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Slicker cities for city slickers

By Ross Elliott - posted Friday, 15 October 1999


In Brisbane, we hear much of the city's coming of age, but I'd like to suggest that the State and Nation are doing more to hold back Brisbane's coming of age than at any time in the last 20 years.

Because of negative political and policy thinking, Brisbane's future (and by extension every other major city’s) as a competitive, world-class city will not materialise unless State and Federal politicians change their attitudes.

If they don't, increasing anti-capital city sentiments will handicap us in the race to retain jobs, investment and a livable environment. Ultimately they may cost Australia its future as a prosperous nation.

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We are now, and have always been, a nation of cities.

And the brand names of our nation have been - and are - our capital cities. People from overseas don't visit Victoria - they go to Melbourne. The Olympic games is not known as the 'NSW Games' but the 'Sydney Olmypics.'

But it has become part of national folklore that many city slickers identify with the 'bush' image of Australia, even though many have rarely experienced anything beyond the boundaries of suburbia.

The post-WWII period of national prosperity strengthened that myth. The phrase: 'Australia rides on the sheep's back' may have suited its times, but could hardly hold true in the modern age where unsaleable wool stockpiles, falling global commodity prices and declining rural sectors are features of the national and world economies.

Australia rides on the back of its city economies and will increasingly find its prosperity tied to the jobs and investment which take place in the cities.

The 'new economy' of an educated, professional workforce choosing to work where they want to live rather than live where they want to work, is shaping how our cities - Brisbane included - respond to opportunities.

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In Brisbane, we already know that the city accounts for almost half the jobs in Queensland. Within just a 3 kilometre radius of the GPO, there are one in ten of all jobs in the state - some 164,000 workers.

The city centre alone generates a massive $9.15 billion per annum of gross economic output - 15% of the state's total and worth more than all the farming, mining and transport industries put together.

Its tax bill of almost $2 billion per annum represents a $62.6 million dollar per square kilometre contribution to government coffers, compared with a $570,000 per square kilometre tax contribution by non-urban Queensland.

Federal and state governments seem increasingly disinterested in the needs of our capital cities and the people who live in them.

They have instead become enthralled by the myths of our political landscape.

Media grabs and political sound grabs that focus on struggling small businesses, or rural and regional Australia, or bank bashing and the like are the fast food of today's politics.

Regional centres with doubtful futures because old industries have closed have been promised huge welfare packages, funded by the sale of assets like Telstra, Qantas or the Commonwealth Bank.

Those assets were built on the back of the growing economies of cities, but their proceeds are being freely distributed to economies with much less viable futures and few politicians have been honest enough to point that out.

There are Ministries devoted to Regional Services (two, counting the titles of John Anderson and Ian MacDonald) , Trade (always to the National Party, assuming that trade can only be farm or quarry exports, not services), to Small Business, Resources, Agriculture, Fishing and Forestries, the Territories, and to again Forestry (which also gets two mentions including the portfolios of Warren Truss and Wilson Tuckey) - not counting the various Parliamentary Secretaries also attached to these portfolios.

But there is not one concerned with coordinating the focus nor the budget for the development of vital infrastructure in our major cities.

Imagine the combined economic contribution made by all Australian capital cities to our economic welfare and contrast that with the minor scale of national political or cultural effort which is focussed on nurturing and growing it.

Is it so important that cities like Brisbane receive a better deal?

After all, if you listen to many politicians, the 'big end of town' can look after itself. In fact, that is precisely what it has had to do, but has this been successful?

In Brisbane we face obvious symptoms of decline: there is rising transport congestion, worsening air quality, issues of urban sprawl, rising urban crime, a drug problem which is increasingly evident and too much empty office space and empty shops.

But the problems of city are harder to identify than that of the rural areas - they are in a sense hidden by the scale of the city while the symptoms of rural decline are obvious and identifiable.

Far easier to promise aid packages for a rural town hit by the loss of a factory than to grapple with the complex urban economy which can shed thousands of jobs without it even being noticed.

Rather than being starved of funds and policy support, our capital cities should instead be the focus for international competitiveness.

World-class cities present us with our best - and only - chance of finding a route to greater global influence and economic prosperity in the 21st century.

So what's needed?

The easiest way to understand the city's economic needs is in simple terms. There are hardware needs and software needs.

In terms of hardware, substantial reinvestment in improving our transport systems has to be a priority.

Not the 'toys for boys' projects like the Light Rail which are foisted on an unwilling commuter class by a zealous governing class, but a serious recapitalisation of the city's bus fleet. Air-conditioned buses and adequate seating are minimum expectations in this sub tropical climate.

And in terms of heavy rail, proposals to extend the urban network with links to Redcliffe, new underground stations within the CBD, and a line connecting the city centre to Toowoomba all deserve far more serious consideration than the resurrected "inland rail" proposal now doing the rounds.

And let's not forget the importance of integrating schedules and ticketing, which bureaucrats have failed to deliver despite a decade of promises.

You still can't catch a bus and transfer to a train using the same ticket, knowing that schedules will be designed to improve your trip.

Transport connects cities and connects people with their workplaces - the 19th century infrastructure we're saddled with is simply incapable of delivering the speed, convenience and amenity demanded by today's commuters.

Information systems are another priority - ensuring that our cities have world class digital networks, and the talent to support them, must remain an ongoing priority.

Brisbane has a particular opportunity to offer world-class standards of urban amenity to corporations and their people, but only if we have world-class standard technology infrastructure which allows them to connect their businesses with the rest of the world.

The talent will come from a technologically savvy workforce, which is where the importance of our universities and education systems comes into its own.

In terms of software, the first priority has to be a Federal, State and Local Government compact which recognises the economic importance of our major cities and which undertakes to support them through an integrated program of re-investment.

Policy approaches from all levels of government must be better coordinated. Look no further than what can only be called a looming disaster in terms of the light rail proposal, where each level of Government has a stake, but where lack of intergovernmental cooperation and inadequate public sector funding of the proposal means it may be unlikely to ever eventuate.

Sadly, one of the first acts of the current Government was to disband the Better Cities program.

Better Cities had some fundamental weaknesses, but isn't it time the Commonwealth offered the community an improved approach, rather than ignoring the challenge altogether?

And finally, supporting the cultural values of the city through better funded and coordinated city marketing must take place.

The Property Council has embarked on an ongoing advocacy effort, which is unashamedly pro-city.

We have released a series of reports outlining various aspects of Brisbane's city centre, which usually receive scant political attention.

We have asked the Government Statistician to prepare a research proposal which industry will fund, to deliver much needed basic data on the employment and travel dynamics of the city centre economy.

We have jointly funded a very exciting national research project with the Council of Capital City Lord Mayors, to highlight to the federal Government particularly the importance of balancing programs for rural welfare with programs designed to support the future economic viability of our cities.

Our objectives in doing so are to draw attention to the importance of the city and the role it will play in all our lives in the 21st century.

It's an opportunity which cannot be passed over.

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About the Author

Ross Elliott is an industry consultant and business advisor, currently working with property economists Macroplan and engineers Calibre, among others.

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