Introduction

Australia may be regarded as successful in many ways. Across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), it has been one of the best-performing economies over the past two decades. Although productivity has slowed this century, the commodities boom ensured the impact of the global recession has been less severe than in most other OECD countries – an outcome also partly attributed to regulatory reform (OECD, 2010). In this chapter, we draw on such passing comparisons with the OECD, especially the US and the UK, and consider the prospects for urban Australia in a time of transition.

As Burton and Dodson point out (Chapter 14, this volume), Australia is one of the most urbanised countries. Moreover, Australian cities are also often regarded as successful. In August 2013, Melbourne was ranked the world's most liveable city for the third year running in ‘The Economist Intelligence Unit Survey’. It received perfect scores for health care, education and infrastructure, and was joined in the top ten by Adelaide, Sydney and Perth. Wellbeing, seemingly, is another reason to applaud Australia. According to the World Health Organization Better Life Index (WHO, 2013), ‘Australia performs exceptionally well in measures of well-being’. It does this particularly, according to WHO measures, in safety, health and, perhaps surprisingly given the long-running affordability crisis, in housing and civic engagement. The Index includes housing, income, jobs, community, education, environment, civic engagement, health, life satisfaction, safety and work–life balance. Such measures are always partial but nevertheless the Index puts Australia ahead of the US and the UK on most measures, exceptions including housing and income.

If we look more closely we find that Australia is at the wrong end of the spectrum on work–life balance, and is rather middle ranking in the OECD on community and civil engagement – well behind the UK. Moreover, the critiques of liveability indices are shrill and telling. Behind ‘The Economist Intelligence Unit Survey’ index, in a similar way to the Mercer liveability index, is a rationale more about the salary-loading calculations for global executives than it is about how life is for the majority. In Melbourne, the top 20% of the population earn six times as much as the bottom 20%, and 21% of men work very long hours, compared to the OECD average of 9% of people in this category.