Local Employment Initiatives in Rural Towns

Abstract

The quest for regional development, like death and taxes, seems always to be with us, though its immediate stimulus has shifted periodically according to the circumstances of the day. Australians have long subscribed to grand visions of making the deserts bloom and of harvesting potential wealth through the exploitation of seemingly limitless resources. The notion that denser inland settlement and the more effective occupation of peripheral regions might help repel the hungry hoards of Asia has also gained prominence at times of external threat. More recently, non-metropolitan growth has been seen as a way of reducing a perceived range of economic, social and environmental problems in some of Australia's largest cities, notably Sydney and Melbourne, while improving the quality of life of people living in rural areas through better access to services and employment. Superimposed on these issues is the growing realization that rural communities themselves can be divided into the prosperous (mainly regional centres and places adjacent to them receiving favourable spread effects) and those, often small places, with static or declining populations.