Australia’s vibrant, changing non-metro population

Australia’s non-metropolitan populations are changing in unexpected ways, according to Professor Graeme Hugo, Director of the Australian Population and Migration Research Centre at the University of Adelaide.

In an Australian Academy of Science public lecture today, entitled Australia’s non-Metropolitan Population: Trends and Implications, Professor Hugo will challenge the notion that nonmetropolitan populations are declining and homogenous with few migrants.

One-third of Australia’s population live outside the capital cities in populations displaying distinctive dynamics and composition, Professor Hugo says. He will describe the increasing gap between areas which are growing and those in decline, and new implications for planning.

He will argue that there is a need for a new consideration of Australia’s settlement system in the light of contemporary and emerging economic, environmental and social trends.

Today’s lecture is the final in the Academy’s 2012 public lecture series on Caring for the Australian countryside: lessons from the past and present that examined the impact of mining, agriculture, culture and environmental change on country Australia.