With many of us taking this moment of collective pause to rethink how we live and work by quitting the city altogether, has decentralisation – in fact – become the key takeaway of the pandemic?
BLESSED WITH NATURAL GOOD LOOKS, high living standards and a proud multiculturalism, our major cities are no stranger to the top end of a ‘world’s best’ list. Aggregating data across categories stretching from stability and healthcare to culture and environment, annual rankings like The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Liveability Index – which counted five Australian capitals within its top 11 in 2021 – tell us in numbers what we know through lived experience. That on a sunny day on Sydney Harbour, its architectural icons sparkling, there are few places on Earth we’d rather be. That Adelaide during festival season has an atmosphere to rival anywhere. Or that slipping down a Melbourne laneway to sip cocktails in a hidden speakeasy is the stuff memories are made of.
But almost two years of lockdowns have taken their toll on our world-class capitals. What shape will they take as they begin to recover from this once-in-a-lifetime period of flux? And, with many of us taking this moment of collective pause to rethink how we live and work by quitting the city altogether, has decentralisation – in fact – become the key takeaway of the pandemic?
REGIONAL RENAISSANCE
We have been sea-changing and tree-changing with vigour since the concepts entered the vernacular and enjoyed their first boom in the early 2000s: a zeitgeist inspired by equal parts economic upswing and , one of the most popular TV programs in Australia during the late 1990s. But the wave we’re seeing now is inextricably linked to COVID-19. With many people presented with newly flexible working arrangements, seeking space and a more balanced lifestyle, we’ve been leaving the city in droves for a coastal or country idyll – ideally still within a stone’s throw of a metropolitan centre. For the first time in living memory, without overseas migration to backfill
