Made in Australia could be set for a comeback, if federal government promises materialise. But these localisation plans must work for the regional communities hosting new projects.
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.
The ‘exodus’ from capital cities amounts to 0.06% of their populations – similar to recent years – and people are still moving to the cities. What’s missing is growth driven by international migrants.
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.
Australia lacks a coherent national approach to planning where settlement and growth happens. It’s time to take stock of our cities and regions and work together to improve outcomes across the nation.
Education fuelled extraordinary growth in Western Sydney’s professional services workforce, but their jobs aren’t local. More than 300,000 commute to work outside the region.
Conflicts between seasonal property owners and year-round rural residents are highlighting the fault-lines between the “right to be rural” and “disaster gentrification.”
Other countries are planning new cities using technological innovation to achieve more sustainable development. Such plans aren’t new for Australia, but existing city growth is the focus of attention.
Encouraging migrants to move to regional areas could be a win-win’ scenario, as long as policymakers pay attention to five key factors.
The foundational economy has largely been overlooked in public policy but it could provide shelter from the Brexit storm for the UK’s deprived regions.
Efforts by governments to redirect population growth to regional Australia have never worked. Even if such policies could be made to work, they probably wouldn’t be worth the costs.