L.A. Now Smaller Than Melb! Should We Grow Our Regional Centres?

An article in the Weekend AFR (pp27 1-2/05/2010), points out that both Melbourne and Sydney are larger than all U.S. cities except New York !!

Thats right even bigger than L.A. at 3.8mil. Yet while the U.S. has 150 cities between 100k and 400k population, we have just 10.

Given housing shortages and house price inflation, do you think we should be enchouraging more population growth in our non capital cities?

In case you are wondering, U.S. population is now 304mil vs Australia 21mil.
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds...PULATION#met=sp_pop_totl&idim=country:AUS:USA

U.S. cities population.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population
 
looking at the maths...

304 mil / 21 mil = 14.5

10 cities in that range * 14.5 = 145 - so in reality we have the same ratio of cities in that population to the US :)

I dont think we should grow meaningless regionals, but i do think there will be a natural shift, due to supply and price presures in metro's (for houses), to regionals over the medium term.
 
To quote from this old thread.....

The Senate Select Committee on Housing Affordability released its report A good house is hard to find: Housing affordability in Australia in June 2008.

One of the main recommendations was to decentralise and create or invest in regional towns. From Chapter 11

The committee recommends that the forward plans of the Australian, state and territory governments incorporate policies for mid-size regional cities to ensure they are better able to form sustainable communities, to cope with the transport impacts of peak oil and climate change, and to invest in infrastructure.

.... haven't heard much more about that recommendation since then :rolleyes:.
 
Belu, it's interesting to note that by the same math Australia's population is just 2.5 times larger than its two largest cities combined. Whereas the U.S. population is 25.5 times its two largest...

Aust (21M) / Syd+Melb (8.5M) = 2.5

U.S. (309M) / NY+LA (12.1M) = 25.5
 
Is Los Angeles County the same as say Victoria or NSW?? I am probably wrong but I thought that Los Angeles county was the same as metro Melbourne
 
.toe that isnt the same math.

mine says we have the same ratio of medium regionals to population then they do.

yours assumes there should be a correlation between size of largest two (why two largest?) cities and total pop.

not trying to hold up the analysis here. I do think we should be developing our regionals more, but we need to be careful they are sustainable. we dont want the unemployment issues of the US because we are expanding where there isnt industry/jobs for it.
 
.toe that isnt the same math.

mine says we have the same ratio of medium regionals to population then they do.

yours assumes there should be a correlation between size of largest two (why two largest?) cities and total pop.

not trying to hold up the analysis here. I do think we should be developing our regionals more, but we need to be careful they are sustainable. we dont want the unemployment issues of the US because we are expanding where there isnt industry/jobs for it.

Sorry about my lack of clarity. In using 'the same math' I meant that I would attempt to make an observation by also using a ratio (same math) to compare U.S. to Aus.

Your observation showed that U.S vs Aus, total population to SMALL city population ratios are even. Mine showed that total population to LARGE city population ratios are very different. In Aus our populations are far more centred around our large cities.
 
Given housing shortages and house price inflation, do you think we should be enchouraging more population growth in our non capital cities?


No.

If there is to be 14 million more people in Australia in the next 40 years I think we should pack em tight into Sydney and Melbourne, and leave the rest of the country as a nice place to live. Lets go up, not out.


See ya's.
 
Seriously though, if you've flown over Australia and flown over the US you will see a bit of a difference. It's really a silly question. France even grows a lot more wheat than Australia. The only reason Australia has a large food surplus is our low population. The only reason we are the lucky country is because we have a low population. Double or triple our population and we are no longer lucky.

The main industries in rural areas are agriculture and mining and the industries that service agriculture and mining and the related workers who provide the services for all those. These industries all employ bugger all people, and that's why we are globally competitive in those industries.

If your talking about sending millions more people into rural areas you need to have a purpose. Manufacturing stuff would be a good idea, but manufacturing is tough as we all know.

I suppose we could just build cities that produce nothing, and are just massive service centres. But what's the point? We may as well do that in the current cities now. Sounds like you just want to populate the place for the fun of it.

See ya's.
 
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LA much bigger than Melbourne

Los Angeles City only makes up the inner area of the greater Los Angeles area, does not include adjacent county's such as Orange County & numerous others that make up the greater Los Angeles area, Southern California's population alone is in approx 24 million.
Following from Wikipedia;
Its population encompasses a total of five metropolitan areas: Los Angeles, Riverside-San Bernardino, San Diego, Oxnard-Thousand Oaks and the El Centro area. Out of these, three are major metropolitan areas, each of which have over 3 million people; the Los Angeles area with over 12 million inhabitants, the Riverside-San Bernardino area with over 4 million inhabitants, and the San Diego area with over 3 million inhabitants. The region as a whole is home to approximately 24 million people, which is more than half of California's population, and is the nation's most populous region behind the urban seaboard of the Northeastern United States.

So no, Melbourne nowhere close to LA......
 
* Most people want to live within 30min transit to work
* Most jobs are within 10 km of the CBD
* Most People live more than 10km from the CBD
* Public transport and road congestion is becoming increasingly problematic
* Housing prices have increased at twice the rate of wages (esp within 10km of CBD)


http://www.housing.nsw.gov.au/Centre+For+Affordable+Housing/About+Affordable+Housing/

"Individuals working in key services on low-to-moderate incomes such as those working in childcare and aged care, police, ambulance personnel, nurses, community development workers and transport workers, are finding it increasingly difficult to find affordable housing close to their work places."


People need to live where the work is, and thats becoming increasingly difficult in Syd/Melb. Moving particular industries to secondary cities and building their population base could help relieve the stretch marks around big mama and big papa :)

eg. 'TAC move to Geelong good for city and safety'
http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2009/01/05/41635_news.html
 
No.

If there is to be 14 million more people in Australia in the next 40 years I think we should pack em tight into Sydney and Melbourne, and leave the rest of the country as a nice place to live. Lets go up, not out.


See ya's.

:):D:D:p
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Actually, from the bit I have seen, regional Victoria, (and around one third the population of Vic living in regional Vic)...we have the bones there, it's happening. The reg. cities I am familiar with are working their butts off to keep up with infrastructure development, etc...we have the metro (Melbourne), then the satellite-regional cities as I call them, the coastals and the inlanders, all of them beautiful places, well set up and relatively good infrastructure, especially after scooting myself around QLD, that was a shock, seeing how population and development is firing, but infrastructure, ie the roads for example...wow. I think we Vics are spoilt.

There was a fantastic TED talk on building new cities, it was slightly "out there" with ideas, (best Obsession kind:p)...but interesting none the less. I'll try and find it by next xmas.
 
More The Numbers

Australian Population is small and concentrated on the coast as this is very fertile land and hnce unitll the population reaches over 50m the inner areas will always be less polpulas then the coatal ior city areas
 
An article in the Weekend AFR (pp27 1-2/05/2010), points out that both Melbourne and Sydney are larger than all U.S. cities except New York
Thats right even bigger than L.A. at 3.8mil. Yet while the U.S. has 150 cities between 100k and 400k population, we have just 10.
Having lived there (L.A) for almost 2 years, I find this VERY hard to believe. L.A is far more congested as a whole than Melb. The County of L.A alone has 12 mill. I think the State of California has more people than the whole Aus population.

Given housing shortages and house price inflation, do you think we should be enchouraging more population growth in our non capital cities?
Absolutely not.

Again, having lived in the US for nearly 3 years, I can promise you that their lifestyle is no better than ours; in fact, for the majority of people - middle class and below - their lifestly is worse. Their healthcare system is a disgrace; for example, when we moved there, my wife's job paid for HER health insurance, which was 75% cover. The rest was out of her pocket if she needed any medical attention. Now, given that your average appendix operation (not a major op these days) would cost around $10k, this leaves the patient $2,500 out of pocket. Not only this, but the time off from work comes out of your HOLIDAYS; there is no sick leave as such.

My son and I had to supply our own healthcare, at a minimum cost of $500 per month - yes; $500 PER MONTH. We organised our own insurance from Aus before we left to go there - travel insurance at a cost of just under $2k per year. If we got sick, we had to pay our medical bills first, and then apply for re-imbursement. This was the only way we could afford to get adequate insurance.

There are homeless and jobless people wandering the streets in every city and town we visited there, and we visited PLENTY. The main reason; bankruptcy from medical expenses. other reasons; mentally ill patients out on the street becuase the system can't afford to keep them any more..and so on.

In case you are wondering, U.S. population is now 304mil vs Australia 21mil.

So, as an add on from the last sentence of mine; what makes anyone think that a large population is going to improve our Country?
The US economy is a wreck, and the average person is broke, and getting broker.

All we will be doing is adding more noughts to the population, and for what benefit?

If you think increasing our population in Aus is a good thing, you are a bloody idiot.

And finally, cop this; we just got off skype with one of my wife's ex-work colleagues who now lives in Oakland. She is a nurse too. The Hospital where she works is currently NOT hiring any more nursing staff. I'm talking NO-ONE; not even casual "travellers", who are the mainstay of their staff during shortages, and they are even talking about lay-offs..

As well as this; her brother-in-law who is an engineer has just applied for a job (he lives in Chicago) and there were 800 - yes 800 - job applicants.

Now, does having another 250 million odd people sound like this is a good outcome for the greater economy?
 
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