Let’s agglomerate!

I love agglomeration!

Agglomeration is the “concentration of certain activities within one area”. I know this because I have been reading The State of Australian Cities, 2011 , a report compiled mostly from data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Agglomeration is one of the reasons we are more productive in cities that they are in the country. City-dwellers, it seems, account for 80 per cent of the nation’s economic activity.

Agglomeration is definitely the reason I live in the city. I’ve lived out bush and beach-side, where agglomeration just doesn’t exist! When I did my sea-change in 1997, I was convinced that looking out the lounge room windows at crashing waves would be enough to sustain me for a lifetime. It’s not. Crashing waves are inspiring every once in a while, but stimulation comes from agglomeration.

When lots of people are doing lots of activities in one place – which could be the definition of a city – it engages the mind. Or it engages mine, anyway. I need diversity: ideas, backgrounds, attitudes, values, genders, ages, hairstyles, fashions . . . Why? From this, creativity is born. We see one person expressing an idea, and we respond, or react. We express our own ideas, for or against. Before long, we are talking, debating, protesting, creating, building, demolishing, and dare I say, buying and selling.

Last year, the inaugural State of Australian Cities (2010) was greeted with a yawn. This year, it was snapped up in the first 24 hours of being published on the website of Minister for infrastructure, Anthony Albanese by hundreds of thousands of people. It appears I am not the only person obsessed with urban life, urban design.

Most of us live in cities these days, of course, so it is just like looking in the mirror and preening. The bit that had me licking my whiskers was the productivity section.

Of course, productivity tops the list of our new national urban priorities. There are five of these outlined in the urban planning guide, Our Cities, Our Future, which I have written about a little in this blog on urban life and planning.

One proud moment for me is that our labour participation rate, among the highest in the world, is being driven by more women getting (paid) jobs. Cool!

The productivity section held some surprises too. Our commuting times, for example, have changed little in a decade: 35 minutes in Sydney, 31 minutes in Melbourne and 26 in Perth. I find that hard to believe. I suppose it means that on average, people in Sydney now work within 500 metres of their homes, and in Perth, they probably live 20km away.

Of course, this does not account for the quality of the journey. In my case, it does take about half an hour to get the 8.3km from Maribyrnong to the Docklands. Most of that time, I am squashed standing up into a packed train carriage, unable to put down my bags for fear that I can’t bend over to pick them up when I leave the train!

This is explained by the 14.7 per cent increase in public transport trips between 2004 and 2008, no doubt. All on the Cragieburn line, I suspect.

If you care about the quality of city life, don’t miss the State of Australian Cities 2011 .

It covers the things that matter: population, productivity, sustainability, liveability (a personal favourite) and governance (important, but mercifully short).

Do you agree? Write and tell me your views.

BRW

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