Super cities and regional decline

Originally posted by poyndexter ↑

A story in tomorrow's Australan describes a future where 30 million will be living in four super cities ... Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. An email alert gives me the headline and a teaser paragraph.

There are obvious problems, changes and trends associated with this, including:

A significant part of the population growth in super cities will come from regional and rural drift, draining life, vitality, purpose and economic viability from large areas of Australia.

Population drift from regional and rural Australia will likely lead to increasing corporatisation, mechanisation and systemisation of food production, mostly foreign owned.

Population drift will be exacerbated by poor immigration policy decisions but will still occur with effective immigration policies

There will be continual pressure for infrastructure upgrades to facilitate urban sprawl, urban densification, travel efficiencies, services and jobs growth within the super cities, and those infrastructure upgrades will become ever more complicated and costly.

Evolution in how Australia's GDP is earned, with winners and losers in sectors and industries that dominate.

Is this trend a bad, good or indifferent thing? Is this trend what a majority of future Australians might have wanted?

Without recognising this emerging trend it will continue to unfold..

Without "interventions" this trend is probably unstoppable.

I know a few of you will roll your eyes at me from here lol. If the above future is to be avoided and a different future is to be created there will need to be determined, visionary and innovative interventions.

An East Very Fast Train is exactly the enabling infrastructure that will allow diverse, vibrant, liveable urban development throughout SouthEastern Australia. It would be a game changer allowing up to 8 new regional cities just between Sydney and Melbourne and woud take the pressure off the super cities. The project can be self funded through land development and livelihood value capture and offers 100's of billions in government savings in reduced infrastructure upgrades in the super cities.

Cheers
Dex

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I lived in a regional area for 10 years, and this area (like many others) did not have a train line anywhere near it.

Although I agree with you, Dex, they have to make these satellite cities hubs themselves, supporting full districts, and towns surrounding.

My idea is to move public service departments to outlying areas, instead of concentrating them in major cities. this may even be a better spend than upgrading country rail.

The area we were in, lacked industry and jobs, and had a high youth unemployment. It did have an aging population, which made it almost impossible to book a GP, as many older people had a permanent fortnightly booking with their GP.......the emergency ward (yes, it had a hospital) were full of kids with colds. Rudd's medical supercentres would have been a better spend than the other stuff he got us into debt for.

A mate of mine is a high level exec' in Bunnings, and the studies they do before placing a store is something the government should follow. They employ heaps of people in areas they go to, and the whole area picks up accordingly.