Analyzing Parramatta's Economic Growth: The Local Council's Role

This report explores the role of the Parramatta Local Council in fostering economic development within the region. It highlights the council's involvement in key areas such as supporting small businesses and employment through barrier reduction and innovation promotion, enhancing the tourism and cultural economy by promoting gastronomic tourism and ensuring safety, and investing in education and training programs to improve the skill set of the local workforce. The report concludes that the council's efficient work has been crucial in transforming Parramatta into a commercially attractive region, while also identifying further opportunities for economic development that require continued and strategic engagement from the local government. Desklib provides access to this report and many more resources for students.

Running head: ECONOMICS OF REGIONS
Economics of Regions
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ECONOMICS OF REGIONS
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Role of Local Council of Parramatta in economic development.....................................................2
a) Small Business and Employment............................................................................................3
b) Tourism and Cultural Economy..............................................................................................4
c) Education and Training...........................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................7

2ECONOMICS OF REGIONS
Introduction
The economic development of a country is one of the primary goals and objectives of the
governing authorities of the country and is also the primary requirement for the overall increased
welfare of the residents of the country as a whole. In terms of economics, economic development
can be defined as the strategic policy approaches by the governing authorities of a region, which
helps in improving the overall quality of life in terms of income, health, education, employment
and other welfare indicators (Leigh and Blakely 2016).
Economic development of a region, however, cannot be achieved by the policy framing
and implementations of the central governing authorities only and the local governments of the
regions are also equally responsible for taking the region on the path of sustainable development.
This is mainly because there remain several problems and characteristics in the regions, which
are subjective to the region itself and can be more efficiently handled by the local government,
which remains better aware of the same than the central authorities do.
In this context, the assignment takes into account the city of Parramatta, in the New
South Wales, which have been developing consistently in economic and commercial terms and is
currently becoming a busy and populous corporate area in Australia. The region being highly
economically active, it is one of the primary duties of the city council of Parramatta to emphasize
on the economic development of the region to make it commercially as well as residentially
sustainable in future (Cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au, 2017).

3ECONOMICS OF REGIONS
Role of Local Council of Parramatta in economic development
As discussed in the above section, it is of immense importance of the local governing
authority of any region to focus on the economic development of the concerned region as much
of the welfare of the residents and the economic and overall prospects of the region as a whole
depends on how efficiently the region develops. The city of Parramatta is no exception. The local
council of the city plays significant roles in the planning and execution of the development
strategies in the economy. There are several areas in the economy of the region, which
specifically have scopes of development and on the basis of which the roles of the local
governing authorities of the city of Parramatta can be discussed. These areas and the respective
roles are discussed in the following section:
a) Small Business and Employment
The city of Parramatta, in the recent period, has been developing as one of the
commercial attraction in the country, especially in the New South Wales and is currently having
a thriving commercial sector which if utilized properly can facilitate more integrated and
sustainable growth of the small businesses in the region. One of the primary privileges of the
region in this aspect is the business friendly and accommodating environment of the region
(McGuirk, Dowling and Bulkeley 2014).
However, there are still scopes of improvements in this aspect and the local council in
this aspect, which includes the following, can play certain roles:
 Lowering of the existing barriers and fund allocation problems which pose as hurdles,
especially for the new small businesses and the start-ups

4ECONOMICS OF REGIONS
 Emphasizing on the improvements of the innovation environment and on making
provision for easy infiltration of new age technologies which in turn can have positive
implications on the business environment of the region
 Promotion of small businesses and attraction of investments in this aspect with the help
of small business expo events
b) Tourism and Cultural Economy
The City of Parramatta is a conglomeration of diversity and is a representation of
different cultures staying in harmony. The city being one of the recent commercial attractions
along with the cultural diversities, if promoted correctly, can become one of the primary tourist
attraction in the country, attracting both domestic as well as international visitors from across the
world. This in its turn can contribute significantly in the economic development of the region as
tourism, in general, contributes significantly in the GDP of the countries, if developed and
promoted appropriately (Baker and Ruming 2015).
The local council, in this aspect, has been already working effectively. However, there
can still be several improvements and inclusion, which can be done on their part:
 Promotion of establishment of new cafes and restaurants as gastronomic tourism, as a
new form of pleasure travel, has been gaining significant popularity in the contemporary
periods
 Ensuring safety of the residents and the travelers in the city, especially emphasizing on
the night time safety of the residents and visitors. This can be done by the local
government by focusing on improvement of night lighting system of the city and
improving the security framework of the city

5ECONOMICS OF REGIONS
 Increasing scopes of expansion of the commercial area for entertainment including
musical entertainment, theatres and fun activities across the country
c) Education and Training
In the development of any economy, it is of considerable importance for the local
government to focus on the development of the skill set of the people living in this region,
especially the youth of the population. For the purpose of the same, the education and the
training provisions of the same has to be developed by the local government of the region as it
has direct implications in improving the productivity of the workers, which in its turn results in
higher economic productivity and a better standard of living in the region (Gilbert et al. 2013).
The local government of the country has emphasized on the development of proper
educational infrastructures and the city already has huge scopes of employment for its residents.
The roles, which the local council can take in this aspect, are as follows:
 Implementations of up-skilling programs, especially in the universities
 Job targeted training for the students, starting from the school levels only
 Re-oriented courses which go by the needs of the city, which includes shorter courses,
administration related courses and others
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that the City of Parramatta has been
developing as one of the newest attraction in Australia and the region has developed itself from a

6ECONOMICS OF REGIONS
under-developed suburb to a region of huge commercial interests. Much of the success can be
attributed to the efficient working of the local government. However, there are still several
scopes for further economic development and the local government needs to play several crucial
roles in this aspect.

7ECONOMICS OF REGIONS
References
Baker, T. and Ruming, K., 2015. Making ‘Global Sydney’: spatial imaginaries, worlding and
strategic plans. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 39(1), pp.62-78.
Cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au (2017). ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PLAN 2017 -2021. [online]
Cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au. Available at:
https://www.cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au/sites/council/files/2017-05/Draft%20Economic
%20Development%20Plan%202017%20-%202021.pdf [Accessed 27 Nov. 2017].
Gilbert, R., Stevenson, D., Girardet, H. and Stren, R., 2013. Making cities work: Role of local
authorities in the urban environment. Routledge.
Leigh, N.G. and Blakely, E.J., 2016. Planning local economic development: Theory and
practice. Sage Publications.
McGuirk, P., Dowling, R. and Bulkeley, H., 2014. Repositioning urban governments? Energy
efficiency and Australia’s changing climate and energy governance regimes. Urban
Studies, 51(13), pp.2717-2734.