Urban Economics short courses coming soon

Sep 17, 2025

Motu Research is excited to announce Senior Fellow Stuart Donovan is coordinating urban economics short courses in Wellington (15-17 September), Auckland (22-24 September) and Christchurch (20-21 October).

These fun and intensive courses are designed for people with various academic and professional backgrounds. No formal economic training is required. 

The courses will introduce participants to key urban economic concepts, relevant research, and policy implications.

Stuart will draw on his experience working as both a researcher and a consultant in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and the Netherlands. He has run similar urban economics courses in many cities over the past five years. 

“Even though Aotearoa New Zealand is already a highly urbanised country, the share of people that live and work in our cities and towns is projected to continue to grow,” says Stuart. “Trends like this, which are common globally, motivated me to develop and deliver this urban economics short course, where we can discuss some of the forces that have helped shape our cities and towns before now and how these forces might change in the future.” 

For more information about the Wellington and Auckland courses, see the flyers at the top of this page, which contains detailed course information, links to the registration pages and more information on pricing.

Wellington course

This course is in partnership with Kirdan Lees from Sense Partners. 

Pricing and registration: https://forms.office.com/r/c6Q0pWBav7

Auckland course

This course will be delivered with recognised local expert Dr Shane Martin from MRCagney.

Pricing and registration: https://forms.office.com/r/mFzUV5AAT2 

Christchurch course

More course details to come.

Pricing and registration: https://forms.office.com/r/xkuRLJ9XWv