The two-yearly Nielsen Quality of Life survey questioned 6,900 residents in New Zealand’s biggest cities – Wellington, Porirua, Hutt, Christchurch, Dunedin, Hamilton, Auckland and Tauranga. It found Wellingtonians rate their city highly in terms of quality of life and pride in their city’s look and feel.
Full report
Almost eight out of ten Wellingtonians (79%) view the city as a great place to live. Wellingtonians have the greatest pride in their city of all the residents of the eight cities polled, with more than six out of ten (61%) taking pride in the look and feel of the capital city.
Furthermore, nine out of ten (89%) Wellingtonians say they have a very good quality of life. Although, financial well-being and COVID-19 have created strain in some areas.
Wellington Mayor-elect Tory Whanau says: “People are telling us Wellington City is a great place to live and they have great pride in their city-wide communities – but there is quite a lot of mahi to be done to recover from the challenges of the past few years.”
One in two Wellingtonians say they are worried about climate change and have been undertaking a range of climate change actions over the past 12 months.
City safety is a top priority with an increasing percentage of Wellingtonians saying they felt unsafe in the city at night – 52% in 2022, compared to 34% in 2020. Begging and rough sleeping are also viewed as issues for the city (82% and 84% respectively).
Survey respondents shared other concerns around traffic (74%), parking (67%) and water pollution (67%).
“Council and our stakeholders including iwi, and community, business and government agencies are already engaged with work to address these concerns raised in the survey,” says Mayor-elect Tory Whanau.
“The Council’s Pōneke Promise has already started to improve public spaces, reduce harm and increase business confidence, and Council’s working with central government and community support agencies to address the issues around begging and rough sleeping.
“I take confidence from the survey that the majority of Wellingtonians believe we are working to a vision of an equitable, resilient and affordable city that celebrates its uniqueness, environment, diversity and culture,” she adds.
A total of 610 respondents from Wellington City answered the survey. Read the survey results on The Quality of Life Project website.