KEY POINTS:
Mike King has found his Elysian Fields. They're an hour-and-a-half north of the city where the working man's comedian grew up. Here, the men - and the women - wear gumboots and Swanndris, even if they're millionaires.
But the thing is, you don't have to be a millionaire to live here. At Waipu, a town of 1500 and growing, you can still get a four-bedroom renovated villa for less than $370,000 (try tripling that in inner Auckland).
King moved here with wife Rose Nathan and 9-year-old daughter Alexandra from Auckland's Mt Albert two years ago. "We love it. If I had my time again I'd have moved here 20 years ago," he says.
They're typical of the human trickle flowing out of Auckland into the provinces, in search of that elusive trifecta - lower living costs, job opportunities and just enough urban amenities and diversions. Yesterday's hicksvilles, dull farming towns, and dodgy backblocks are today's desirable real estate. Organic cafes, yoga classes and bars have sprouted where once you could find only pubs, RSAs and ladies' walking groups.
King's hilltop house overlooks the sea, with five beaches within 10 minutes. "You can get a good pizza at Pizza Barn, and if you want to go a bit high-falutin' you can go across the road to Artform.
"And Friday night you can get a roast meal from the RSA for $10."
True, there's the long commute into Auckland for his work, and Rose has to travel widely for her itinerant teaching job (the petrol bill's "absolutely monstrous").
But a rush-hour trip from Papakura to central Auckland can take the same time as Waipu to Auckland. And once you're home, you virtually have the road to yourself. King deadpans: "We have a car come past our place on Wednesdays. It's very exciting - the family takes a picnic to the gate and we wait for it."
In the time the family's lived there, 15 houses have gone up along his route home. Don't expect the newcomers to change things.
"No one gets treated special up here. Everyone's on first-name basis. It's one of those places where the new trend follows the old - you become a local as opposed to the place becoming a 'new funky place'."
Our biggest metropolis may still be growing, but between 2001 and 2006, 16,600 more people moved out of Auckland to other parts of New Zealand than moved in. Waikato scored the most ex-Aucklanders - 5850 - followed by Bay of Plenty and Northland, with 3400 each.
A closer look at the figures, says Mansoor Khawaja, Statistics New Zealand principal demographer, reveals two patterns - a net inflow of young people but a net outflow of families.
The young still flock to Auckland, and other cities, for courses, jobs and a lively scene. But give them 10 years and a new baby and watch their priorities morph. Families are spurning Auckland: new parents who grew up in provincial New Zealand and want the same life for their children; migrants who've used Auckland as a launching pad; or families sick of paying $4 an hour for parking, spending 10 minutes crawling 2km on the Southern Motorway, and watching house prices inch ever further out of reach.
The latest Fairfax Media home loan affordability survey, done by interest.co.nz, shows the weekly mortgage repayment on a median-priced Auckland home would swallow up 97 per cent of the median net pay packet of people aged 30 to 34. The only more disheartening figure for first-home buyers is Central Otago and Lakes District's 115 per cent.
Auckland's loss is provincial New Zealand's gain. Population change researcher James Newell crunched 2006 census data to find that towns with populations between 1000 and 10,000 showed a 4.4 per cent boost from internal migration since the last census, compared with a 0.3 per cent loss over the previous five years. Another census revelation: the past 15 years have seen a reversal of the historic South Island to North Island drift. The South Island gained 10,400 North Islanders between the last two censuses, almost doubling its 1996-to-2001 haul. And more than three-quarters were from Bay of Plenty and Waikato north. "It's a huge change," says Khawaja.
Leanne O'Mahony never dreamed she'd return to her North Canterbury high school haunt. But on returning from London with an English husband, Chris, and a baby on the way, suddenly Rangiora seemed all right. Chris, Christchurch Court Theatre's production manager, is a convert. "Having grown up in London, I wanted some sort of rural living, and Rangiora seemed the logical place."
The 30km commute to work takes about half an hour. In London, the same distance to his West End job took 90 minutes. Stints in London schools convinced the couple they didn't want to bring up their baby girl, Rebecca, in a big city.
Rangiora has the urban amenity bases covered - cinema, supermarket, big retailers - but a staunchly small-town identity with no traffic lights. There's a strong amateur theatrical company and locals still refer to Christchurch as "town".
Chris has joined the volunteer fire brigade. "You can't walk into New World without bumping into someone you know. That means you can't cock-up without people knowing.
"But there's that friendship and community spirit. Rangiora has got a life and vibrancy to it that you don't get in town."
Wish you were there...
You've had enough. The city, once shiny with possibility, is now shredding your nerves and annihilating your income. Time to move on. But, where?
We asked real estate agents for their regional picks. We scoured statistics on home affordability, cost of living, household income, economic vitality, social disadvantage, and life satisfaction. We checked there was something for almost everyone - art galleries, cinemas, gyms, sports clubs, shops - either locally or in an easy drive. We went for geographical spread and a mix of small and large towns.
We know this is dangerous ground. "The Best and Worst Places to Live" episode of British TV show Location, Location, Location drew an outcry from the bottom-scoring locales. Mansfield, a Midlands town near Nottingham on the Worst Places To Live list, was so piqued it complained to the television watchdog. The council delivered a postcard of Mansfield to the show's hosts with the message: "Wish you hadn't been here".
So, with the disclaimer that this list isn't definitive, here are five of the best places to live in New Zealand.
Waipu has Bream Bay's sweeping beaches, a Celtic flavour from its Scottish settlement roots, diverse job prospects from its proximity to Whangarei (port, refinery, retail), vineyards and construction.
Te Awamutu is an easy commute to Hamilton, and is nestled in dairy heartland. You can snare a three-bedroom home for about $300,000. Bayleys' Mark Dawe says he gets lots of inquiries from Aucklanders. "They're either coming back to their roots, or for the pace of life, or cost of living."
New Plymouth lays claim to city sophistication without the costs, congestion and hassle. Drawcards include the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, the TSB Bowl of Brooklands stadium and proximity to Mt Taranaki. Offshore oil prospecting promises more jobs.
Nelson's average house price is the highest on our list, at $329,800, but the small city squeezes in because of what else it offers: a regional economy founded on horticulture, agriculture, tourism, seafood and forestry; a strong arts scene, and three national parks - Abel Tasman, Nelson Lakes and Kahurangi - on its doorstep.
Rangiora offers service industry jobs locally, and is an easy commute to Christchurch.
Others on the shortlist were Matamata, Whangarei Heads and Alexandra.
In choosing New Zealand's worst places to live, we looked at measures of social disadvantage and very low-priced real estate. We included Queenstown because it's the least-affordable place to live in the country.
Here are five of the worst places to live in New Zealand:
Moerewa, is one of the Far North's more economically depressed towns. In 2001, more than a third of the Far North population had an income less than 60 per cent of the national median.
Opotiki district in the Bay of Plenty had the highest proportion - 42 per cent - in that low-income bracket. The town is notorious for its gang troubles.
Kawerau and Wairoa also had more than a third of the population in the lowest income bracket, and 15 per cent living in households with fewer bedrooms than needed.
Queenstown has the country's least-affordable homes, with an August median sales price of $592,500 - meaning loan repayments are more than 115 per cent of a 30- to 34-year-old's median take-home income.
Mark Parish is gritting his teeth and bearing the notorious Queenstown pinch for the pleasure of the piste. "What you lose from your wages you gain from lifestyle. I'm just looking forward to summer when we won't have heating bills."
Parish moved here from Australia with wife Tina and two babies under 2 in March. They average $450 a month on power. A carpet-layer, Mark earns the same money as he did in Brisbane, but a house that costs $300,000 there is about $600,000 here. "That's what everybody gets angry about."
He's thinking of starting his own business to boost the family savings account.
Retired paper-maker Jim Wilson, who lives between Opotiki and Whakatane, says there's more to towns such as Opotiki than the headlines and figures show.
His wife, Dot, works at the Opotiki museum, and started the Fibre and Fleece fashion competition 21 years ago. And she's helping with the silent film festival that's running at the Deluxe Theatre this weekend.
"If anyone runs out of news they focus on us little towns," says Jim. "We've got people who do well for the town, like my wife. The quality of life is what you make of it."
