Study shows how Australian regional centres adjust to change

Australia's larger regional cities and towns showed a mixed performance in coping with economic transition and demographic shifts, according to a new study by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI).

The study will be presented at the Regional Science Association Conference in Newcastle this week by researchers Professor Bob Stimson, Dr Scott Baum and Dr Pat Mullins from the University of Queensland and Associate Professor Kevin O'Connor from Monash University.

It identifies 61 regional cities that are "communities of opportunity" and another 61 which are "communities of vulnerability".

"There are four distinct clusters of regional cities within the opportunity category based on their engagement in the global economy since the mid-1980s. They have had growth in new industry sectors and an increase in the incidence of higher income households," Dr Baum said.

These included tourism-based localities such as Cairns in Far North Queensland, Broome in Western Australia, and snowfields towns in Victoria and New South Wales, he said.

"A mining-based opportunity cluster includes Kalgoorlie in Western Australia and Mt Isa in Queensland. While some of these places have declining populations, their residents are well-off in terms of income," he said.

A sizeable group of 36 cities across Australia's inland farming areas form an opportunity cluster based on services supporting farming and pastoral hinterlands and included Bathurst and Goulburn in New South Wales, Ararat in Victoria, Mt Gambier in South Australia, the West Tamar in Tasmania and Toowoomba in Queensland.

"In many cases, these places are important for providing education and health services as well as regional service functions. Additionally, some are regional centres for government services," Dr Baum said.

"There is also a cluster of 17 inland and coastal cities forming an extractive/transformative-based opportunity cluster. These are doing well as a result of the processing of agricultural, fishing and mineral products and include Leeton in New South Wales, Mitchell in Victoria, Busselton in Western Australia and Gladstone in Queensland."

But the AHURI study also showed three distinct groups of cities and towns in the vulnerable category. "These include places that once prospered under protected manufacturing systems or were electricity-generating towns such as Bairnsdale, Moe and Morwell in Victoria's Latrobe Valley, and the Iron Triangle cities of Port Augusta, Port Pirie and Whyalla plus Port Lincoln in South Australia," Dr Baum said.

There were also 13 coastal cities that formed a vulnerability cluster based on welfare and retirement migration, Professor Stimson said.
"These coastal cities in New South Wales and Queensland represent urban growth that may not be sustainable in the longer term as they have high levels of unemployment, an ageing population, low household incomes, high proportions of single parent families, and a lot of people living in housing financial stress," he said.

These include Hervey Bay, Yeppoon, Ballina, Bellingen, Byron Bay, Coffs Harbour, Forster-Tuncurry, Port Macquarie, Kempsey, Lismore, Maclean, Nambucca, and Batemans Bay.

"These places are not engaging in the economic activities that are wealth-creating, they are not linked to the global economy, and they are attracting large numbers of people who depend on welfare and are high consumers of government services," Professor Stimson said.

He said the study highlighted that opportunity was not always related to population growth, and was not confined to sun-belt growth regions. In fact vulnerability was spread across both coastal growth cities and towns and many of the inland agricultural services centre, he said.

"However, contrary to popular opinion it is not all bad news for Australia's regional cities and towns as many are transforming well to the new economy through diversification of their service functions," he said.

For more information, contact Professor Bob Stimson (mobile 0411 020 627) or Dr Scott Baum (mobile 041 262 5298).