Localism

Competition between political entities, whether they are countries, states or cities, has correctly been identified as one of the fundamental conditions for creating prosperity. But in Australia, we have abolished the possibility of such competition at both the federal and the local level. If we want to prepare Australia for future growth it is high time to reinstall the ‘killer app’ that once made the West – and Australia – rich.

In terms of its land mass, Australia is the sixth largest country on earth. The distances between the state capitals are enormous and travelling between places within the states by means other than air transport can take many hours. Given these spatial characteristics, perhaps the most surprising feature of Australia’s political culture is what could be called ‘the Canberra reflex’. No problem is too local, no issue too miniscule that one could not find a pundit to argue that they would best be handled by the national government.

Local governments could provide better services, like schools and fast development approvals if they received a higher proportion of tax revenue and a formal definition in the Constitution. There is a need for a strong and proactive local government that has more control over its purse strings and is more connected to the people it serves.

A country the size of Australia could be better served if it tried to delegate more tasks to lower tiers of government. Federalism is one way of achieving this, and many have cogently argued that it should be strengthened. Yet the very same arguments in favour of federalism also apply to local government.

For Australia’s mayors and shire presidents, Christmas came a bit earlier this year—on 18 November, to be precise. But Santa Claus did not come to town. Instead, the towns went to Santa, played by no other than the prime minister himself. Kevin Rudd clearly enjoyed his new role, handing out a total of $300 million in pre-Christmas giveaways at the inaugural meeting of the Australian Council of Local Government in Canberra.

A decade of regeneration policies has failed to stop the inequality of opportunity between towns and cities in the North and those in the South East increasing. In their third report in the series on regeneration in the UK, Cities Unlimited, Tim Leunig and James Swaffield recommend a series of radical proposals that would reverse the trend and inject a much needed momentum back into regeneration policy. The key recommendations from the report are to increase the size of London by allowing landowners the right to convert industrial land into residential land in areas of above average employment; expand Oxford and Cambridge dramatically, just as Liverpool and Manchester expanded in the 19th century and for the Government to roll up current regeneration funding streams and allocate the money direct to local authorities.

British towns and cities in receipt of substantial urban policy funding designed to bring them up to the economic standard nationally are, in fact, declining when judged by a whole range of indices. That is the worrying conclusion of Cities Limited which calls into question the value of the plethora of urban regeneration schemes delivered by a myriad of different agencies. Spending on the 14 core urban regeneration schemes in the last decade totals £30bn of public money.

Die Stadtregion London versucht kommunale Demokratie mit den Erfordernissen des Managements einer global vernetzten Metropole zu verbinden. Die gegenwärtige Lösung vermag nicht zu befriedigen.