Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

Getting to live across both city and country gives me good insight into what’s happening in both places. I can tell you first hand, rural living is where it’s at. And now stats back that up. We’re leaving the cities. In the year to June this year, Auckland lost almost 9,000 people. A lot went overseas; it looks like the rest went North or into the regions - and I’m not surprised. Our cities are a shambles, Auckland in particular is just an assault of congestion, crime and cones, if you had the option to work remote or from home – you’d be mad not to take it. Suburb-wise it was downtown Auckland from Westmere to Newmarket which had the biggest population decline, the biggest loss in the country, down 5.8 percent. Drive through the inner city Auckland suburbs one day and you’ll know why. Auckland wasn’t the only city people bailed from though. Christchurch and Wellington had net losses, so did Dunedin, but many of them didn’t go far. Christchurch’s Selwyn district saw an increase in population growth of 4.8 per