Otago Region

Otago demonstrates how extractive booms can create path dependencies that persist long after the resource depletes. The 1861 gold rush at Gabriel's Gully transformed Dunedin into New Zealand's richest city by the 1880s, generating capital that founded the country's first university in 1869. That university now adds $1.96 billion annually to the national economy and supports 9% of Dunedin's workforce—a knowledge-economy successor built on gold-rush foundations. The pattern resembles ecological succession: mineral extraction created the wealth base for institutional development that now sustains the city independent of its original resource.

Queenstown offers a parallel case with a compressed timeline. Population grew 353% since 1996 (from 14,840 to 52,430 by 2024) as tourism replaced gold as the extractive industry—now pulling wealth from landscapes rather than minerals. International arrivals run at 150-160% of pre-pandemic levels, better than any other New Zealand airport. This success generates its own stresses: infrastructure strains under growth pressure, and the region's economics depend on visitor flows as volatile as any commodity price.

Yet Otago as a whole shows remarkable recession-proofing. March 2025 unemployment stood at 2.7% against 5.1% nationally; the Jobseeker Support rate of 3.4% is half other regions. ANZ identifies the combination of tourism, university, and agricultural exports ($3.14 billion, tripled since 2002) as creating redundancy through diversification. Like ecosystems with multiple energy pathways, Otago's three distinct economic engines—Dunedin's academy, Queenstown's spectacle, and rural commodity production—buffer against shocks to any single sector.