Wellington is like a smaller (and much more windy) San Francisco. Having just finished driving 12,000km tip-to-tip, that might be the one spot that's dense enough to amount to something.

I can't emphasize enough how rural the rest of this country is.

New Zealand is a victim of its success in tourism. Everything is geared towards that. Imagine living somewhere like Denver, CO but with SF prices and depressed software salaries. It's a wonderful place but even with all things being equal bureaucracy wise (and they aren't), the list of places ahead of Wellington is two miles long.