[potatochup]

I don't know if the "most people want a single family home" thing is entirely accurate. Hobsonville Point is mostly terraced housing, duplexes and apartments and prices there are well above the surrounding mostly-single-family-home suburbs. I realize there are other reasons for high prices, like local schools, age of housing, etc, but I think it shows that the demand for medium density is there. It's just no one has been building any medium density housing in the last 50 years, and until the recent changes to the Auckland Unitary Plan, it was very difficult to re-develop existing single-family lots.

[exporectomy]

Perhaps Auckland has already reached the point where people have stopped caring and downgraded their expectations. Actually, Wellington too seems to recently have prices for attached townhouses approaching those of SFHs. A couple of years ago, the ratio of the two types of prices was greater.