The rise of cities demands a new deal

The rise of cities demands a new dealAs the ink dries on a new City Deal for Western Sydney, urban strategists plotted the course of the world’s new world cities and called for investment in transformative projects at The Property Congress.Global cities advisor Professor Greg Clark CBE held the audience spellbound with his exploration of how technology, connectivity and mobility are working together to accelerate global competition and create a new world order of cities.Australia’s metropolises are increasing their global integration and reach relative to their size, Clark said, with Sydney and Melbourne the obvious stand-out performers, and Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Canberra all developing their points of difference in the new world economy.”The Lucky Country is also a very high performing country,” Clark said, but added that Australia’s cities are falling behind in two areas: transport and infrastructure investment, and innovation.Australia faces a “governance challenge” he said, as three tiers of government and “fragmented metropolitan areas” hold the nation back.And this is where Clark thinks City Deals can fill the void.Under the City Deal model, federal, state and local governments sign long-term contracts to deliver major infrastructure projects, while setting targets for the resulting job creation, housing construction, emissions reductions or other economic measures.The locations of the first three City Deals have been unveiled. The centrepiece of Townsville’s City Deal, currently under negotiation, is a $100 million integrated stadium and entertainment centre. In Launceston, $190 million in funding will relocate and expand the city’s University of Tasmania campus, while upgrades to the CBD and a new forest products innovation hub are also on the table.And just last week, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the federal and state governments to develop a Western Sydney City Deal, involving a new airport and the creation of 39,000 new jobs over the next 20 years.Joining Clark on a panel session, a number of cities specialists reiterated the importance of City Deals for Australia’s future prosperity.”Cities are the drivers for the future. Nations are no longer as important as cities,” Agneta Persson, WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff’s global director of future cities said.AECOM’s market sector director responsible for cities, James Rosenwax, argued that City Deals “will allow citizens to have a greater conversation with their city”.Each City Deal must be unique to that city, Rosenwax said, whether that’s focused on tourism attraction in Townsville, activation of the city centre in Launceston or growth and jobs to rebalance Sydney’s Western suburbs.Chairman of Infrastructure NSW and Stockland, Graham Bradley, lamented the “long and sad tradition in Australia of short-termism when it comes to infrastructure planning,” and added that all Australian cities “have a backlog of high cost-benefit ratio projects that need to be funded”.Nicki Hutley, director at Urbis, said economists had been articulating the value of infrastructure projects for some time. “It’s governments that struggle because they need to see shorter terms to their bottom lines,” she said.But Clark said the key differentiator with a City Deal was not just the ability to think in “multi-annual ways”, but to bring “all tiers of government on a single program for transformation”.How each City Deal is financed can also be open for discussion, as transformative projects can create new capital and generate savings as more people participate in the labour market, he said.One of the lessons from Brexit is that globalisation is creating very visible winners and losers, Clark said. Some Australian cities are obvious winners, but our challenge is to ensure that other communities aren’t left behind.”Good quality visionary leaders makes a difference – and a partnership approach helps.”