Caring for the Australian countryside

Australia’s non-Metropolitan Population:Trends and Implications

Tuesday 4 December 2012, 6 pm

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Professor Graeme Hugo AO
Director of the Australian Population and Migration Research Centre
The University of Adelaide

Graeme Hugo is ARC Australian Professorial Fellow, Professor of the Discipline of Geography, Environment and Population and Director of the Australian Population and Migration Research Centre at the University of Adelaide. His research interests are in population issues in Australia and South East Asia, especially migration. He is the author of over three hundred books, articles in scholarly journals and chapters in books, as well as a large number of conference papers and reports. His recent research has focused on migration and development, environment and migration, and migration policy. He is chair of the Demographic Change and Liveability Panel of the Ministry of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities and was appointed to National Housing Supply Council in 2011. In 2012 he was named an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to population research, particularly the study of international migration, population geography and mobility, and through leadership roles with national and international organisations.

Australia’s non-Metropolitan Population: Trends and Implications

A third of Australia’s population live outside the capital cities and they have distinctive dynamics and composition. This presentation demonstrates that there are a number of myths of non-metropolitan populations. It outlines the dynamics of growth, the increasing diversity and changing spatial distribution of populations outside the cities. There is an increasing gap between areas which are growing and those declining, giving rise to quite different implications for planning. Professor Hugo argues that there is a need for a new consideration of Australia’s settlement system in the light of contemporary and emerging economic, environmental and social trends.