TopSpots: NZ's Happiest Places

Over the last seven months we have analysed New Zealand’s towns and cities against a number of lifestyle measures that are of interest to homebuyers when considering where to live in New Zealand – the healthiest, most affordable, best for families, most affluent, best sense of community and greenest. All are relevant to a greater or lesser degree depending upon individual preferences. However for this final TopSpots report we look at a measure that is universally considered desirable by all of us, regardless of our health concerns, wealth aspirations, social predilections or environmental sensitivities.

No matter who we are, we all want to be happy.

Happiness is a state of mind, so it’s necessary to research people’s perceptions of how they feel. Do they feel good or bad about themselves? Are they satisfied or dissatisfied? What is their overall view on how life seems to be treating them? These are conceptual questions and people faced with similar circumstances may answer quite differently depending on their own issues, priorities and concerns.

There are also other, more specific, perception measures that we wanted to take into account because they are pretty much unanimously considered to contribute to how happy or unhappy we are likely to feel; health, safety, loneliness, stress, etc.

As in our two previous TopSpot reports we have utilised the qualitative data collected for the Quality of Life Report 2008 commissioned by 12 participating city and district councils from across the country. Within the report are a number of criteria concerning happiness and life satisfaction that are relevant to our own Top Spots analysis and we have referred to it, and quoted from it, extensively.

The Quality of Life Report covers 56% of New Zealand’s population only in the following cities and districts: Auckland City, Christchurch City, Manukau City, North Shore City, Waitakere City, Wellington City, Hamilton City, Dunedin City, Tauranga City, Hutt City, Rodney District, Porirua City.

The full list of the 11 criteria we examined for the TopSpots report to determine residents’ happiness levels were: 

• Perceptions of quality of life (% who rated their QoL as “Extremely Good”).
• Satisfaction with life in general (% who stated “Very Satisfied”).
• Overall health (% who stated “Excellent” or “Very Good”).
• Satisfaction with leisure time (% who stated “Very Satisfied”).
• Sense of safety in home during the day (% who stated they feel “Very Safe”).
• Perceived safety of unsupervised children in local area (% who stated they feel “Very Safe”).
• Balance between work and other aspects of life (% who stated “Very Satisfied”).
• Emotional wellbeing (% who rated their emotional wellbeing as “Very Happy”).
• Frequency of experiencing stress (% who stated they “Never” or “Rarely” experience stress).
• Feeling of isolation (% who stated they “Never” feel isolated or lonely).
• Ability to cover costs of everyday needs (% who stated they felt they have “More Than Enough” or “Enough” money to cover costs of everyday needs.

We awarded 100 points to the place that performed best in each category, 90 points for second, 80 points for third, down to 10 points for tenth best. No points were given to the places that came eleventh and twelfth.

So, which place came out on top?

Perhaps it is telling in itself, but the place that came out as happiest of all is our only participating authority that does not possess city status; Rodney, north of Auckland is a district council.

Here’s the top 5 happiest according to our calculations:

1. Rodney District
2. Dunedin
3. Tauranga
4. Wellington
5. Porirua

Rodney District – How Did it Score?

Like runners-up, Dunedin (Best City Community) and Wellington (Best Place for Families and Greenest City), Rodney District has been identified as a great place to live in a previous TopSpots report. In fact, Rodney was named as New Zealand’s Healthiest Place in our very first report seven months ago. It can now claim the enviable twin-title of the Healthiest AND the Happiest Place in New Zealand.

With a total of 885 points from a possible 1,100, Rodney District was a clear leader when it comes to residents’ happiness.

Let’s look at how it scored:

Perceptions of quality of life	Second
31.5% of Rodney’s residents rated their quality of life to be “Extremely Good”; this was slightly higher than Auckland (29.9%), but lower than Wellington (33.4%).

Satisfaction with life in general	First
35.7% of residents felt “Very Satisfied” with life in general. Wellington (34.8%) was second and Tauranga (34.1%) was third.

Overall health	First
Given Rodney’s first place in our Healthiest Places report last year, this came as no great surprise. 68.3% of residents described their overall health as “Excellent” or “Very Good.” Wellington and Dunedin were the runners up in this category.

Satisfaction with leisure time	First =
“Very Satisfied” was how 35.8% of Rodneyites rated their satisfaction with leisure time. Dunedin recorded the same score.

Sense of safety in home during the day	Fifth
77.9% of residents felt “Very Safe” in their homes during daylight; the top three performers were Dunedin, Wellington and Porirua.

Perceived safety of unsupervised children in local area	Third
26.9% felt that Rodney was “Very Safe” for children under 14 to play in while unsupervised. Dunedin and North Shore were considered safest.

Balance between work and other aspects of life	Seventh
30.9% were “Very Satisfied” with their work/life balance. Tauranga, Christchurch and Dunedin took the top three spots.

Emotional wellbeing	First
36.6% considered themselves to be “Very Happy.” Tauranga and Porirua came second and third.

Frequency of experiencing stress	First
46.1% said they “Rarely or Never” experience stress. Second equal was Christchurch and Tauranga.

Feeling of isolation	First
61.3% said they “Never” felt isolated in Rodney. Second was Manukau and third was North Shore.

Ability to cover costs of everyday needs	Ninth
Even in Rodney not everything in the garden is rosy; 43.4% of residents felt they had “More than Enough” or “Enough” money to cover costs of everyday needs, while 39.4% felt they had “Just Enough” and 16% said they had “Not Enough” money. Only Manukau (18.3%) had more residents that felt they couldn’t cover their everyday costs.

Other Notable Results

Wellington has scored consistently highly in all of our TopSpots reports (i.e. affluent, greenest, best community, best place for families) and it performed well in this one, especially in the Ability to Cover Costs category (Wellington has more households earning $100,000+ than anywhere else in the country) but it stumbled badly when measured against Satisfaction with Leisure Time (8th), Feeling of Isolation (10th), Stress (10th) and Work/Life Balance (11th). Such are the costs of those highly paid jobs, perhaps.

Dunedin did well throughout; it’s poorest result being 6th place in the Ability to Cover Costs measure.

Tauranga elbowed Wellington out of the medals, but some of its results could be considered slightly skewed when taking into account its large population of retirees.

Finally, blue-collar Porirua surprised, coming in as the 5th happiest place overall. It scored well in Satisfaction with Life in General (4th), Sense of Safety in the Home and Safety for Children (3rd and 5th), Stress (4th) and Emotional Well Being (3rd).


All About Rodney District:
 


Rodney is the northernmost district in the Auckland region and covers an area of 2,475 square kilometres; it has over 1,400 kilometres of coastline.

Its population is just under 90,000, making it bigger than Palmerston North, but smaller than Lower Hutt. Between the 2001 and 2006 Census the population grew by almost 18%, which was faster than anywhere else in New Zealand, other than Queenstown and Selwyn District in the South Island.

Its popularity as a place to live can be put down to a number of things.

With the growth and expansion of the Auckland region there has been a subsequent growth in the Rodney District as people choose to move away from the hustle and bustle of the city. However, the closeness to Auckland makes it attractive to many for the easy commuting distance to major employers. It's also very popular as a place to retire and live a healthy, long life.

The population is slightly older than New Zealand in general, with a higher percentage being 40+ and a lower representation in the 15-34 age band. It also has a comparatively higher proportion of married couples.

At $521,323, the average price of a home in Rodney is 33% higher than the national average of $391,487, but 9% less than its near neighbour North Shore which has an average price of $573,430. Rodney's house prices have increased by 82% over the last five years and show a price decrease of almost 1% during the last year.

The recently completed Northern Motorway Project is likely to add further to the area's popularity for Auckland commuters and impact positively upon house prices. 

People	Rodney	New Zealand
Population	89,559	4,027,947
Population density	36.9	14.9
Population change	17.6%	7.8%
Median age	39	35
Households	32,908	1,454,175
Household size	2.65	2.68
Male population	49.0%	48.8%
Female population	51.0%	51.2%
Married population	56.5%	48.6%
Single population	26.0%	34.1%

Estimated Total Population By Age	Rodney	New Zealand
Age 0 to 4	6.3%	6.9%
Age 5 to 9	7.3%	6.9%
Age 10 to 14	7.7%	7.2%
Age 15 to 19	6.9%	7.6%
Age 20 to 24	4.0%	6.9%
Age 25 to 29	3.7%	6.3%
Age 30 to 34	5.3%	6.6%
Age 35 to 39	7.8%	7.4%
Age 40 to 44	8.4%	7.5%
Age 45 to 49	8.0%	7.4%
Age 50 to 54	6.9%	6.4%
Age 55 to 59	6.3%	5.7%
Age 60 to 64	5.7%	4.7%
Age 65 to 69	4.9%	3.9%
Age 70 to 74	3.7%	2.9%
Age 75 to 79	3.1%	2.5%
Age 80 to 84	2.2%	1.8%
Age 85+	1.7%	1.4%

Family	Rodney	New Zealand
Percentage of couples with children	42.8%	42.0%
Percentage of couples without children	43.7%	39.9%
Single, with children	13.5%	18.1%
Divorced	8.2%	7.6%
Separated	3.4%	3.7%
Widowed	5.9%	6.0%
Now married	56.5%	48.6%
Never married	26.0%	34.1%

Housing	Rodney	New Zealand
Median home cost	$509,327	$378,399
Home appreciation
(1 year)	-10.4%	-9.3%
(5 years)	39.5%	39.6%
Homes owned	69.5%	62.7%
Homes rented	24.9%	31.1%

All about Rodney: Useful Links:

Rodney on Wikipedia
Rodney District Council

Sources:

Quality of Life Report ‘09

Quality of Life Survey 2008

For more information visit: http://www.bigcities.govt.nz/

Statistics New Zealand
Census data 2001 and 2006
Estimated Subnational Population by Age 2007

QV data August 2008

Our thanks to the various parties who helped and contributed to the data within the report. 

For more about TopSpot Reports, click here.

Stephen Hart is the author of the best-selling homebuyer's books, 'Where to live in Auckland' and the 'The Streetwise Homebuyer' and co-presenter of TV2's 'House Call' programme. He also writes a regular homebuyers' column for 'Herald Homes'.

All rights reserved.

The content is considered accurate at the time of publication; however neither Barbican Publishing nor ASB can accept responsibility for any errors or omissions.

Copyright: Barbican Publishing Ltd 2009. 

 

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