Pearls and Irritations

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese is right. In his latest vision speech he pointed to the benefits of decentralisation. It’s time we stopped cramming more and more people into already overcrowded cities.

It’s predicted that pretty soon 90 percent of all Australians will live in our sprawling capitals. But does that really make sense?

The current health crisis has seen people forced to work from home. We’ve discovered that with modern technology we don’t all need to gather in CBD offices. It’s likely home working will continue when we emerge from the threat of the coronavirus.

Urban economists argue big cities are more efficient. However, it might be timely to undertake a broader analysis of the real costs of building homes and providing the associated infrastructure and utilities in outer areas of our capital cities compared with encouraging people to move to smaller centres.

In any case, is it all about economics? What about quality of life? What about the cost of health services for an increasingly anxious populous struggling to deal with the stresses and strains of modern city living? What about the increasing pollution that is inevitable as more cars, buses and trucks hit capital city roads?

Four decades ago the Whitlam Government envisaged a more decentralised nation, and hence the Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation was formed. There are many reasons why the Albury-Wodonga decentralisation experiment failed to spur a significant population shift. For one thing, subsequent governments didn’t share the Whitlam vision and follow through with the policies required to encourage more such initiatives.

However, arguably the biggest stumbling block was the lack of communications services. It’s a long way from Albury-Wodonga to Melbourne and even further to Sydney. In an era when meetings were habitually held face to face, and before we even had fax machines, this was an insurmountable hurdle.

The question we need to consider now is has the Internet provided the solution – the ability for people to work collaboratively without necessarily having to be in the same room, or even the same city? We’ve already seen the creation of numerous Internet-based jobs that can be carried out remotely. This is a trend only likely to continue.

One of our largest telcos has several high rise buildings in both Sydney and Melbourne, each filled with thousands of employees who only leave their office to buy lunch. Yet they all struggle with congested transport systems which means hours spent getting to and from a workplace that could, in most cases, be located pretty much anywhere. On the other hand, there are country towns dying economically because outdated local industries have closed down.

America provides a case study worth considering. Of more than 300 cities, only a handful are even close to the size of Sydney or Melbourne. US businesses are spread across hundreds of regional towns and cities. Likewise the UK, where only two out of 200+ are as populated as Melbourne or Sydney.

One or two major employers can provide the demand for a skilled workforce and the service industries that make a regional city viable. However, we will only see this happen if we have a national decentralisation plan – preferably with bipartisan political support and the support of the states and territories.

The digitally-enabled world we are entering will be full of avenues to rethink how we build a better Australia. As we envisage our future we need, more than ever, governments that listen to the people. More community engagement in decision-making processes might help us strike the right balance between forcing people to move and an orderly and welcomed creation of opportunities to voluntarily decentralise.

Maybe the sea-changers and tree-changers were just the advance guard? Economic incentives, subsidised relocation expenses and the like will no doubt be required. So long as this happens in collaboration with appropriate stakeholders, including community groups, trade unions and so forth, then surely it is not beyond us? It requires the ultimate ‘unity ticket’ – every level of government and both sides of politics agreeing on a bipartisan future strategy.

The Greater Sydney Commission has proposed we morph the city into a “tripartite metropolis” – with distinctly separate eastern, central and western zones. The core idea is that people are able to commute between home, work and other key locations within 30 minutes. Critics of the plan point to the need to create a massive number of extremely high-rise apartment buildings, which may or may not be how people wish to live. The Commission says it will take 40 years to complete the transition. We could do a lot of other imaginative things over four decades if we developed an innovation-led decentralisation plan.

The Internet has already dramatically changed the way most people work and live. But we’ve only just begun to realise the potential. Of course, we’ll need a 21st Century National Broadband Network to fully realise the opportunities.

Share and Enjoy !

SHARE TWEET SHARE COPY EMAIL PRINT