Research on where businesses and households want to be points to growth in suburban and regional centres on the coast, with Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth also gaining ground on Sydney and Melbourne.
Regional NSW, home to a third of the state’s population, is still waiting for the promise of faster train travel to be delivered. Other states improved their regional services years ago.
The pandemic has driven Australian workers and their employers to embrace the option of working remotely. And that has opened people’s eyes to the possibilities of living in regional Australia.
E-changers are the latest group to move from the big cities to escape high living costs and congestion. But because they remain very productive remote workers some employers are embracing the trend.
While governments focus on how to ease congestion and make affordable housing more accessible for workers in our biggest cities, fast rail could be a mixed blessing for regional cities.
Encouraging migrants to move to regional areas could be a win-win’ scenario, as long as policymakers pay attention to five key factors.
In the 70s, Whitlam tried to build new, big cities. But this was too costly. Now the most viable solution for Australia’s population woes is to make existing cities bigger.
With the emerging emphasis on regional City Deals and Smart Cities funding, perhaps Australia is beginning to find its way to a national cities policy, rather than just a big cities policy.
Innovation is focused on regional centres that have research and development institutions, but more than 150 regional areas have potential to match this innovation, research finds.
Knowing a city’s professional network ratio helps to understand how connected its inhabitants are to other markets, customers and ideas. All support innovation, adaptation and city growth.
Victoria offers lessons in the benefits of integrating metropolitan and regional planning, using regional rail to shrink distance and ease the pressures of growth on our big capital cities.
A comparison of 36 Australian cities finds that, unlike Europe, the data on their creativity and culture are not closely linked to their capacity to generate economic value and social well-being.
Regional cities can be as effective at generating jobs and growth as their big five metro cousins. But they must identify and build on their strengths to be investment-ready.