City a beacon of growth

‘Goldilocks’ example brings people with business

GEELONG has been named one of the nation’s top growth cities, according to a new report.

The analysis from strategic policy economist Polis Partners analysed economic and “inclusive” growth — data detailing the community wellbeing of a city or town — to measure the biggest growth areas.

The city ranked second for its inclusive growth and was third strongest economically.

Polis Partners economist Rob Tyson said the report, based on figures produced before COVID-19, highlighted the positives of regional areas.

“Importantly, it’s not just about economic growth,” Mr Tyson said.

“What you really want to see is economic growth translating to inclusive growth, meaning jobs for communities and less reliance on welfare payments.

“These ‘Goldilocks’ cities — just the right balance of big city job opportunities, industry diversity and amenity without the prices, crowds and traffic jams — are also generating economic growth with equality.

“The benefits are spread across the population.”

While Geelong’s proximity to Melbourne helped, he said the region deserved far more credit for its build up of diverse industry.

“The business growth was one of the strongest of all the major cities,” he said.

“Geelong also had very good results in that it had very low welfare payments per capita. It was quite significantly below the long-term average.

“Proximity is important, but the nature of the growth we saw implies these cities deserve more individual attention.

“There’s some very dynamic things happening in the local cities that deserve more attention than just being close to a capital city.”

Strong economic growth patterns were also mirrored around Bacchus Marsh and suburbs in Melbourne’s west.

“It’s an area that’s growing and changing rapidly,” Mr Tyson said.

“We’re seeing huge amounts of opportunity there.”

He said it was important all levels of government continued to invest in regional areas and cities to ensure growth continued post-COVID-19.

“Coming into the lockdown, different cities were already on very different economic growth and inclusive growth trajectories,” he said.

“Governments need to ensure their investments create opportunity and recovery across all sectors, cities and towns, and don’t entrench economies with more uneven levels of unemployment.”