I had the opportunity on Friday of attending a workshop held by Infrastructure Australia’s Major Cities Unit, and the National Growth Areas Alliance, that sought to tackle how best to encourage the creation of diverse employment within the outer growth areas of our capital cities. My pre-workshop responses to a questionnaire are attached here. Jason McFarlane Workshop Response
Overall, the workshop drove home a number of key reminders including the following:
- All major cities are experiencing pressure for continued urban growth on the fringes, with quality employment growth still focussed around the CBD’s and major pieces of existing infrastructure
- All tiers of government are more or less conscious of the problems that this ultimately will cause
- Population and employment self sufficiency targets should define not only the number of jobs required, but the types of jobs that should be focussed on (population-driven jobs will largely sort themselves out)
- Solutions require cross-tier government cooperation and most importantly proactive engagement with the private sector
- Success stories almost always contain a single landholder that invests for long-term value generation
- Targeted infrastructure investment must lead demand
- The public sector must be willing to understand market drivers and intervene where market failure creates negative consequences (these areas include workforce skill development, infrastructure investment, desired land-use outcomes, capital availability, governance structure,etc)
