The rise of regional cities

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ABC ORG Listen, Podcasts, Radio, News, Music and more. Do you or have you lived in regional Australia GPE? Perhaps you're wanting to. Perhaps you're dreaming of a tree change or a sea change. Of course, there are smaller towns which have a lot of appeal, really. There are larger regional cities too, like Newcastle, Wollongong, Geelong, Cairns and Townsville GPE.And these cities are, according to consultancy, KPMG ORG, playing a big, big role when it comes to economic growth in this country with their innovation, diversification of industry, and certainly appeal for families and others wanting to leave the big cities to have a bit of space, to have a bit of security as well. And with that comes challenges. I mean, these are the things you probably don't think about before you move to some of these places, if you're a city dweller, perhaps the dislocation from your social circle. And also there'sthis certainly an attitude about perhaps outsiders coming in and changing the place. Perhaps the idea for many locals is to retain the local charm, the charm that you moved to this town for in the first place. So I want to ask you what makes your regional city proud and what is also sorely missing? I mean, it could be infrastructure that you're either proud about or perhaps you think it's missing. It could be something cultural. Perhaps you're pretty proud of the local community theatre group.Amenities, transport, health services. If your regional city is attracting more people, how do you think it's handling that growth and the challenges that come with it? Text me now. Join the conversation. 0-418-226-576 is the text line.Susie in Newcastle says Newcastle and Lake Macquarie in New South Wales GPE is a wonderful place to live in so many ways. But a regional area of this size would be even better with its own symphony orchestra, says Susie. This text answers the question about what's missing. One, doctors, two doctors and three doctors. We hear that all the time. And a few other comments. I'd like to see no Airbnb ORG and houses that people can rent and live in. And lots and lots more. We'll come to some more of your comments in a second. 0418-2-6-5576. Terry Ronsley is KPMG ORG's nationallead for urban economics. Terry, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane GPE are traditionally seen as the main drivers of economic growth. We know that migrants tend to head to these city centres first if they're looking for a new life in Australia GPE. But when you looked at regional cities in this latest study, which is called enterprising cities, you found some surprising traits about these regional cities that perhaps we've been slow to appreciate, economically speaking.What are they?

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Yeah, so we just looked at 12 cities across Australia GPE, and most of them were these sort of regional hubs like Newcastle, Townsville, Cairns, Geelong GPE. And what we've sort of seen is there's been a real transformation of the economies of these cities over the past sort of four or five years. The COVID period sort of brought in people fleeing the lockdowns in major cities, remote working made living in these cities and coming back into work occasionallyinto the big spokes more viable. Housing affordability played a role. So we saw a real shoot in the arm for the economies there. And like, for example, somewhere like Newcastle, as COVID EVENT came on, unemployment rate was around, you know, six and a half percent. You know, now it's about 3 percent. Townsville went from 8.4 percent unemployment rate to 3.4. So the economies are very

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vibrant in these locations. Your study also looked at Perth, Adelaide, Darwin and Canberra GPE. Would Darwin and Canberra GPE be considered like regional cities, given their size and sort of makeup

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and capital status? Yeah, the capital statuses kind of makes them a little bit unique. But when you think about someone like Darwin, it's 150,000 people, you know, a long way from the next sort of large regional centre. Canberra GPE, while the nation's capital, it does have a lot of characteristics of a regional centre. Smaller, got that hinterland, which had services with a diverse range of industry. So each of the 12 cities we looked at all kind of have their own unique storyand sort of the economy and livability were two themes that kept coming up over and over.

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Can you give me some specific examples about how these regional cities are contributing to the economy and how much they're adding because perhaps Newcastle or Geelong might explain the contribution to the national bottom line?

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Yeah, so when we look at these sort of 12 cities, they kind of make up, you know, almost 40% of the population, about 40% of all the jobs across the country. And they've kind of had faster growth rates. When you look at overall employment growth, it's outperforming the rest of Australia by a couple of percentage points. The Labor Force ORG participation rate, which is people in employment looking for jobs, is higher than the rest of the country. The unemployment rate's pretty much on par with the rest of them. So it's, when you put these cities together, that's sortof about 40% of the Australian NORP economy and I've been growing quickly over the last three or four

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years. And in looking at some of these cities, what level of local council or state level or territory level government policy was supporting this growth? Because we hear a lot about the federal government, but certainly it's the role of local governments to try and advertise their wares, whether it be investments or opportunities, and also state governments to provide that funding. So, yeah, I'm just curious about what levers might affect some of

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this productivity. Yeah, so Australia GPE doesn't have sort of what you'd call a national settlement pattern, unlike some other countries around the world, is very much a bit of a competition between all of these cities, trying to pull skilled labor, investment, you know, business activity into them. And that often comes down to those local business communities, a Chamber of Commerce ORG, the local governments, you know, state governments have a role as well. But it's very a complex ecosystem of people trying to get the region pointing in the right direction.And I think one of the factors of some of these areas and sort of using Geelong GPE as an example, you know, Geelong has been able to sort of articulate to the state government and the federal government. Look, we're trying to grow our economy. Here are our five or six key priorities. Can you help us fund these or help us unlock these opportunities? And the more cities can come together, both the local government, the business community and the broader community and say, these are the things that we're really quite good at. And these are sort of the missing piece of the puzzle we need outside investment to help us catalyze what we're doing here.

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There's two parts of this because it's about investment money as well as the flow of labor. And when you create the opportunity, you need the staff to be able to staff it. You must have heard a little bit about labour shortages, because particularly when it comes to attracting young families, this idea that you can bring skills with you that promote the next kind of small business opportunities is a bit of a key thing.

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Yeah, what we've seen over that period since the onset of COVID EVENT, we saw exactly that. We saw younger families move into these areas, you know, being attracted by more affordable house prices, you know, a higher level of local amenity. And with those families, they bring spending, you know, they're buying stuff for the kids.They're out and about, you know, spending at the local bars and restaurants. So that's been a real sort of shot in the arm for the economy. But once again, that increased demand has meant there are skill shortages appearing and people have kind of described this sort of recruitment fatigue that they need a boiler maker or a retail assistant or a doctor. And there's ads out there for months on end without having a successful candidate.And one of the factors is that lack of housing, which is currently available for someone to come and go, oh, I'd like to move to a city. There's plenty of jobs on Sikh ORG, but I jump on domain and there's not much either rental or

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houses for sale for me to move my family into. So there's a labor shortfall. There's a housing shortfall. According to a couple of people texting, healthcare is lacking. I mean, this idea that, and Anna from New South Wales GPE says regional areas lack doctors, but to add to these nurses and teachers too.What about the healthcare sector specifically? Because I think this is a big disincentive, particularly for older people moving out of big cities.

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They want to be close to good healthcare.

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Yeah, and this is an interesting trend we're seeing

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is that, you know, in a past generation, people would retire from the big city, move down the coast, move to the regional location for all the amenity and lifestyles. But what we're seeing is kind of a trend of people staying put inside of the major citiesbecause they're looking for that healthcare. They don't want to kind of go to a regional area and then have to sort of come back for two hours to see a specialist or go on a waiting list for a particular procedure. So healthcare is a real factor, especially for older people when it comes to location decisions, but also for the more general population. You know, having the confidence you've got a fully staffed hospital down the road. You can see a GP in a reasonable amount of time.These are all sort of things which flow into decision-making. And we can see across not just the regional cities, but the major ones. There's a shortfall in not just doctors, but a whole range of workers in the whole health and age care system.

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It's 27 minutes past four. Terry Raunsley is KPMG ORG's national lead for urban economics. We're talking about the rise of regional cities in Australia GPE. Certainly big opportunities and perhaps underappreciated contribution to national productivity. Tony PERSON on the text line says most of the time we can drive anywhere in the city of Launceston in less than 20 minutes. All right, Tony PERSON, you're just bragging now.

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He also says they've got an excellent but under patronised bus system in Launceston GPE. This one, we lived in both Cairns and Townsville GPE. We were shocked at how poor the public transport system is. So a bit of column A, bit of column B there. Lots of people commenting on lack of healthcare and doctors in regional areas. If you can't be healthy, then, well, you know, how do you live?How do you ensure your welfare in some of these regional cities? I want to ask you, Terry PERSON, I mean, each town and regional city has its own charm, its own character. And when you have this swell in growth and changes in industry, how important is it to retain character?

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How do you do that? And is it being done well by anyone in particular?

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Yeah, I think that that placemaking is really important. And everyone's identified that there's a certain vibe or vibrancy that brings people into the community. And I think part of it is maintaining what you've got, but also, you know, having that sort of urban renewal to improve your local amenities. And, you know, a lot of the cities that we kind of looked at, they're trying to revitalize their CBDs, whether through bringing in more residential, you know, improving transport access, because they can kind of see there's the local charms that people are attracted to,but also people like some of the big city amenities, you know, the arts and culture, the nightlife, you know, food and beverages, which often happens in these CBD locations. They're trying to bring that in so people can go, it's a nice quiet town, but if I like to go and get a good meal on a Wednesday night, I can go and do that.

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Terry Ronsley's KPMG's national lead for urban economics and the author of this Enterprising Cities WORK_OF_ART report. Could it talk to you, Terry PERSON? Thank you.

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