South East Queensland: The 200 kilometre city

Simone - Myth Buster

Simone has a rich background in human geography, demography and urban planning – a background that was useful in her previous roles in the Commonwealth and State Governments, and now as part of the forecast team at .id. From the Queensland coast to the southern suburbs of Perth, Simone produces population and dwelling forecasts that help local governments make informed decisions about future service and planning needs. She is a regular contributor to .id’s blog and has spoken at several conferences on how our cities and regions are changing. She is a big advocate of evidence-based planning and how Census and other data can inform this. Outside of work Simone is a keen traveller and photographer – interests that tie in well with her professional life and help her to understand “place”.

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5 Responses

  1. Interesting blog. Although I live in North Queensland, I travel fairly regularly to the conurbation that is SEQ. Having travelled from Brisbane north by road and south by road and rail I can assure you that the census data quoted above is inaccurate when it comes to the number of people who travel into Brisbane for work. I suspect most people are not bothering to answer the question. Given the sheer number of people who live on the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast you’d have to question the validity of that data.

  2. Matt Lindley says:

    I do see your point however SEQ is not a City. Each LGA is parochially and culturally different. Also, if you look at land use as quantitative measure you may find a lot more land allocated for non urban uses. Yes at 30000 metres it appears to all role into each other, however there are some nice big non urban breaks – That; thanks to some Councils and the SEQ Regional plan should sustain the test of time. The problem is the connectivity of centres and infrastructure keeping up with growth (what happen to the internet keeping us all at home to work). Being a linear urban area you would think the transport network would be better; a train line along the Coastal spine connecting the City and the West would be great however, who pays. In any event I live on the Coast and enjoy the lifestyle and don’t mind jumping in the car to travel between the Coast’s and the City for work – if you have the time you travel outside the peaks. Thanks I enjoy you updates. Matt

    • Simone says:

      Hi Matt,

      Thanks for your comment – I guess it’s the nature of my work that I define areas from a geographic or statistical perspective. Certainly place and identity are closely linked and people are fiercely defensive of these. Though maps have big red lines on them to delineate borders, they of course don’t exist in the real world and places are influenced by external factors and they have ties with one another. The Illawarra region is another which is often thought of as one mass, but the LGAs of Wollongong and Shellharbour are fiercely protective of their individuality.

  3. Bryce says:

    Interesting observations. I think it’s safe to say that the ‘coasts’ are still far enough away from Brisbane that they truly are different places (I’d also say that the GC is more recognizable as a ‘city’ whereas the Shine really is more like an urban region). The relationship between places in SEQ is becoming somewhat like Bay Area in the USA, however, Brisbane is clearly the ‘city’ in SEQ whereas in Bay Area both San Francisco and San Jose have almost identical populations. On another note – SEQ sucks as a name – how about we take a leaf out of California’s book and call the greater region ‘SoQ’ like SoCal? Personally I think Brisbane is a great name though and don’t see why we can’t just keep that as the anchor name for the whole area.

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