Strategies for encouraging employment clusters outside the CBD

Rob Hall

Rob is driven by a desire to help shape communities for a better future. Trained as an economist, he has a unique twenty-year background in economics, demographics, statistics and strategic planning with a focus on understanding how economic forces influences local government areas across Australia. At .id, Rob provides Local Government with high-quality analysis and information tools, including specialised consulting services and tailored information products such as economy.id.

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2 Responses

  1. Colin Mackay says:

    Hi Rob,

    Interesting and thought provoking article. It strikes to the heart of my research interests, in the most general sense. My interest centres on one of Melbourne’s peri-urban Districts. Specifically the Cockatoo Valley, which is a headwater Valley in the Yarra Catchment, but more generally the region known as the Middle Yarra. The Middle Yarra, which includes the Woori Yallock basin has a population of (about) 100,000 people, according to a now fairly dated ‘ABARES’ (REF?) report it is one of the least productive valleys in Australia. It has no ‘anchoring’ enabler.

    While I acknowledge that the area is suited to neither manufacturing nor industrial services I am reasonably sure that population wise it could accommodate both a higher education facility, particularly given the recent post relating to the impact of a higher ed. campus in Dunedin(?) in New Zealand, and the prospect of a medium sized medical (hospital) facility. I think the population catchments are approximately equivalent.

    That said, the demographic profile (id), at least to my eye, seems to indicate an exodus an prime economic actors (25-35). Moreover, given the ‘valley’ is essentially what I believe to be called a ‘dormitory’ suburb when coupled with extensive work travel expenses imposed on a less than affluent district, in a carbon constrained (taxed) world, I am less than convinced that, in the long run, this is neither a sustainable, nor tenable prospect. I am interested in your thoughts?

    Regards

    Colin.

  2. Shane says:

    I am interested in the positive comments that NORWEST business park has been given. I worked at the park for 3 years and although all the stated data may be true I found the site to be extremely difficult to access from a distance from the rest of Sydney point of view as well as from a local access point of view where it quite often took 30 minutes to get to the office from the M7 by car. Public Transport was almost non existent. I have also listened to conversations from local business owners saying the leases where to high compared to surrounding area commercial leases. I would think it would be more beneficial from a social, environmental and financial optimisation point of view to give more considerations to the ease of use of the end user and addressing the access issues.

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