The economic dynamics and population change of Australia’s regional cities

This analysis is based on data from the 2011 and 2016 censuses, and does not take into account the redistributions and changes that may have occurred with COVID-19. This report can be seen as providing a baseline for subsequent analysis of the changes that have occurred and continue to occur, identifying the trends and conditions across regional Australia’s urban centres prior to 2020. Populations in regional urban centres are growing overall—however, this growth is differentiated. Regional urban centre population growth is associated with proximity to major cities, and to coastal locations. Regional urban centre population decline is associated with remoteness and exposure to the resource economy. Capital cities are the main source of migration to regional urban centres, principally coastal and satellite centres with regional-to-regional-centre migration highly self-contained. International migration follows similar distribution. Commuting between regional centres and proximate capital cities increased over 2011–2016, indicating increased peri-metropolitan dependency on metropolitan interactions. Employment growth is associated with population growth, particularly for the larger metropolitan satellite and coastal regional cities—however, this is also associated with lower wage growth due to the employment mix. Health, community service, construction, hospitality and accommodation increased their share of regional employment. Industries associated with agglomeration economies are concentrating in fewer urban centres, while those associated with population services are becoming more dispersed. National economic growth factors appear to expert greater influence on employment growth in regional urban centres, while industry factors exert very limited influence. Regional effects exert greater influence than industry effects, although these are unevenly distributed. In 135 of 198 cases, a regional urban centre exhibits employment growth along with its surrounding functio