Getting to Grips With The Economy“HITTING HOME”: DOMESTIC IMPACTS OF

ECONOMIC RE-ALIGNMENT

Uneven Access? Urban and Regional Impacts of Economic Change

http://photosau.com/marrickville/scripts/home.asp http://www.wpire.com.au/

Professor Bob FaganHuman Geography and Centre for Research on Social Inclusion,

Macquarie University

(1) INTRODUCTION

‘Geography matters’ (Doreen Massey, Open University, UK)

Domestic impacts of economic re-alignment are geographically uneven between people and places

Households have uneven ACCESS to economic opportunity in Australian cities and regions

Issues involving access to employment and food security will become more pressing because of economic re-alignment and ‘global’ change

There are complex relationships between ‘global’ change (coming from “out there”?), local circumstances (“in here”?) and national policies

(2) SYDNEY’S URBAN ECONOMY UNPACKED

Australia’s largest city contributing 25% of national GDP

Australia’s ‘global city’?

control node for information, finance, business

corporate HQ centre

magnet for overseas migration flows and tourism

cultural centre

education and innovation centre

political influence

the global city discourse: “talking it up”

Sydney’s Production Spaces: Manufacturing 1971-2006

1971: CIA 42% Middle 33% Outer 25%

1981: CIA 25% Middle 45% Outer 28%

1991: CIA 21% Middle 40% Outer 39%

2006: CIA 15% Middle 30% Outer 55%

Suburbanisation and Deindustrialisation after 1980

Deindustrialisation of labour force and suburbanisation of remaining manufacturing jobs simultaneous in Sydney 1980-2009: uneven growth and decline

Early 21st century manufacturing:1. NET job-shedding in manufacturing 2001-20062. sweat shopping and small specialised business in older centres?3. outer suburbs now hold >50% of manufacturing jobs

Sydney awash with inflows of capital from mid 1980s but decreasingly into ‘production’

Key growth sector becomes information-based services and employment after 1980

Sydney’s Information-Service Economy

Planners (and others) focus on Sydney’s global arc …… but don’t ignore office growth and ‘high tech’ in the outer suburbs

Parramatta as Sydney’s second CBD

Source: http://www.metrostrategy.nsw.gov.au/dev/

(3) URBAN LABOUR MARKETS

Sydney metropolitan region comprises overlapping, Sydney metropolitan region comprises overlapping, open and complex labour marketsopen and complex labour markets

Household employment experiences are locally embedded

Increasing regionalisation of jobs for nearly 30 years but growth always NET balance of jobs lost and jobs gained

Labour markets are segmented by gender, age, skills, ethnicity as well as geography

(4) SUBURBS IN THE GLOBAL CITY: WESTERN SYDNEY (WS)

Sydney’s economic and social “other”?

‘Global arc’ script has not done WS many favours

Employment regionalisation stalled 1996-2006?

By 2006 WS remained one of Australia’s most important and productive manufacturing regions

Manufacturing in Western Sydney

Job-shedding (deindustrialisation), especially in West Central LGAs, AND job-growth (new industrialisation) in outer LGAs

Between 2001 & 2006 job-shedding in manufacturing (technological change, work reorganisation, import competition, corporate financial restructuring) overhauled impacts of new industrialisation (continued regional market growth, 75% of remaining industrial land, labour force) for an overall mfr. employment decline in WS of 8.3%

NET changes crucial: jobs grow and disappear in different sectors and places, involving different skill-levels and hours of work

Employment in services has grown….and grown

Convergence of WS share of Sydney’s service jobs on the region’s share of metropolitan population (47 % by 2006)

Continued regional market growth remains a strong impetus to job creation in service industries like construction, retail, health and education but …

By 2006, GWS still lagged well behind the ‘global arc’ in its share of the faster-growth finance and business service (FBS) jobs but …

Parramatta and Baulkham Hills, with different profiles, were important centres for business service jobs which had also begun to grow rapidly in Auburn 2001-2006

Knowledge-intensive business services are weakly developed

Regionalisation of WS Labour Markets

GWS labour market became increasingly regional from mid 1970s but the % of resident workers working in GWS has been stable at c.64% 1996-2006

Employment ‘self-sufficiency’ in GWS (ratio of regional jobs to regional resident workers) rose steadily 1971-91 but not since

Intra-regional commuting patterns (most trips by car) have become increasingly complex

Don’t lose sight of the 30 % of GWS workers who travel into eastern Sydney each day including significant flows to CBD

Poor access to employment and low participation rates are shaped by people’s access to transport and social infrastructure such as education/training, child care places, affordable housing, health care

A Model of Access to Employment

Unemployment in WS

In 2006, 8 of 14 LGAs in WS had unemployment rates above the Sydney metro. Average (5.3%) despite a decade of unprecedented growth in Australian economy (8/14 in 2001) – lost opportunities?

In 2006 WS contained Sydney’s highest and lowest rates – Fairfield LGA (10.5 %) and Baulkham Hills (3.1 %)

All LGAs except Holroyd shared in the SMA experience of falling unemployment rates 1996-2008

Volatile 1984-1997 but more clustered 1996-2006: a return to volatility between places 2009-20??

Wide variations in participation rates remain

GWS Unemployment 1993-2002

0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 Year

%

Auburn

Bankstow n

Baulkham Hills

Blacktow n

Blue Mountains

Camden

Campbelltow n

Fairf ield

Haw kesbury

Holroyd

Liverpool

Parramatta

Penrith

SYDNEY

Western Sydney Unemployment 1998-2008

0.0

2.0

4.0

6.0

8.0

10.0

12.0

14.0

16.0

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008*

Year

%

Auburn

Bankstown

Baulkham Hills

Blacktown

Blacktown North

Blacktown SE

Blacktown SW

Blue Mountains

Camden

Campbelltown

Fairfield

Hawkesbury

Holroyd

Liverpool

Parramatta

Penrith

SYDNEY

Source: ABS, 2001 census

Source: ABS, 2001 census

Blacktown shows GWS’s whole range of unemployment experiences (from 3% - 26%+ in 2006)

High unemployment rates at LGA level driven by locality rates more than 3 times average.

Not explained by presence or absence of jobs in or near localities (e.g. Auburn, Fairfield)

Unemployment Blacktown LGA 2006

Source: ABS http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/d3310114.nsf/home/Census+data

(4) FOOD SECURITY

Is there food insecurity in Australian cities and regions? Yes according to NSW and S.A. Departments of Health and community sector organisations like Australian Red Cross and Anglicare

Concentrated heavily among particular people in particular places (but very limited information)

Local food insecurity defined as “constant anxiety about provision of, and access to, sufficient

affordable and nutritious food for self & dependents”

National and Local Food Security in Australia

Food security issues arise at all scales: national scale – development (aid and trade) and

biosecurity but increased focus on Australia’s future food supplies given:

falling farm incomes, debt and fewer farmers increasing imports of food increasing on-farm costs especially oil-based energy ENVIRONMENTAL issues (climate change + Murray-Darling

Basin triggers)

local scale – a problem of access? to income, jobs, affordable accommodation, nutritional information and appropriate food retailing

Food Production In Sydney: Safeguarding Food Security?

Source: RHF based on Sinclair et al (2004) and satellite photo guesstimates

Where has Food Production Gone?

Source: NSW Government, City of Cities: A Plan For Sydney’s Future, Sydney,

(5) WHAT SHOULD WE DO?

Specific and strategic urban-regional dimensions to national ‘anti-recession’ policies especially proposed infrastructure spending

Urgent need for coordinated State-Local Government employment strategies (e.g. URC research study to WSROC 2008 – North-West and West-Central Sub-Regional Employment Strategy)

Employment access: sufficient employment must be created (net) to maintain regionalisation levels but job creation per se in or near vulnerable places does not guarantee household access

Safeguard food-growing lands in the Sydney Basin – a new strategic approach to urban food production?

Food security programs need integrating with urban development, housing and public health and nutritional education programs

Increase use of alternative food provision networks already existing in metropolitan region (examples: community gardens, farmers’ markets, community-supported food production and distribution)