Chances are if you have had any discussions about migration in the past 12 months they have been about foreigners or Kiwis returning from Australia.

But foreign migration is not the only cause of human traffic. Indeed, it is swamped by domestic migration.

New Zealand has been highly urbanised since before the middle of the last century. Last year alone, Auckland added 40,000 residents – equivalent to the population of Whanganui. This growth was partly at the expense of the smaller urban centres and regional towns.

Urbanisation is a global phenomenon. More significantly, it is an engine of growth. Cities allow societies to gain from specialisation and scale. They also provide efficiencies by bringing workers and employers closer together. And they provide a means for the skilled and ambitious to excel.

But what about those left behind in regional towns? The old and the young, and those perhaps not brave or ambitious enough to break free?

Whether it is employment levels, relative incomes or poverty, these folk are not just left behind geographically but also economically, trapped by low mobility and prosperity.

They featured in Shamubeel Eaqub’s thought-provoking book,Growing Apart: Regional Prosperity in New Zealand. He described “zombie towns” found predominantly in Northland, East Cape and the central North Island. And as many of these towns have names starting with K, they have gained the dubious distinction of becoming “K-towns.”

The three regions singled out by Mr Eaqub feature disproportionately in crime statistics. Worse still, they are home to shameful levels of child abuse.

No simple answers

This should come as no surprise. Studies like the Child Poverty Action Group’s 2013 report on child abuse find a clear link with the socioeconomic hardship of being left behind.

What should be done? Mr Eaqub confesses to having no simple answer. That is nothing to be ashamed of. The problem is an intractable one.

In the education sector, parents are prohibited from enrolling their school-aged children in a different zone.

But not even the staunchest egalitarian would advocate prohibiting a family from upping sticks and moving out-of-zone in search of greener pastures.

And quite apart from its repugnance to New Zealand’s liberal values, short of putting border police on the Bombay Hills or the outskirts of Levin, it is scarcely possible.

The real issue is one of jobs. There are no longer enough opportunities for employment in the zombie towns.

And as the Welfare Working Group emphasised in its February 2011 report, Reducing Long-Term Benefit Dependency, paid work is critical to social and economic well-being.

There are two solutions: either the jobs go to the regions or those in the regions go to the jobs.

Unfortunately, using subsidies to force jobs into regions does not work. Economics textbooks are littered with failed experiments in subsidising regional development.

Other options aside from subsidies exist. Research conducted by The New Zealand Initiative shows international success with special economic zones. These can ease red tape at a regional level and make the regions more attractive destinations for employers.

Our 2015 report, From Red Tape to Green Gold, recommended allowing regional communities to share in the royalties the Crown receives from mineral resources. This would help unlock the regulatory log-jam that has stalled minerals development.

At best, though, these are likely to be only partial solutions. And they will take time. We need to do more.

Throughout history, the solution to the loss of jobs in a region has been migration. While eligibility for welfare requires most beneficiaries to actively seek work, this can be a cruel hoax when there are no jobs.

Getting incentives right

In reality, workers and their families are being paid to stay in towns where their chances of employment are often low or even non-existent.

While the personal, emotional and spiritual costs of leaving one’s home are not to be trivialised, neither should the costs of remaining. Calling it “welfare” to pay families to stay in towns where there is no work is oxymoronic. The family violence statistics suggest this is welfare with no benefits.

Like Mr Eaqub, I do not have the answer. But it is a problem the Initiative is working on.

Our February report, Poorly Understood, examines the state of poverty. A second report will examine causes of inequality. We will then provide policy recommendations.

The policy responses will undoubtedly be costly. But the government’s investment approach to welfare acknowledges that spending more upfront may reduce the long term costs.

If we are to breathe life back into the inhabitants of the zombie towns, it will be critical to get the financial incentives right.

The “$3k to Christchurch” initiative in 2014 might hint at the type of policy response needed. But it will need more than this.

The position is made much harder by the lack of affordable housing in the largest jobs-centre, Auckland.

What is clear is that we must do something. There are no winners in the status quo and the biggest losers are our most vulnerable. We need to start talking about helping their parents move to find work, in just the same way as we are witnessing with overseas migrants.

Though he may feature more in discussions about foreign migration, it was, after all, Mohammed who moved to the mountain.