Speculative claims about Australia

Part of the Great Plains in the United States have seen a similar growth pattern in recent decades, with the cities growing even as rural areas and small towns slowly depopulate. It’s quite a strectch, however, to attribute this pattern to climate variability. Changes in farm economics are a more signficiant factor.

Jane Jacobs,, in her “Cities and the Wealth of Nations” (which may be her weakest work), explains that in an era of floating currencies, each currency area (country) has a tendency to concentrate into one big city. The reason for this is that currency fluctuations are driven by changing economic fortunes of the manufacturers and other large economic actors in the major cities, and so the cities receive most of the benefit of exchange-rate adjustments, while smaller cities and towns not on the same business cycle get clobbered by exchange rates moving in directions which don’t benefit them. Eventually most large economic actors end up in the big city, and the population follows. Large regional centers become economic “colonies” of the large city, but may remain to service large populations or resource concentrations.

In large countries, this tendency takes a long time, but there is still a tendency towards concentration. In smaller countries, or countries which have other centripital social forces, this can become quite pronounced. In Europe, the economies of London, Paris, and Milan dwarf those of the regional cities, while in Ireland and Greece, the populations of the capital cities’ regions is one-third to one-half the total population of the nation.

A significant feature of Australia is that it was settled so recently. Significant areas were first farmed after World War 2.

The path dependence of the settlement pattern is surely significant: Rural areas that first gain significant population during the 1940s and 50s will naturally choose distances appropriate to long distance car and trucks, rather than horses.

Furthermore, Australian rural wage rates have always been near the highest in the world. Far more so than the mexican dominated rural workforce in the USA for example. Hence Australian farming is highly mechanized, with significantly fewer people per hectare.

There is not much remarkable about Flannery’s comment on Australia’s high level of urbanisation today – it was one of the most urbanised countries a century ago.

While undoubtedly population share has shifted to the cities, Australia was always relatively highly urbanised. In 1911 60% of the population lived in urban areas, today it is 90% urbanised (see ABS Yearbooks).

I do not have long term trends to hand but according to the UNDP, 37% of the world was urban dwelling in 1975 – Australia 86% urbanised, OECD 67% urbanised. In 2003 48% of the world was urbanised – Australia 92%, OECD 76%.

Flannery is also prone to hyperbole – Australia is not the world’s most urbanised nation. Countries as diverse as Iceland, Belgium, Singapore and Uruguay are all more urbanised than Australia, with others like Argentina, Israel and Luxembourg pretty close.

High growth in agricultural and mining productivity mean less demand for labour in rural areas. Aging population (retirement to coastal urban centres), structural change (growth in the services sector as an employer) and improved infrastructure (better roads and vehicles mean rural dwellers can access amenities at larger towns) have also contributed Australia’s trends.

Flannery’s general comment also flies in the face of the fact that mid size Australian towns have shown strong growth rates, especially in coastal areas but also in major inland “sponge cities†.

After falling in the grip of obesity, men and women nowadays
wholeheartedly resort to a whole array of anti-obesity measures not only for the
specific reason that weight loss burns off the extra fat in the body but also for the
tremendous havoc that obesity unleashes in the body. Once a person
becomes obese, he falls victim to specific disorders like arthritis,
diabetes, hypertension and other associated health problems and as such
immediately opts for phentermine, adipex
and other diet pills to break free from the clutches of obesity. Diet
pills do help people in countering the menace of obesity but only when
they are administered in accordance with the proper instructions of the
doctor.