Attract growth to Smaller Cities and Regional Centres while maintaining quality of life by enhancing local identity, leveraging social infrastructure and improving digital and economic connectivity to Fast-growing Cities and neighbouring regions.
- Low-hanging fruit
- Regionalised Australia
Key messages
Strong and vibrant Smaller Cities and Regional Centres will enable national economic growth objectives by relieving the pressure of population growth on Fast-growing Cities and developing key industries.
Improved infrastructure services and their associated amenity are critical for accelerating regionalisation and driving sustainable development of Smaller Cities and Regional Centres.
Smaller Cities and Regional Centres must be highly accessible to communities within the catchment of the services they host, and better connected to Fast-growing Cities.
Place-based coordination and governance of the planning and delivery of major infrastructure will unlock the compounding multiplier benefits from infrastructure investment for these communities.
Future infrastructure planning and delivery should be supported by an updated evidence base in relation to population flows, particularly those driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.
What are the impacts?
The reform increases the capacity of digital and transport connectivity improving access to education and essential services.
Regional Deals and regional economic development strategies improve governance and support sustainable population and economic growth. Regional partnerships will also improve health and social outcomes by increasing investment and productivity gains to drive employment.
Improvements to social infrastructure builds cohesion in the community, enhances productivity and quality of life.
How easy is it to implement?
The cost of accommodating growth in established Smaller Cities and Regional Centres may be lower than accommodating growth in Fast-growing Cities and the necessary brownfield infrastructure development. Specialisation strategies will reduce the cost of growing regional centres, inviting collaboration between government and industry.
Supporting growth in Smaller Cities and Regional Centres will require greater coordination between jurisdictions. It should leverage existing mature practices, but not add additional complexity.
Improved partnership between all levels of government and industry will increase the capacity to involve the private sector to potentially hypothecate funding for faster rail and improving digital inclusion.
How certain are the outcomes?
There is already a significant population shift to Smaller Cities and Regional Centres. While cross-jurisdictional cooperation is required, government is in control of the reform.
Existing City and Regional Deals support greater collaboration between governments and community stakeholders to give business and community confidence in the improvement of place-based outcomes.
Reforms targeted to improve travel times and connectivity are anticipated to receive broad community acceptance.
| Governance |
Regional Infrastructure plans
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| Economic |
Regional Centre jobs growth
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| Economic |
Regional Centre GDP growth
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Read more about this recommendation in 1.2 Strengthening Smaller Cities and Regional Centres in the 2021 Australian Infrastructure Plan.
Reform implementation pathway
This recommendation comprises of outcomes and activities, which form the reform's implementation pathway.
The implementation pathway is designed to guide change agents on the supporting activities necessary to achieve the overall reform.
For each outcome and activity, we propose change agents to act as:
- Proposed sponsor: facilitate, coordinate and champion the recommendation
- Proposed lead: deliver specific activities or lead related outcomes
- Support: share ownership, contributions or knowledge to enable the reform process.
Identify infrastructure needs by developing a regional strengths and gaps infrastructure prioritisation framework, supported by a classification of the geography of regional Australia.
0-5 years
Build the infrastructure pipeline by identifying and prioritising regional infrastructure gaps, based on existing regional development strategies across government and industry and community consultation.
0-5 years
Inform investment priorities by undertaking regional infrastructure needs assessments on a rolling basis.
5-10 years
Attract and retain residents and businesses by identifying and sequencing appropriate infrastructure requirements according to local community characteristics.
5-10 years
Benchmark performance of Smaller Cities and Regional Centres by defining a consistent set of urban data for provision by state, territory and local governments as a condition for funding projects identified by the needs assessment.
0-5 years
Inform urban policy by publishing the data within the National Cities Performance Framework and Progress in Australia’s Regions dashboard.
0-5 years
Monitor performance through bi-annual reporting on trends.
0-5 years
Support employment and population growth in Smaller Cities and Regional Centres by identifying and delivering enabling infrastructure.
0-5 years
Inform business case development for major projects by analysing data about settlement patterns (including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander settlement patterns), employment availability and variety, business locations and housing and infrastructure access.
0-5 years
Identify transport options by reviewing current and future movement between Smaller Cities and Regional Centres and Fast-growing Cities.
0-5 years
Support efficient planning and delivery by taking a staged approach to connectivity, identifying enabling infrastructure projects and accessibility improvements, basing decisions on current and forecast movement and embedding changes in land use and planning decision-making.
0-5 years
Facilitate more Australians living within three hours of an aviation gateway connected to a Fast-growing City by using movement data to prioritise investment in regional airport infrastructure.
0-5 years
Support pandemic recovery by developing industry strategies for sectors that will deliver employment opportunities and growth.
0-5 years
Support growth and incumbent industries in each region by establishing a framework to sequence infrastructure investment based on industry-specific, place-based infrastructure needs assessments.
5-10 years
Ensure existing and planned digital infrastructure will meet the changing requirements of users in Smaller Cities and Regional Centres by reviewing infrastructure rollout plans.
0-5 years
Address capacity constraints in high-growth Smaller Cities and Regional Centres by targeting investment at established data-intensive industries.
0-5 years
Support greater wholesale and retail competition by facilitating greater sharing of physical infrastructure and infrastructure corridors servicing regional centres.
0-5 years