In part one
of the Demography of Employment, we looked at the largely suburban nature of
employment in Australia’s larger capital cities (Brisbane, Sydney and
Melbourne). Typically, the CBDs and the adjoining inner city commercial areas
account for only around 13% to 19% of all jobs across the metropolitan regions.
Plus, this proportion hasn’t changed in the last decade, and in some cases
suburban employment growth has outstripped the inner city. At least four out of
five jobs, if not more, are in suburban locations – a fact that receives little
attention in discussions about urban growth and planning.
This series
tries to bring some more focus to the suburban heartlands of our economy. In
this second part, we look at where these conglomerations of jobs are, and what
this might say about some of the issues canvassed regularly in the media or in
professional forums debating the growth of our cities.
In assembling this information, I am
indebted to the team at Urban Economics – an urban research company based in Brisbane
– who have methodically ploughed through the official statistics to help paint
a picture of our suburban economy. If any of the material that follows leaves
you wanting to know more, I suggest you give them a call on (07) 3839 1400 or email Kerriane at kbonwick@urbaneconomics.com.au
Brisbane.
The combined
CBD and inner city areas of the Brisbane metro region accounts for around
170,000 jobs, or less than one in five of the region’s 925,000 jobs. The rest
of the region’s jobs are dispersed throughout the metropolitan area. Some of
this is a ‘salt and pepper’ scattering of jobs in largely dormitory areas, but
there are also notable concentrations which, although they don’t in their own
right challenge the CBD for its density of employment, constitute in themselves
some very large concentrations of economic activity.
One of the
largest of these is what we might loosely call the ‘Logan and freeway south’
area, which covers a large expanse of commercial activity to the city’s south and
provides a combined 54,806 jobs. Put into perspective, that’s around a third of
the CBD and inner city combined. The number of workers per square kilometre
averages around 550 in this region, but rises to over 1,300 workers per square
kilometre in Underwood.
Also to the
south of the city lies a region we might call the south west and industrial –
comprising areas like Pallara, Willawong, Carole Park, Wacol, Inala, Darra,
Oxley, Jindalee and Seventeen Mile Rocks. This area is home to some 46,000
jobs, at an average of 460 jobs per square kilometre, rising to 1,200 jobs per
square kilometre in Carole Park and with Wacol containing over 9,000 jobs
alone. This area is roughly equivalent to just over a quarter of the employment
in the CBD and inner city.
Other south
side concentrations include the Mt Gravatt region with almost 36,000 jobs at an
average of 809 jobs per square kilometre and rising to over 2,000 jobs per
square kilometre in Upper Mt Gravatt (no doubt a reflection of the intense
retail concentration here).
Plus there
is a broad region around Beaudesert Rd (Yeronga, Moorooka, Rocklea, Acacia
Ridge, Coopers Plains etc) with over 42,000 jobs at an average of just under
700 jobs per square kilometre and with more than 1000 per square kilometre in
Rocklea-Acacia Ridge, and more than 1500 per sq.klm in Coopers Plains.
If you
combined these four south side aggregations, and didn’t include the ‘salt and
pepper’ scattering of jobs located in other areas on the Southside, you have
over 179,000 jobs – which alone is more than the CBD and city fringe.
North of
Brisbane there is a large area around Chermside which provides nearly 35,000
jobs. Chermside itself has over 3,500 jobs per square kilometre (most probably
explained by its retail concentration) and the area itself over 1,400 jobs per
sq.klm.
In addition,
there are the northern arterial areas of Strathpine, Brendale, Albany Creek,
Lawnton and the Hills District, which contain 21,697 jobs, and further north
again are the Moreton Bay areas of Burpengary to Redcliffe which are home to
just over 30,000 jobs.
These three north
side areas combined account for some 86,000 jobs, or the equivalent of half of
the CBD and inner city employment market.
Other
aggregations throughout the metro region include the Redlands area (20,426
jobs) and the Trade Coast south area (38,000 jobs) and Trade Coast north area
(33,346, including the airport). Combined, there are 71,436 jobs in the
Tradecoast area north and south of the river mouth.
Sydney
Sydney’s CBD
is the base for 13.4% of jobs across metro Sydney. If we include Pyrmont,
Ultimo, Potts Point and Woolloomooloo, this rises to just 15.6%.
Beyond the
Sydney CBD and inner city lie some very large concentrations of employment –
Parramatta perhaps being the most notable. The Parramatta Road area is the
daily commute for some 118,182 workers. Not only is this a big number of jobs,
but they are closely packed: overall worker density is 2,656 per sq.klm rising
to over 5,000 per sq.klm in Parramatta-Rosehill itself.
To the south
west of this area lies the western industrial employment region around Wetherill
Park. This is home to a further 40,440 jobs.
And then to the north west of Parramatta lies the Blacktown and Hills
district with a further 61,880 jobs.
Combined,
these three western Sydney employment areas account for some 220,000 jobs. To
help with context, this is roughly the same as the 250,000 jobs found in the
Sydney CBD, Haymarket and Rocks area. And none of these figures include the
‘salt and pepper’ distribution of jobs found in nearby and adjoining pockets of
land which are more residential in nature but which still include a significant
number of jobs. For the sake of argument, it is fair to say more people call
this large western area of Sydney a workplace than all the people who work in
the CBD.
The Sydney
north shore is an obviously large concentration of employment. North Sydney and
Lavendar Bay have 43,000 jobs alone, at a workforce density of over 22,000 per
square kilometre. So densely packed is this 1.9 square kilometre patch of land
that it is in effect an extension of the CBD. Nearby are the other lower north
shore areas which are home to a further 96,245 jobs. Not surprisingly they are
also densely packed, with Macquarie Park at over 3600 per sq.klm, Chatswood at
over 4,300 per sq.klm, and St Leonards at 9,364 jobs per sq.klm.
Other areas
of metro Sydney which account for some significant numbers include the airport
region (52,000 jobs), and the south west (including Bankstown) which is home to
over 57,000 jobs.
But in
Sydney’s case, nothing quite compares to the western suburbs employment lands
for employment scale in terms of rivalling the CBD, albeit over a much larger
area.
Melbourne.
The
Melbourne CBD is home to only 10.6% of all jobs throughout the metro region.
Include the inner city locations of Dockland and Southbank sees this rise to
just 14.3% of the metro region’s jobs.
Melbourne’s
economy beyond the CBD is perhaps more evenly dispersed than Sydney or Brisbane
although there are clear concentrations in certain regions. Close to the city
centre, Box Hill is home to over 17,000 workers and a workforce density of
nearly 2,500 per square kilometre. Likewise, Footscray and Preston, also close
the city centre, are home to over 12,000 and 16,000 workers respectively (at
densities of nearly 2,500 and 1,500 workers per klm).
Further out,
the airport is home to over 40,000 jobs. The northern region (around Broadmeadows)
houses 41,500 jobs, the western industrial region is home to just under 50,000,
the Moorabin area is home to just under 30,000, the Bayswater area (including
Ringwood and Croydon) is home to almost 45,000 and the north west outer areas
of Bacchus Marsh, Melton, Sunbury south and Gisborne, home to over 16,500 jobs.
The bigger
suburban employment districts though are both to the south east of the
city. Clayton (including
Oakleigh-Huntingdale, Mulgrave, Mount Waverly and Springvale) is home to 77,761
workers at an average worker density of 1552 per sq.klm. In Clayton itself
there are over 3000 workers per sq.klm. Also to the south east is Dandenong,
including Hallam and Narre Warren, which is home to 71,684 workers, at a lower
density of 853 per sq.klm. Put these two regions together and the number is a
considerable 150,000 jobs. That is getting close to scale to the Melbourne CBD
itself (186,000 jobs).
Implications?
These are
big agglomerations of employment, spread over larger areas than the density
found in the inner city, but undeniably large in their own right. Suggestions
that outer suburban ‘sprawl’ will generate uncontrolled congestion as people
try get to jobs in the inner city is simply not supported by the facts –
because the scale and location of these suburban employment areas are
generating more work commutes – at a factor of five to one – than the inner
city.
Indeed, it may mean that further housing growth is
needed on the outskirts to provide additional housing choice for people working
in these areas. Increased housing density in inner city areas will find a
market; but as a wholesale solution to housing across the metro regions of our
capitals, it fails to provide choice in areas close to places where most people
actually work.
It is also
possible that a market for more diverse housing within and surrounding these
employment areas is largely untapped, or even discouraged through planning
schemes. Lower cost medium and higher density housing, along with detached
housing, located in areas reasonably accessible to these employment areas, could
be something for future planning schemes to consider.
A further
implication is the need to consider increasing the allowable density of the
employment lands. With many areas showing under 1,000 jobs per square
kilometre, the efficiency of public infrastructure investment can tend to
diminish. The very nature of many of the industries in these areas might
prohibit higher density (eg warehousing and storage) but planning schemes which
declare entire areas unsuitable for anything but light industrial or
warehouse/storage might be denying a more efficient use of employment land and
increased capital and social returns.
This also
works on another level. It could make sense to allow more employment lands in
largely dormitory residential areas. If the objective is to allow more choice
and the opportunity for people to have shorter commutes, this notion of clear
demarcation of housing and employment lands may need consideration. The entire
western suburbs region of Brisbane, for example, has almost no employment, and
workers have no choice but to clog the limited arterials out of their leafy
dormitories in the daily trek to work.
Then there
is the issue of transport: these suburban employment areas are not well served
by public transport, nor can they be (we simply can’t afford it at present
population levels). They are typically all in areas where private vehicle is
the only practical choice for getting to and from work. Proponents of
congestion charging, for example, may want to answer how their proposals could
possibly impact on city wide congestion, other than to penalise the majority of
a region’s workers (those with jobs in the suburbs) whose jobs are typically
not flexible in choice of work hours and for whom a congestion charge would
simply add to their cost of living without making any difference to their mode
of transport.
Finally, is
it valid to ask whether our planning schemes and infrastructure priorities have
become distorted by an exaggerated focus on the needs of the CBDs and inner
city regions? These are the seats of government and the headquarters of many
large corporations, and also a cultural and social focus of our communities, so
their primacy in many respects in justified. But equally, suburban employment
regions which provide metropolitan and even state wide economic benefits at
least equal to the CBD seem to receive comparatively little attention. To what
extent, it seems fair to wonder, would our overall economic performance improve
if the hard and soft infrastructure needs of these areas received equal
emphasis by city planners?
Next: the
types of jobs which keep most of us employed and the economy moving.
