UXH433: Regional Planning Analysis of Newcastle and Wollongong Regions

This project analyzes a news report from ABC News discussing the evolving perspectives on regionalism, specifically focusing on the debate over whether Newcastle and Wollongong should be considered regional areas in NSW. The report highlights government perspectives, particularly statements ...Read More

Running head: REGIONAL AND URBAN PLANNING
Evolving perspective of Regions, Regionalism and Metro & Regional
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Chosen Media: Online news report
Media source: ABC News (online page)
News topic: When is a region 'regional'? Debate over whether Newcastle, Wollongong are in
regional NSW
Author/Editor: ABC Illawarra By Gavin Coote
Date: Updated 8 Mar 2018, 7:21am
The concept of regionalism states that the regional based division of the associated areas
separated from a metropolitan area by a mixture of tangible characteristics that at the same time
distinguishes it from neighbouring areas and declares a degree of commonality considering the
“remoteness” and “Firmness” (Henderson, 2018). Alternative views show the increasing nature
of metropolitan areas, as opposed to exposure to city-regions as global economy structure. In this
context, considering a region as 'regional' has become a most debated issue over whether
Newcastle, Wollongong are in regional NSW. Here the term “regional” used to describe

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remoteness or “farminess”. A report published in ABC news authored by Gavin Coote
highlighted this issue while arguing the present perspective of regionalism of the government
towards the area of Newcastle, Wollongong.
The long-running argument of considering Wollongong and Newcastle as metropolitans
as Sydney appears to have been settled when NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro said it was
clear Newcastle and Wollongong were not regional (Coote, 2018). Arguably this statement can
be considered as the evolved adaptation in Government's definition of region and regionalism.
Therefore, it can also be said that the intensity of political benefits from external opportunities
from the coherence of city-regions and their management often result confusions and
problematic situation.
The Berejiklian government plans to quarantine the $4.15 billion in proceeds from the
Snowy Hydro Scheme's sale of regional infrastructure outside the three largest cities of the state
(Coote, 2018). In this context John Barilaro stated the most controversial sentence. The regional
boundaries and their facilitation associated differences often form the sense of being
discriminated among the associated or extended regional area of metropolitan city (Brown &
Deem, 2016). The report published in ABC also highlighted that this controversial perspective
and their deliberate declaration is not a new phenomenon. Previous year similar issue has been
raised when Shellharbour was considered as 'metropolitan', while Lake Macquarie as 'regional'
area. The city of Shellharbour, south of Wollongong, has long been eligible for regional grants
but is now classified "metropolitan". Adding more complexity in the debate, it has been also
highlighted that whether the satellite centers around Newcastle and Wollongong were suppose to
be considered as regional or not. This complexity have emerged from sub-metropolitan regions,

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or sub-regions within city-regions, aimed to make better facilitation for themselves within
public-sector funding allocations and global economic flows (Tomlinson, 2017).
There are many themes that highlighted in this discussion. One of these themes is
involving multi-level government structures a careful assessment is required on this place-based
factors while prevailing inter-government relations to shape the governance formations regional
area. Through this report another theme such as attention directed towards particular areas (in
this case Sydney, Newcastle, Wollongong and other associated area of NSW). It has been
reported repeatedly that local councils have forgotten to forge a regional collaborative approach.
This discussion is not only highlighting the theme of current alteration of government
perspective on regionalism, but also reflecting upon other themes such as the achievements of
other metropolitan and NSW regions and especially the local and regional experiences.

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Reference:
Brown, A. J., & Deem, J. (2016). A tale of two regionalisms: improving the measurement of
regionalism in Australia and beyond. Regional Studies, 50(7), 1154-1169.
Coote, G. (2018). Debate erupts over what makes a region 'regional'. Retrieved 12 August 2019,
from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-08/when-a-region-regional-stoush-erupts-
over-newcastle-wollongong/9524774
Henderson, S. (2018). Competitive sub-metropolitan regionalism: Local government
collaboration and advocacy in northern Melbourne, Australia. Urban Studies, 55(13),
2863-2885.
Tomlinson, R. (2017). An argument for metropolitan government in Australia. Cities, 63, 149-
153.