University towns in New Zealand - their impacts on the community and economy

By comparison Palmerston North has around the same proportion of people employed in the education and training related industry (i.e. 12% c.f. 12.3% in Dunedin) but they have experienced a comparatively smaller increase with just 315 more jobs in the education area between the last two censuses.

Not surprisingly the universities also have an impact on typical household makeup with both cities registering high proportions of group households. Dunedin, famous for the centralised nature of its student flatting (that’s renters for those Australian’s reading this) stock* (think Castle and Clyde Street ughhh!), leads the way with 7.5% of all households as group households. By comparison Palmerston North has lower numbers at 6%. The New Zealand figure is just 3.9%. The same comparisons can be made when looking at the influence of the Waikato University on Hamilton, and as the home cities get larger, the impact softens. You can see this in Victoria in Wellington City and Canterbury in Christchurch.

But one thing is sure, all the university cities benefit from the exodus of young adults experienced by other rural towns and cities in New Zealand. * … where flatting “is an experience in itself with students fighting to sign notorious, warm or location based flats” (www.dunedinnz.com). Dibs on the warm flats!

From Otago Daily Times (http://www.odt.co.nz/)

From Dunedin Flat Names Project (http://dunedinflatnames.co.nz/?attachment_id=1166). The tagline of the site says, “Creating a sense of identity”