You are putting the horse before the cart Steve...

We can't support a population of 100,000... we can barely support what we have now.

Water is like gold or iron ore. It is a resource. But of course it is much more than than because we cannot live without water. Therefore, in a country like Australia it will become increasingly more precious in $$$ as well as political, social and environmental terms.

When the rainfall pattern starts seriously shifting further north as a result of climate change, I believe decentralisation will gradually follow in its wake.

Why? For the obvious reason that we need to drink water but also too because industry needs water. If the cost of water becomes too expensive in our major cities which are already in trouble, industry may decide to relocate: Perhaps overseas or futher north where it is predicted the rainfall will become much higher.

Given the political instability which already exists in our immediate neighbours, and which may intensify with climate change, it is realistic to assume industry may migrate further north in Australia.

If industry chooses to go troppo, then the workers will follow. And I use the term 'troppo' advisably. :)

The decentralisation polices pursued by the Whitlam Government between 1972 and 1975 attempted to redistribute people after an inert era of Liberal Party policy on urban planning. The focus of decentralisation was certainly very political – some of the models were: Albury-Wodonga, Townsville, Campbelltown (Sydney) and who remembers Monarto, in South Australia (perhaps a good idea, but certainly now a phantom white elephant in the desert)?

The legacy of decentralisation is mixed – huge amounts of financial resources have already been given to this idea. Albury-Wodonga had a target population of 300,000 by year 2000 (In 1978 the target was revised to 150,00). When the Albury-Wodonga Development Repeal Bill was debated in the NSW legislative Council in mid-2000, the population of the combined cities was about 72,500 (NSW Hansard, 2000).

A later removal of funding by the Fraser Gov’t in the Albury-Wodonga plan certainly ensured that decentralisation did not work (not that there were any guarantees it would). The dominance of Australian Labor Party policy between 1983-1996 showed some innovation with ‘cost-effective residential land development’ or ‘Green Street’. Much was accomplished under the ‘Building better cities program’ which is now associated with sustainability ideas based on the UN ‘Earth Summit’ in Rio de Janeirio in 1992. There’s certainly a lot of ‘theory’ out there – the simple concept of decentralision is certainly in need of more sophistication. New terms, like ‘Smart Growth’ , ‘ecological sustainability’ etc. spring to mind, however, if half the population won’t even consider the recycling of water it doesn’t matter where they settle – they’ll be pushing the proverbial uphill.

Better than drinking though!

Pragma, that may have been an accidental post, but very interesting all the same.

As usual the Zero population fetishists have cluttered what could have been a sensible thread with water and other considerations that are tossed in without any consideration of character and scale. As I have had to stress time and again on other threads, water is not a limiting factor if every new house has a decent sized water tank and storm runoff is captured for parks and industry.

Now for the topic itself. We are deluding ourselves if we think Ballarat or Lithgow constitutes decentralisation. IT IS NOTHING MORE THAN ANOTHER FORM OF SPRAWL.

Albury-Woodonga failed because it did not have an autonomous state government included. This left that region with a minor inflow of government funds but with the normal leakages intact.

State government outlays are 15% of GDP and if every government dollar was returned to the community that paid the taxes then there would be no contraction in regional economies. But we know that at least 20% of government outlays are on head office and other centralised overheads. And we also know that close to 15% of government employees wages (their superannuation) is taken out before it even gets to the community and is either invested overseas or in the capital cities. And that means that a third of each state government's 15% of GDP is not circulating in the regions.

And that means that the regions have to increase productivity by 5% just to maintain a static local economy while the capitals can still grow with zero productivity gains. And this is what drives the urban sprawl and all the congestion costs and environmental impacts that come from it.

The only way to plug this regional leakage of funds is to form new states with new capitals that become new engines of growth. But if the cities won't let go then they'll get no sympathy when their problems get worse and worse.