I was reminded of decentralisation after Fractelle mentioned it recently on another thread.

I have good memories of that time when our NSW government actively promoted the concept. Local councils were also trying to get busnesses to move to their area and country centres benefited.

I am interested to know if posters think the concept will come again and what their thoughts were about the concept.

Could it be partly an answer to the larger cities many current problems?

Remember when we all learnt about decentralisation in Geography at school? It has become a lost cause in recent times.

I am all for it Banjo. It is the only way to share the economic wealth and government services around equitably and halt the massive growth of major urban centres which brings with it all sorts of problems in maintaining and developing infrastructure in line with growth.

Why we can't learn from the lessons of other great conurbations beats me.

"Economic Rationialism" killed Decentralisation.
Gov' decided to run itself in "business" mode, and that was the end of it. Once they could use computerisation to run things, they did, and that brought an end to regional centres, services, and development.
I don't see it returning till we can switch off business-mode and get Gov' back into serving the people, as people, and not some vague "consumer data" they can play with on their shiny new toys. It's like the health and social services, they call us "clients", but we're not, we're not purchasing anything, they are supposed to be our "servants", that's where the name came from, "Public Service".

I remember Goughs plans for a new city between Bathurst and Orange.
It still strikes me as a good idea. Even more so as starting with a fresh site could mean a proper sustainable community. Renewables and recycling etc built in from the start.

Where would the water come from?

Banjo, in the mid eighties the largest companies, particularly multi-nationals, decided to eliminate hierarchical structures and adopted flatter management. The decision making was then distributed to local levels. The centralized authority, responsibility and, most importantly, accountability became shared with all levels.

To work effectively, all employees needed to fully understand and share the common goals and values of the organization. This was critical because day to day “control” was being divested.

This has worked extraordinarily well in the private sector but is very difficult, but not impossible in the public sector. The common goals and values in the private sector are the political ideology and policies of the public sector. Given the way governments gain control of parliament, consensus is impossible. Most western governments win by a majority of less that 10%. Obama 2.2%, Rudd by 4.7%. This tells us that about 48% of voters are in one camp and 48% in the other, the swinging voters always determine government. Thus, no consensus.

The left of politics likes centralized control (less trust), the right likes less centralization (more trust). We have governments and bureaucracies that love authority and responsibility; sadly they will never accept the all important “accountability”. These are possibly the key reasons why it seems so hard to decentralize. Additionally in Australia we have three levels of government. Labor State governments traditionally weaken or eliminate local government because it is a threat to centralized control. Liberal State governments tend to be much more supportive of stronger local government as this can enable decentralization.

There also needs to be some thought given to the types of “collective goods and services” we purchase, through our taxes, from all levels of government. Sorry Maximillion, but you are a client and you are purchasing.

CJ Morgan has a point when the issue of as water is raised. Perhaps some essential services need to be centrally controlled and managed with the distribution/delivery divested to local levels. Outsourcing and privatization don’t fit this model and have as many problems as the centralized models.

Good thread Banjo, will follow with interest.