be life-changing. In a MarketTown, it’s a non-event.

The rise of retirement villages and nursing homes — effectively segregating the elderly — is a product of car-dependent planning. In the old towns of Europe, by contrast, older people remain visible, valued, and woven into daily life.

MarketTowns are designed like Old Europe. Elders live in ground-floor apartments near village plazas, where life unfolds around them. For those needing care, nursing facilities sit right on the plaza, ensuring that even the infirm remain part of their community. Learn More

What’s the difference between diversity and enrichment?

Diversity can be an off-putting ideology, while cultural enrichment makes life vibrant, more interesting, especially if it reflects boundaries. It’s a subtle difference in the culture wars, where the MarketTown seeks to make it a positive. Like travelling from one world to another just by taking a short walk.

The fact is not everyone shares the same interests or values — and that’s a good thing. To address this, a MarketTown of 10,000 people is divided into about twenty clusters: side-by-side villages. Each has its own look, feel, and culture shaped by its first residents.

This character isn’t dictated by planners; it grows naturally from the people who choose to live there. Some villages may form around shared heritage — a French village or a Chinatown. Others may form around work or passions — a filmmakers’ enclave, an artisan quarter, or a hi-tech hub. Some will be progressive, others traditional — depending on who is attracted, who signs up.

The result is a town alive with variety: different foods, festivals, and ways of life — distinct yet connected, each village enriching the whole. More

HOW TO FIX NEW ZEALAND

Build MarketTowns

How to Build a MarketTown introduces no untested theories or technologies. Every element has been proven somewhere in the world to work reliably and at scale. That was intentional — because when building communities, progress comes from integrating what’s already known to succeed, not from experimenting with what might not.

The only new step is assembling those proven parts into a single, practical model — a “How To” guide that can be implemented in New Zealand today, fully within existing laws and market conditions.

And yes, it’s new to New Zealand. We still tend to construct buildings rather than manufacture them — which is why delivering 4,000 homes in 12 months sits outside Kiwi convention, even though it’s entirely achievable with current capability. The expertise comes from Germany and China.

For this to happen, it should become a development of national interest, to be fast tracked so it does not get bogged down in red tape. The first version generic plan change has already been written. It should be refined and adopted before the land search. Find land to fit the plan – the opposite of what happens in NZ today. Find land with the least amount of RMA problems: flat, featureless, low-grade rural land 70 metres above sea level.

Once the land is found, modify the plan to be site specific with the precise location of every improvement. What you see is what you will get.

Then make it public. Invite the future villagers to sign up, to make an expression of interest and become engaged in the process of the actual look and feel of their village. There are advanced tools to literally – as the RMA purpose says – enable people and communities to provide. It changes the role of architect to facilitator, and a lot more… all of which has already been set out.  Learn  More

What is a MarketTown?

Land: 200 hectares of greenfield—not prime farmland, but land suited for settlement.

Car-free Urban core: In the middle, 85 hectare for medium-density homes, schools & businesses.

Surrounding greenbelt: The greenbelt creates a buffer to prevent cross-boundary conflicts while keeping the town connected to open space. It supports recreation, gardens, orchards, sports fields, and nature trails. At the same time, it houses essential infrastructure: a motorpool (keeping the urban core car-free), solar arrays, water storage, wastewater processing, recycling, and a walk-to industrial park.   More

At its core: A local economy

Self-supporting: Most developers focus on buildings, not the livelihoods of the people who will live in them—or how to protect the community from capital flows designed to extract wealth from the local economy to distant investors. It’s not personal, it’s just business.

The MarketTown takes a different approach: it deliberately designs for a local economy to sustain residents, keep wealth circulating locally, and ensure the community remains the primary beneficiary of its own prosperity.   More

A Good Life not Green Ideology

Too often Green ideology results in greenwash, greenflop and greenwreck. Spending $20 billion tax dollars to buy overseas carbon credits is greenwaste. New Zealand makes up just 0.17% of global emissions. Why do we use Green to make life harder?

The MarketTown model isn’t “green” for the sake of it. It is green because high-carbon systems are expensive, inconvenient, and anti-social. It takes 8,000 cars off the road because it is a local economy where all day-to-day destinations are in walking distance. It has a 4-hectare solar array not to save the planet, but because energy supply is unstable and costs are rising as data centres move in. Sustainability is a planned, intentional side effect, not virtue signalling.    More

A Pattern Language


About 50 years ago, Christopher Alexander introduced architects, planners and developers to a new language; a language of patterns… timeless physical design that enables people and communities to enjoy a good life. His vocabular was 253 patterns, a good start. The MarketTown leans heavily on the book, but most importantly on the idea that the most wonderful places in the world are ones where the people who live there have a hand in the design.   More

Home

MarketTowns

Reinventing Local

If you are serious about the future, stop building transport-based developments

 

Technology changes how we design our communities. The shift in technology from transport-based design to fibre-based design changes everything. Rather than invent new designs that invariable produce unanticipated negative side effects, the Market Town is a pre-industrial design based on timeless, proven patterns that people love.

The market town is a thousand-year old pattern that worked until the Industrial Revolution needed to house millions of workers in gritty cities as fodder for massive factories. With the invention of cars, we started building transport-based suburbs not because people loved them, but to provide markets for steel, oil and chemicals. Now fibre-optic is replacing transport as the backbone of the economy.

In looking for a development pattern that fits, it is the fibre-optic based, 21st century MarketTown. It is a local economy designed to enable people to enjoy a good life: the social pursuits of conviviality, citizenship and artistic, intellectual & spiritual growth.

Place

  • 200 hectare, greenfield site beyond suburban-sprawl ring
  • 85 hectare, car-free urban core. Walk, cycle, microcar delivery
  • Zero outbound commuters, all jobs, school, shops and activities in urban core
  • 8,000 cars off the road, replaces 200 courier vans with 3 delivery trucks
  • One cosmopolitan town centre surrounded by 20 side-by-side villages (clusters)
  • 115 ha greenbelt to prevent cross-boundary conflicts surrounds the Urban Core

People

  • 10,000 population, about 200 families in each village, each with its own character
  • $2 billion, self-contained, self-managing, self-supporting local economy
  • $500,000 median home price. Lowest-priced flat $200,000, 20% parallel market
    • Does not use developer/builder model that increases housing costs
    • Uses a UDA-chartered organising company that cuts housing costs
    • Manufactures 4,000 multi-floor homes in an on-site, pop-up factory
    • Parallel market ensures no gentrification, fixed income workers protected
  • 3-year timeline start to finish using German technology

Policy

  • Zero council funding for access roads, zero council funding for three-waters
  • Zero council funding for parks, libraries, meeting halls, sports, programs, etc
  • Zero Ministry of Education funding to build new school classrooms
  • Zero-waste target, manages its waste by avoidance, repair, repurpose, recycle

Social

  • Complete, not elite community.
  • No struggling class, no spawning of a predator class
  • Socially enriched – designed for all ages, stages and walks of life
  • Culturally diverse – each village has its own theme
  • Artistically enriched – each village has its own artist guild hall
  • Safe outdoors for children, a real childhood, not a coddled one
  • Elders supported to end of life, no need to move to a retirement home

Environmental

  • Car free within the urban core means safe, quiet, social streets
  • Real carbon reduction by eliminates the need to drive
  • Real carbon reduction by using Greenbelt solar array to power the town
  • Rainwater harvesting/storage, grey/black water reprocessing on site
  • Greenbelt eliminates cross-boundary conflicts – a good neighbour
  • Designed to weather adverse events (climate, pandemic, economic)

Economic

  • Affordable cost of living for all, not just the top half
  • Permanent affordability for fixed-income workers (such as teachers)
  • Tax positive: pays more rates/taxes than it takes
  • Regional economic engine that revitalise a struggling region

The Time is Now

We all sense…

“We all sense that something has gone terribly wrong with our communities. Hamlets and cities, slums and suburbs all lack a sense of cohesion. Not only is there no centre – there is no there there. Cities, towns, villages and communities designed hundreds of years ago are obviously based upon some basic purpose of living that eludes the designers of our own time.”   Victor Papanek

Learn More

Timeless Patterns

For thousands of years we designed communities with  self-supporting local economies to enable people to enjoy a good life, understood as the social  pursuits of conviviality, citizenship and artistic, intellectual & spiritual growth. We stopped that when we started calling ourselves consumers rather than citizens. Now there is a pressing need to change how we live.

Watch the Video

A MarketTown

is a community built upon a self-supporting local economy where all activity is local. No cars within, no outbound commuters. It is a complete (not elite) community for all ages, stage and walks of life. It is an answer to housing affordability for all, to climate change, traffic congestion, but more importantly than avoiding these negatives, it’s about a much higher quality of life for all.

Contact Us