Is New Zealand Really a Good Place to Live

This active, interesting and thoughful discussion thread was started on Amazon.com's travel forum in July.

Here is the first section of the thread, just to wet your appetite for more:
Link: amazon.com

"With rising fuel prices, food prices, the ever-so-tempting 'Big Brother Country' Australia looming over us (which for the record pays a lot better), and with terrible crime, gang and drug problems that resemble places like, oh I don't know, South L.A., is New Zealand really a great place to live?

I'll tell you what I think. Living in NZ myself and growing up here, I can quite easily say it's an awesome place: Great scenery, lovely warm summers, great sporting pride (Go the All Blacks! (National rugby team - look it up on Wikipedia)), and nothing too dangerous here at all whether it be animals, or natural disastors or even 'smaller' problems like racism. NZ is a great place - no doubt about it, we're a really relaxed bunch of people living in what we all refer to as paradise.

Puting to one side my thoughts on NZ, take into consideration people living in South Auckland (New Zealand's major city). They are prodominantly Maori (Native New Zealand) or Polynesian (People from the Pacific Islands). South Auckland is notorious for youth gangs, P labs, crimes and particularly murders, which for a country of only 4 Million is at a rediculously high rate. Here's why I believe it happens........"