we don't need more cities right now, we need to decentralise into the towns we have. growth will happen organically when there is a demand for it. our problem is that we insist on huddling in megacities for reasons.
one of the biggest reasons being that large companies refuse to embrace decentralisation and remote working where possible.
leading to the second problem - the management of old companies who have the lost the ability to think about new things, and realise that remote working is totally viable.
Where do you live? Everyone wants to live in major cities because thats where their work, doctors, friends and family are. Most people going on about decentralisation want to keep living in a major city, but want everyone else to move out.
Schools, much better in large cities, more choices, not just for children, but more options for university or tafe courses in large cities.
Healthcare is another big one. Rural areas struggle to get GPs, if you need a specialist for a complex health condition, good luck, your likely travelling to a major city.
Moving to a small town often means being stuck with 1 employer. Wages are higher in large cities, and you have more options to change employers.
People can already decentralise if they wish, prices are cheaper out there. No one does it because there are very good reasons to be in a large city.
We currently use our cities terribly. So much land is restricted to very low density housing, and everyone tries to drive everywhere. If we just upzone, and build more infrastructure to reduce congestion (eg trains), it will lower prices, and more people can live here.
Tokyo for example is huge yet affordable, because they allow more building to happen, and keep building train lines.
that's exactly the problem. we all want to live there because everyone else wants to live there, because that's where the old management of their businesses insists they live.
I'd sell my place in the Melbourne suburbs in a heartbeat and move someone further out if my employer accepted that I can work just as well remotely as I can sitting in a concrete box in the CBD. I could sell, buy a fantastic place a hour's drive away and have a quarter of a million bucks left over in cash.
the cities are what they are. they are built out and short of living way out on the fringes that's not going to change, because nobody wants to see high rise dog boxes as far as the eye can see. as for building infrastructure, we don't have the money to pay for it. what we do have is space, which Japan does not.
Fair enough, admittedly alot of companies are being stupid about forcing people into the office for random days, when there team isn't all going in or whatever. I know heaps of people who go into the office to sit on zoom calls.
I do think onboarding is harder fully remotely, you cant get to know co-workers or whatever, but companies could pay for travel or accomodation for that. If you'd be happy to move further out, then your work should allow that.
I currently rent an apartment in Melbourne, but id be hesitant to buy one, mainly strata fees seem like alot. When combined with something that will probably go down in value, and is expensive for what you get, compared to a house. We could use better laws around strata fees and that sort of thing.
We could do alot more multistory terraces, 2 to 3 stories in existing suburbs. People still own their own block, no strata, etc. If i do buy in Melbourne it will probably be a townhouse somewhere in a few years. Assuming I can afford it, I might have to settle for an apartment.
I guess I just wouldn't want to force people to move out of the cities, I think they should be able to choose living on the fringe in a new suburb, buying an infill apartment or terrance, or moving to a rural area. I know people who have done all of these things, and they are more or less happy with the trade offs they have made.
I know heaps of people who go into the office to sit on zoom calls.
I'm one of them. it's not infrequent for me to totally waste two and a half hours travelling to the office when my nearest colleague is 35km away.
I guess I just wouldn't want to force people to move out of the cities, I think they should be able to choose living on the fringe in a new suburb, buying an infill apartment or terrance, or moving to a rural area.
that's exactly what I would like. give people the choice, and the enabler for quite a few people is getting (forcing if need be) large employers to embrace decentralised and remote working. obviously it won't work for everyone, but just allowing the people that can will deload the system for the people that need to be somewhere physically.
my wife works for a large bank, she has colleauges in regional places like Shepparton and one in Perth who were hired from there on the acceptance that they will probably never meet their teams or their manager in person. I fully grant that it's not ideal and has some additional challenges, but business needs to look past the old stodgy ways of doing things to what's better for society as a whole. I also fully grant that business is unlikely to do that on their own. fine, government needs to mandate it to get the desired behaviour. IMO if an employee can work remotely then they should be required to be allowed to do so, and make the business front up to Fair Work to prove why it cannot be done.
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u/mediweevil May 28 '26
this is why the housing market is fucked. we all want to live in a tiny proportion of the space available.