Something is stirring in the Edinburgh of the South and Dunedin is on the comeback trail.

Dunedin was New Zealand's first city, but has since been overtaken in size by six other cities. But something is stirring in the Edinburgh of the South, and Dunedin is on the comeback trail.

For a city without a slogan Dunedin has picked up a few unofficial ones in recent years.

There is GigCity, the name bestowed on Dunedin after residents won a national competition for the fastest broadband services in the Southern Hemisphere.

Dunedin City Council Dunedin looking towards the Otago Peninsula

Then for the more culturally minded Dunedin became an official UNESCO City of Literature, joining the likes of Edinburgh, Melbourne and Dublin.

And for those who love sporting fairytales, the city is also home to the Super Rugby champions; The Highlanders.

READ MORE:

*Emerson's open new $25 million brewery

*Captain Cook Hotel returns

*Syrians arrive in Dunedin

* Hundreds of job applicants for new Dunedin hotel

*Dunedin gets urban winery

*Office work without the office

123rf Tourists are flocking to Dunedin, with attractions including the Dunedin Railway Station, reportedly New Zealand's most photographed building.

So just what is happening in the Edinburgh of the South?

Just a stone's throw from Robbie Burns' statue in the Octagon works Nicol Kennedy.

Following a downturn in Perth she moved back to her hometown with partner Ben Whareaitu to open Laneway Cafe and Bar in April.

Dunedin City Council Dunedin full of people at an annual market day.

Before crossing the ditch the couple looked at other places to live, but decided Dunedin was the best lifestyle option.

"You can buy a business and a house for the price you would pay for just a house in another city."

And the couple aren't alone in eyeing up a booming hospitality sector.

HAMISH MCNEILLY Dunedin's warehouse precinct. Some buildings haven't had tenants since the 1980s, but are being converted into upmarket apartments, tech space for start-up firms and boutique retail.

Since the May reopening of iconic student pub, the Captain Cook Hotel, seven new dining places have opened in the city - with more coming.

That confidence can be seen in the opening of the $25 million Emerson's brewery - including a bar, restaurant - built on a former yard covered in wrecks.

The Lion-owned brewery was producing 1 million litres a year from its old site, but that was forecast to increase to 8 million.

HAMISH McNEILLY/STUFF Interesting Wi-Fi hotspots pop-up around Dunedin's student quarter.

The brick building was just a few hundred metres from Forsyth Barr Stadium, dubbed the glasshouse by some, a white elephant by others.

THAT STADIUM

Yet for the man charged with running the stadium, Terry Davies of Dunedin Venues Management Limited the decision to go ahead with the project "showed great vision and guts along with an element of risk".

DIANNE MANSON/GETTY IMAGES Lima Sopoaga of the Highlanders poses with the trophy during a street parade to celebrate the Highlanders Super Rugby Grand Final victory, on July 6, 2015.

"The city has seen the benefits of its brave move."

Davies said the stadium had hosted events that simply would not have come to the city otherwise.

Since it opened almost five years ago on August 5, 2011, 1.3 million people had experienced an event under the roof at the stadium.

SUPPLIED Terry Davies, of Dunedin Venues Management, is keen to ensure Dunedin's Forsyth Barr Stadium remains strong competition for bigger venues in other cities.

That includes concerts such as Elton John, Aerosmith and Fleetwood Mac, international sporting fixtures for rugby, football and league, a rodeo, Nitro Circus and community events.

"Forsyth Barr Stadium would be the number one South Island stadium without a doubt," Davies said.

"We know it is the most popular venue for the region's and country's top rugby teams and from a concert perspective the stadium and the city are now firmly on the radar of all international promoters."

Dunedin City Council Dunedin's Octagon, home to a booming hospitality sector.

The Fleetwood Mac concert - which sold the majority of tickets in just 40 minutes - pumped an estimated $8.9m into the economy.

The stadium's impact is not just a city story but a regional one, he said.

The last four concerts held at the stadium saw 40 per cent of the out-of-town visitors coming from Canterbury alone.

Hamish McNeilly Street art has helped give an international feel to warehousing areas around Dunedin.

THE MAYOR

Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull pauses when asked about the stadium. He wasn't a supporter of the financial modelling for the stadium which was "a crock"

"Basically the community was told the council-owned companies would pay a dividend and that will provide enough money to get it going."

It was later revealed the council-owned companies were borrowing to pay the dividend.

The annual cost to ratepayers for the stadium was $11.4m.

Cull said changes had been made and the stadium was now "humming". "If you take out debt servicing it actually does run at a profit."

The venue helped attract not only events to the city but also accommodation providers, with the Distinction Dunedin opening in 2015, while the council remained in talks for another hotel.

And that was timely given the city had one of the highest accommodation occupancy rates in the country, a booming tourism sector and increased flights with Air New Zealand from July 4.

The 121-room Distinction Dunedin hotel was in the former chief post office along with the headquarters of Silver Fern Farms. Work on the 14,400sq m building coincided with the redevelopment of the nearby warehouse precinct, Cull said.

Those former warehouses – many built when Dunedin was the largest city in New Zealand – were now being turned into apartments and office space, and along with the work of international street artists had "revitalised that part of the city".

Cull believed the city boasted some of the best cultural, educational and sporting infrastructure in the country.

He said the city was trying to work more with partners, such as the University of Otago and Ngai Tahu, and "to look more outwards then we used to", citing the city's growing sister-city relationship with Shanghai.

The city wasn't without its challenges, particular the groundwater/sea level rises threatening South Dunedin, as well as the city's demographic.

Dunedin boasted a large number of young people due to its tertiary institutions, but was "a bit thin" on families and those of working age, Cull said. "We need to attract that age group, and attract them into areas that will learn us a living."

Last year the city made a pitch at Aucklanders to move south and "there is definitely an influx".

"The kind of people we want to attract could work in cities all over the world, they expect certain cultural infrastructure, they expect cycleways and recreational opportunities for their kids."

And Cull adds another unofficial slogan that Dunedin was striving to be "one of the world's great small cities".

"Something is awakening in Dunedin too, that's part of the reason why we are taking off."

GETTING SMARTER

Enter Dean Hall.

He is the founder of gaming company Rocketwerkz and creator of DayZ who set up a gaming studio in Dunedin.

Hall chose the city over Los Angeles and Auckland due to a range of factors, including the proximity to graduates from the University of Otago and Otago Polytechnic, and cheaper living for employees.

"I just wanted to make video games, not have to fuss around with traffic or this and that."

Starting the studio in July 2015 it now employed 25 staff all happily hooked up to gigabit fibre after initial teething problems.

"Because of the Gigatown win the price we are paying is a fraction of what we would pay otherwise."

Rocketwerkz was one of a growing number of tech companies in the city, including Mixbit - owned by YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley, Ian Taylor's Animation Research, ADIstruments, and appointment software company, Timely.

John Christie, director of Enterprise Dunedin, said the tech sector - underpinned by the Gigatown win - was fostering start-ups, and combined with the tourism, hospitality, education and research sectors helped boost the city's GDP by 2 per cent over the past year.

But are there jobs?

Christie said some 1800 jobs had been created in the city over the last two years.

Dunedin companies were making the most of links with China, including Silver Fern Farms, Fisher and Paykel, Scott Technology and content production company NHNZ.

TOWN AND GOWN

Last year the University of Otago confirmed it was spending $650m upgrading its campuses.

While the university was the mainstay of the Dunedin economy – in terms of employment and money spent in the city – Dunedin was also vital to the University, Prof Harlene Hayne, the University of Otago Vice Chancellor, said.

"The high calibre of Dunedin's schools, its fantastic museums and recreational facilities, and the natural beauty of the harbour and the hills allows us to recruit and retain internationally competitive staff to Otago."

She said the city was one of New Zealand's best kept secrets. "However, I think there has been a palpable change of public mood here in recent years."

"Make no mistake, the university, and Dunedin along with it, is going ahead.

"With the world in such a state of flux, Dunedin's geographical distance and southern location has become a major advantage."

High-speed internet meant the city was a "safe, viable and sophisticated option for studying, working and research".

"People from around the world and within New Zealand are starting to find our best-kept-secret, and realise the big-city benefits of living here; the many great restaurants, shops, cafes, theatre, parks and recreational facilities – not to mention the natural beauty of this part of the world."

And the much maligned weather?

"We might have cold (but sunny) winters, although when you consider all the advantages, the weather is not an issue."

STAR GAZER

Otago Museum director, Dr Ian Griffin, may just be the city's unofficial ambassador, with the astronomer's images of the Aurora Australis being widely shared via social media.

He was trying to do his bit for a city he moved to three years again, and to counter negative media images of student drinking behaviour.

With a planetarium already completed at the museum, the star gazer was now aiming for Dunedin to become a "night sky city", involving replacing street lights with shielded and efficient lights over the next decade.

"It frustrates me stories of people from Auckland going to Iceland to see the Northern Lights when they could jump on a plane and be in Dunedin and see just as amazing displays."

Dr Griffin said many people thought that culture stopped at Auckland and Wellington, "but there's so much amazing stuff going on down here".

His only downside to moving from Oxford to Dunedin was finding out he could finally secure some season tickets to watch his beloved Arsenal – six months after his move.

HOUSE PRICES

And then there are the house prices.

According to Quotable Value the average value of a Dunedin home in June was $327,664, compared to a national value of $590,909.

That Dunedin value was a 10.7 per cent increase compared with May 2015, and a 14.7 per cent change since 2007.

Edinburgh Realty general manager Mark Miller said he has worked in his current role for five years and "this is the most active the real estate market has been in that time".

Normally the winter months were quiet but now there were buyers queuing up for listings.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

One changing development for the city was the rise in apartments, with developers eyeing up the historic warehousing area.

Dr Glen Hazelton, Dunedin City Council heritage policy planner, said some of the buildings had not had a tenant since the 1980s, and now hosted apartments, tech firms and boutique retail.

In just a few years the area went from 33 apartments to 84.

He said "many people knocked" the regeneration plan, launched at a time when the city was still split over the stadium, growth was stagnant due to the global financial crisis and concerns with heritage buildings following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.

"All those things against it and it still happened, and at a much faster rate than we thought.

"It is something for the city to be really proud of and bucking the trend on what is going elsewhere."

​DUNEDIN - THE FACTS

Dunedin's population is slightly younger than the national average, its workers earn less and it has a higher number of unemployed according to the 2013 Census.

- Population: 120,249, increase of 1566 since 2006

- 43% of Dunedin's population is under the age of 40, compared to 40.3% nationwide

- 16.4% of Dunedin's population is aged between 20 and 30 compared to 12.9% nationwide

- Median income is $23,300, compared with national average of $28,500

- Unemployment rate 7.5%, compared to 7.1% nationally

- Dunedin's economy generated almost $5.7 billion in GDP per annum – half of Otago's GDP

- Education and research the largest sector, followed by engineering, primary processing, primary production, tech sector and creative

- University of Otago student population 20,942, with more than 80% of students from outside of the city.

- A 2015 economic report found the University of Otago contributed $908 million to the Dunedin economy

- Tourism is a growing sector with on average 5500 visitors a day. Dunedin Railway Station is the most photographed building in New Zealand (TripAdvisor)

- Popular tourism attractions include Cadbury World, Speight's, Larnach Castle, New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame, Royal Albatross Colony, Olveston historic home, Taieri Gorge railway and Baldwin St