Three quarters of Aussies in capital cities are open to moving to a smaller city if the circumstances were right, a new report suggests.
One in two people also view mid-sized cities of between 5000 and 100,000 people, as excellent places to retire, an Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute report has found.
Mid-sized cities were thought to offer a much better quality of life, while larger cities provided better job and education opportunities and urban amenities, according to the research on what draws new residents to smaller cities.
“Large cities are especially attractive to young, university-educated individuals that value locational benefits from living in large cities, such as access to retail, food, art and cultural services,” the report said.
Three quarters of respondents were open to moving from a large to mid-sized city under the right circumstances, with a fifth of those encouraged by comparable job and educational options.
Meanwhile roughly one in two Australians viewed mid-sized cities as excellent places to retire, and would be lured there if they could get support for post retirement living in terms of healthcare, home ownership and access to other services.
Jobs were the single most common reason for moving to large cities, followed by education, while access to healthcare is important for older adults.
In recent years, large cities with populations of more than 100,000 have drawn more domestic and international migrants than mid-sized cities with populations between 5,000 and 100,000.
However, Australia’s population is predicted to double in the next 50 years, with most growth concentrated in major metropolitan centres already struggling to support their populations.
These pressures could be alleviated by strategies to disperse the growth, but the decline in regional populations would need to be reversed and new residents lured to the regions, the report authors said.
Mid-sized urban areas with high average incomes, low unemployment rates, and easy acxjmtzywcess to education, arts and recreation services were more likely to draw and keep migrants, especially the young and university educated or international migrants.
Coastal cities close to major metro centres were also likely to draw domestic and international migrants.
The adoption of remote working from home during Covid could also be continued to offer new ways to lure people to mid-sized cities offering a better quality of life.
“It is possible that Covid could fundamentally alter settlement preferences, but it is too soon to tell how large these shifts are likely to be, and how long they will persist,” the report authors said.
While government policies could also lure employers to move to those areas, this had not always worked.
Meanwhile policies that developed mid-sized cities as retirement destinations could also boost the local population and drive economic activity, the report said.
