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Regional Approaches to Secondary Cities Development 1637.5 AustraliaThe Commonwealth of Australia is the world’s largest island continent, with a populationof 22.8 million. It has a population density of 2.9 persons per square kilometre, butlarge parts of the country are uninhabited. The country is 87 per cent urbanized. It is alsoone of the most decentralized countries in the world, something that has been forcedon it by its size and the vast distances between some of its cities. Urbanization rates haverisen in recent years to 1.8 per cent per annum, resulting from record levels of migrationdriven by an increased demand for labour to support its rapidly growing economy.Australia has a diverse economy, which has enjoyed 21 years of growth. Its GDP in 2012was US$1,542.1 billion, with 82 per cent of this generated by the services sector. The GDPper capita is US$67,938 per capita, which is one of the highest in the world.The isolation and specialized economic focus of Australian secondary cities underpinmany of their development challenges. Distances between settlements in Australiaare often vast, meaning that it is not possible to commute for employment or serviceprovision. Given the specialization of most secondary city employment markets, it istherefore difficult to retain workers outside the primary industry sector. The challengeof retaining a diverse workforce is further compounded by the poor communicationinfrastructure and services characteristic of remote areas. This adds greatly to businesstransaction costs, undermining the ability for cities to compete for new business.Inland secondary cities are struggling to retain populations and many smallertowns are falling into decline, except where mining has occurred. Mining towns areexperiencing significant problems, with shortages of housing and difficulty in attractingnon-mining service-sector workers to remote locations. On the coast, secondary citieshave been expanding more rapidly than the larger cities, with growth driven by retirementand lifestyle-changers. Coastal areas are struggling to keep up with the demandsfor infrastructure and community services.Historically, states have had policy responsibilities for the development of townsand regional areas. The development of early towns, which subsequently expanded intoregional cities, were funded through state-government grants and loans to local governments,which had responsibility for the provision of infrastructure and other communityservices. Health, education and emergency services are a state responsibility.Federal governments have played a major role in urbanization policy, but in aless-direct way and in cooperation with the states. Successive federal governmentspromoted national industrial development-centre programmes for the steel andautomobile industries in several secondary cities in the 1920 and post-World War II.The national capital, Canberra, which was founded in 1913 but not fully establisheduntil 1958, was the first planned new town after federation, although all the formercolonial state capitals had city plans.By the mid-1970s, state and federal governments became concerned about the sizeand rate of development of Australia’s two largest cities and initiated programmes