Overarching Aim

To investigate public housing providers’ decision-making and theory of change concerning the provision of community infrastructure and placemaking efforts; and in turn, tenants’ perceptions and experiences of neighbourhood pertaining to individual and community wellbeing.

Top 3 objectives

  1. To understand each provider’s placemaking efforts and community infrastructure provision to support tenant, Māori and community wellbeing, including the processes, decision-making and theories of change related to this provision.
  2. To map geographic access to community resources – recreational, educational, cultural, health, financial and transport – within tenants’ neighbourhood.
  3. To understand tenants’ neighbourhood experiences of place, belonging to place, of social capital and cohesion, and of safety and security.

Strand Team

Related content

  1. The association between social housing concentration and the education and health outcomes of social housing tenants: A cross-sectional study of over 200,000 people in New Zealand.
    Urban Studies,
    0(0).
  2. Placemaking and the Complexities of Measuring Impact in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Public and Community Housing: From Theory to Practice and Lived Experience.
    Architecture 2025,
    5(3), 69.
  3. Placemaking for tenant wellbeing: Exploring the decision-making of public and community housing providers in Aotearoa New Zealand
    Wellbeing, Space and Society
    Volume 8
  4. Placemaking for tenant wellbeing: Exploring the decision-making of public and community housing providers in Aotearoa New Zealand.
    Wellbeing, Space and Society,
    8, 100258.
  5. Klemick, A. L.
    Inclusive Cities in Urban New Zealand from a Takatāpui and LGBTIQ Perspective: A guide for Local Authorities and Public Housing Providers.
    University of Otago.
  6. Cultivating wellbeing: healing effects of an urban māra kai (community garden) in community housing in Aotearoa New Zealand.
    Local Environment.
  7. McDonald, K.
    The majority view or the vocal few? Homeowner perspectives on public housing in a mixed tenure neighbourhood .
    University of Otago, Wellington.
  8. Placemaking and public housing: the state of knowledge and research priorities.
    Housing Studies,
    Volume 39, 2024
  9. Does the proportion of public housing tenants in a community affect their wellbeing? Results from New Zealand: A retrospective cohort study using linked administrative data