Regional Cities and City Regions in Rural Australia

Abstract

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Northern cities and urban–rural migration of university‐qualified labour in Australia and Sweden: Spillovers, sponges, or disconnected city–hinterland geographies?

“…These settlements often operate as isolated population enclaves and are only poorly connected to larger, integrated functional regions, creating a sense of disconnectedness when it comes to intra-regional interactions such as migration and mobility exchanges, economic and demand linkages, transport connections, and social or cultural ties (Carson, 2011;Carson & Carson, 2014). Urban-rural exchanges of people and resources are often considerably weaker than in other rural contexts, particularly in areas where interdependent networks of productive settlements and service towns have evolved around shared socio-economic histories, as observed in many farming-dominated peripheries, albeit in south-eastern Australia (Smailes et al, 2019).…”

“…Proponents of conventional growth centre theories argue that increasing urban agglomeration will ultimately create positive 'spillover' effects for hinterland areas (Westin, 2015). In a migration context, such effects mean that rural areas well connected to urban centres may experience an inflow of people through sub-urban sprawl or counter-urban migration, mostly within commuting distance from cities and in well-connected high-amenity areas (Argent et al, 2014;Partridge et al, 2007;Smailes et al, 2019). In contrast, there have been debates about cities becoming 'sponges' that 'soak up' surrounding rural populations, particularly young and educated people who are drawn to urban areas in search for better employment, services, education, and investment opportunities (Argent et al, 2008).…”

Adaptive capacities and social resilience on Kangaroo Island: Beyond the staples trap

“…With the terms of agricultural trade persistently negative over the same period, farmers have been forced to strive to achieve greater economies of scale, usually via farm amalgamations and the substitution of capital for labour (that is, mechanisation). This shift, of course, has resulted in fewer, larger, and more indebted farms and in shrinking rural hinterland populations, all with negative consequences for the towns that had serviced the needs of these people (Barr, 2009;Smailes et al, 2018). The settlement network of rural Australia, which had assumed symbiotic relationships between the farming sector and the system of servicing country towns, thus came under enormous stress from the early 1970s (Lawrence, 1987;Smailes, 1979).…”

“…A number of related applied and conceptual research currents have since been spawned, including those documenting rural rebound, revitalisation, and resilience (Connell & Dufty-Jones, 2014;Gibson & Connell, 2012;McManus et al, 2012); this last mentioned body of work concerned with better comprehending the factors that lead some rural communities not only to survive but to thrive, even as levels of state support for primary industry continue to decline or are removed completely. In the Australian context, some larger regional centres and well-located smaller centres have exhibited faster than national average population growth rates for some time (McGuirk & Argent, 2011;Smailes et al, 2018). On the other hand, however, many inland rural regions seem caught in a long-running downward spiral of economic and demographic decline.…”

Dissecting the drivers of rural demographic decline: the case of the New England & North West region of New South Wales

“…Such accounts give primacy to economic forces in explaining the push factors for demographic change, i.e., for people to leave rural employment and hence rural areas altogether. Levels of urbanisation across the globe increased throughout the post-WWII era, although they were already high in so-called metrocentric settler societies such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada by the 1950s (Smailes et al 2019;.…”