Policy makers and urban planners have for generations attempted and failed to diversify Australia’s economic activity and settlement away from the cities.
These same central planners also regularly touted so-called ’20-minute cities’ where people can live, work and socialise, only for commute times to grow as workers shunted into the CBD on crowded trains and roads. Policy makers also spent countless billions on expensive mass transit infrastructure in a bid to move people from suburbs to jobs in the CBD.
Then COVID arrived and delivered remote and hybrid work to the masses. Suddenly, suburban shopping strips are thriving, as are local walkways and cycle paths. The ’20-minute city’ is no no longer a myth but a reality. And there is no longer the need to waste taxpayers’ money on new infrastructure – it is already in place in the suburbs.
