The population change, migration patterns and economic dynamics of Australia’s regional urban centres

Abstract

The contribution of regional urban centres to Australia’s economic and population growth has been a topic of growing policy interest in the past two decades, as a result of rapid growth in the major cities and concerns for parts of regional Australia that have experienced population decline. Associated with these trends is the distribution of economic activity and employment—particularly as traditional regional strengths such as agriculture, manufacturing and mining have declined as sources of employment in recent decades. Over the same period, metropolitan areas have prospered because of concentrations of high-skill, high-wage knowledge work, indicating diverging regional fortunes as a result of wider economic trends. The purpose of this research is to investigate patterns and dynamics of population, migration and economic change in Australian regional urban centres 2011–2016. The research is principally an empirically focused investigation identifying patterns and dynamic processes of regional change using advanced spatial analytical techniques