What makes a place attractive? Sometimes, it’s the ability to reinvent itself.
Newcastle, Australia, is a powerful example. Once shaped by steel, coal and heavy industry, the region is now growing around health, education, professional services and tourism with around 144K local jobs growing by 3% each year. But attractiveness is about more than jobs. It’s also about quality of life, housing, connectivity, the environment, local businesses and the ability of places to shape their own future.
As Newcastle in Australia shows, competitive regions are not just places that grow, they are places that adapt.
Transcript
Hello! I’m Shayne MacLachlan. I work at the OECD, but I’m also a Novocastrian, which means I grew up here in Newcastle, Austrialia, in the Hunter region.
So, coming back to this great place that you can see behind me, for the Australian winter and escaping a piping-hot Europe, got me thinking about a really important question that we work a lot on at the OECD.
And that question is: what makes a region attractive? In other words, why would people choose to leave work, invest or visit a place (like this one) over another.
And since I’ve been home I definitely noticed that there’s something happening here in Newcastle, Australia and the Hunter region.
Greater Newcastle was actually recently ranked fourth among Australia’s fastest-rising cities in terms of career opportunities; and in fact, professionals are looking to Newcastle before they’re looking at places like Sydney.
So, looking at what’s driving that particular trend, a lot of it is about jobs.
So the Newcastle that I grew up in was really bad. BHP, steel, coal and industry. But these industries have been fading out, and the region itself is changing massively.
In fact, today health is the biggest employer in this region, employing 32,000 people. And then construction, professional services, as well as education, are a huge part of that local economic growth and development.
Local sources say there are about 144,000 jobs in this area, and that’s growing at a rate of about 3% per year, which is really health because it’s growing at about 2% across the state of New South Wales at the same time.
That’s obviously good news, but when you look at regional attractiveness it’s really about seeing what builds the strengths of a place and what you can actually tap into regarding the potential and growth going forward.
So it is about adaptation, of course, but jobs aren’t the whole story.
At the OECD when we look at what makes regions attractive, we look at things like how they can attract people, indeed investment, as well as visitors and tourists.
And in that respect Newcastle has an interesting story to tell, because it’s not only cheaper than some other parts of the state of New South Wales, but there are things that attract people here: in terms of its universities, the lifestyle, the beaches for example that you can see behind me.
And in fact there’s the businesses, which give a place its character. In fact, in the city of Newcastle there’s about 18,000 registered business in this area. In terms of businesses, there’s everything from tradies, to tech companies, but also restaurants, cafes and local services.
But of course, entrepreneurs don’t just create jobs. They also create places that people want to live and invest in, as well as visit them.
And around the Hunter region you’ve got the Hunter Valley vineyards, but also in the other direction you’ve got Port Stevens, which is like an Australian Hawaii.
And yes, the Hunter Valley indeed attracts millions and millions of visitors every year, making it an important part of its economy.
But of course, the attractiveness of a region is not just about GDP and, of course, jobs. It’s about housing, connectivity and the environment, as well as wellbeing and what it is actually like to live in a place.
And I guess the last part I’m trying to ask this question about what makes a places attractive, is about how much power places have to actually shape their own future.
So this indeed is quite topical. We’ve seen Andy Burnham become the British Prime Minister. He was Mayor of Greater Manchester, and for a long time he was all about giving local places, and in particular Greater Manchester, the tools to drive their own economic and local development.
So I guess Newcastle, Australia, is a fascinating example of what makes a place productive and competitive, but also making it a great place to live; and a model of how cities really need to keep reinventing themselves, growing from steel and manufacturing and industry to now universities, health and other tourism-based activities.
All of this is something we are going to be exploring in the upcoming 2026 Regions and Cities at a Glance. So, do watch this piece at the OECD!
As Public Affairs and Communications Manager, Shayne engages with policy issues concerning SMEs, tourism, culture, regions and cities to name a few. He has worked on a number of OECD campaigns including “Going Digital”, "Climate Action" and "I am the future of work".