Palmy is wet compared to areas east of here. Not entirely sure how it compares to places to the south though. I like it here, and they just redid one of the malls (
The Plaza) so the shopping is better but still not fantastic.
We're a little under two hours drive from Wellington, and there's a train that runs daily (at least on weekdays). We're a little over two hours from Napier. We're about 30-45 minutes from the closest beaches.
If you like outdoorsy stuff there's plenty to do, but it's not the most scenic place in NZ. (Don't get me wrong I think it's beautiful). It's also a pretty sporty area and you can find just about
any sport you want to do here.
It's pretty dog friendly. The closest beaches allow dogs year round, there's a lot of off leash dog parks, and most other parks allow dogs on leash. Dogs (and public drinking) are not allowed in the central area of the city.
There is a problem with teenagers/young uni students being obnoxious and bully in the square late at night, but I've never had a problem (other people I know have, but it was like 3am). If you stay out of the square it's not a problem though you will hear boy racers go by occasionally. Most of the bars are oriented to young people, but there are several bars for the older (grown-up) crowd.
There's a decent museum, a thoroughbred track, a trotter track, a greyhound track, a
nice pool complex, a rugby team, a basketball team, and one movie theatre. It's an agricultural university town. The main programmes at Massey University are (in my opinion) Veterinary science, Agricultural science, and sport and exercise.
It's pretty inexpensive comparatively. But there's also not jobs in a lot of fields because it's so small.
I like it here, but it's not for everyone.