‘A diverse range of shopping, leisure and dining experiences’ – the 5th most important liveability attribute

This series takes a look at the attributes that Australians believe make somewhere a good place to live, where our values and local area experiences differ, rationalisations and implications. This final article of the series discusses ‘a diverse range of shopping, leisure and dining experiences’.

This article was written to support the launch of our latest offer, Living in Place. Data informing this article was drawn from the Ipsos Life in Australia Survey. Living in Place is delivered in partnership with Ipsos.

How important are ‘a diverse range of shopping, leisure and dining experiences’?

‘A diverse range of shopping, leisure and dining experiences’ is the 5th most important attribute that Australians believe contributes to making somewhere a good place to live, with 33% nominating it among their top five liveability attributes behind ‘feeling safe’ (72%), ‘affordable decent housing‘ (51%), ‘high quality health services‘ (48%) and ‘access to the natural environment‘ (47%).

Who places a high value on ‘a diverse range of shopping, leisure and dining experiences’ and how do we feel about it in our local areas?

Beyond the headline, the survey results showed that Metropolitan Australians had a larger appetite for ‘a diverse range of shopping, leisure and dining experiences’ than those who make their home in regional areas. And, while local area experiences were more positive across Metropolitan Australia in the macro, the best local area experiences were reported (perhaps unsurprisingly) in inner-city LGAs – where residents rated their local areas an average of 7.5 out of 10. As shown in the chart below (click to view the full screen), despite placing the same value on the provision of ‘a diverse range of shopping, leisure and dining experiences’ when considering what makes somewhere a good place to live, local area experiences were worse across the three other metro spatial typologies, eroding pretty much in lock-step with distance from the CBD.

What does this tell us?

Understanding the relative value your community places on ‘a diverse range of shopping, leisure and dining experiences’ and how they experience this attribute in their local area is important to understand the role, function and future of your place. With forecasts predicting growth in hospitality related occupations, and disruptions to the retail sector changing consumer habits, keeping a pulse on how residents view this topic in their local area serves an important role in planning and advocacy.

Visit our dedicated Living in Place website to learn more about the offer, where you can take a guided video tour of our best-in-class online reporting and exploratory platform, views.id. We’ve also written a blog discussing our deeper thinking the need for the offer, and published a case-study about how Living in Place is helping the City of Ipswich to make more resident centric decisions. Feel free to book a meeting a time convenient to you’re keen to learn more.