This paper undertakes a longitudinal study, over the period 1947-2011, of the functional regions surrounding six rapidly growing non-metropolitan cities, dominantly service centres, in south-eastern Australia. Each region’s central city is surrounded by a defined field of influence incorporating a series of much smaller towns and their local rural catchments.The central research question asks: is the increasing concentration of population in the regional capitals likely to have long-term positive or negative demographic effects on their functional regions, taken as wholes? Taking an evolutionary perspective, the paper examines the demographic consequences of distance from the central city, changing industrial structures, net migration, and differential ageing. Following this, detailed in- and out-migration data available for the four most recent censuses are used to trace the broader migration flows between the six regions and the rest of Australia. The paper concludes with a summary of the findings and their implications for the major research question: does the relative stability of the overall regional populations camouflage a potential future sharp demographic decline?

This study aims to explore economic factors influencing the feasibility of applying robotic milking systems (RMSs) to dairy farming systems in the Illawarra region, New South Wales, through an interview project (in 2016/17) on 13 dairy farmers. The available RMS in this region would cost more than twice as much as building a traditional herringbone milking system with the same milking capacity, and would not be likely to offset the extra cost through labour saving within 5 years. The farm sector of the Australian dairy industry has been facing capital outflow and declining terms of trade. Dairy farmers in the Illawarra are facing declining profitability, unstable milk prices and pressure from urban sprawl. To relieve the economic pressures, farmers usually have to consider expansion of their business. Under such circumstances, the RMS with its current costs is unlikely to fit in probably most farmers’ plan for major capital expenditure. Unless the costs of RMSs are significantly lowered, it is hard for them to be widely adopted in the Illawarra.

Land is a finite resource. The supply of high quality, agriculturally productive land with reliable supplies of natural resources is severly limited. It is in close proximity to this highly productive, resource rich land that settlements have mainly established. As urban populations increase, land at the urban fringe, the peri-urban, comes under increasing pressure to accommodate urban expansion. Urban fringe expansion replaces peri-urban land or forces its retreat. The peri-urban, an ill-defined area between places of distinctly higher-density urbanised areas and low density rural land, provides for traditionally non-urban values, services and support activities, such as water catchments, mining resources, and food production to urban populations. In this regard, peri-urban areas are multi-functional. By contrast, land use planning tends to operate under a framework that indetifies and compartmentalises land into distinct uses with clearly defined functions and boundaries. This system does not readily accommodate multi-functional land. Zoning, as currently applied, has reduced its emphasis on balancing social, economic and environmental considerations to strongly focusing on the economic value of land for prioritising uses. This paper explores the dilemmas currently confronting land use planning in relation to peri-urban land.