Does Australia have "decaying" towns?

Just look into what the bypass did to Ballina itself....

 

We have 10 dentists and orthodontists in our suburb. Is that the start or the arresting of the decay?

 

I don't know if the locals are just used to it or if I am biased because I live in Perth but I find inner Melbourne an example of urban decay. There is graffiti everywhere, and I am not talking about the art kind which I really like. I mean the pure vandalism tags. The buildings are dirty and run down. It looks like they ran out of paint about 10 years ago.

Or possibly just the parts I visited but it felt grungy and run down to me.

 

Are there any country towns performing particularly well right now? I dont keep up to date with anything outiside of major cities

 

For the outback towns i think the gov is creating hubs, which provide services for a larger area rather than lots of smaller facilities

From the article
Towns like Wagga Wagga and Dubbo have been described as “sponge cities” by demographer Bernard Salt, because they soak up people from nearby dwindling smaller towns.

Also the case for broken hill and surrounding **** holes! Let them decay and leave the farmers but get the townies to move on as the work is no longer there. Build a bigger hospital and centrelink in the hubs.

May be the case for WA's "supertowns" some of those got big flash hospitals that may be over kill but will be good for the future plus got to spend up (aka "p up the wall") some of the mining $$ rather than giving it to the other grub states

 

I wondered if that would happen. I thought it might, it's a lot of infrastructure going to waste and the economy had to recover. If only I had the courage and the contacts years ago...

I was shocked at the state of Tarcutta a few years back, it's slightly recovered since but the main street is terrible.

A lot of the small SA towns seem to be dying off, which isn't surprising, and the centralising of schools and hospitals makes sense.

 

If you have the courage you can do it today. USA property inventory is down everywhere that is why prices continue to rise.

 

Wilcannia.
Western NSW - about 1,000klm from Sydney.
A friend of mine drove through it last week.
It was once the third biggest inland port in the country. Lots of great old buildings now boarded up.
The population peaked in the 1880s.
There would be lots of towns like this in Australia, but most had their heyday a long time ago. The slide in some of those American cities has been more precipitous and more recent.
Scott

 

I heard that Wilcannia in the NSW State West has a population of 800 people and the biggest Police staff level of over 50 Police, it maybe better nowadays but the biggest Landowner in Wilcannia would be the Local Aboriginal Land Council.

Moree is NSW State North West is another dying town with cheap investment properties , high Council rates of $2000 plus per year and flooding plus unemployment and Ice and drug and Racial tensions

What about SA in Whyhalla , i love to go there one day it seems so beutiful town?

 

As investors we should make a note of decaying towns and then never ever think about them again...concentrate on the growing ones! And those people buying in Detroit..good luck..it's an absolute sh**hole.

 

I didn't know Adelaide was a gold rush town .....

Cliff

 

Was looking in Tarcutta recently and noticed close to nothing available for rent and not much for sale. I wonder what other towns have been rejuventaed by newcomers in the last 18 months?

 

Much of the stagnation of rural towns can be described by von Thunen's model in which the location of more intense activity lies closer to the centre. With the rise of better roads and more reliable vehicles the radius of the circle of influence of a town has now expanded and smaller towns within that radius have at best stagnated or decayed. Using southern NSW as an example major towns (banks, supermarket etc) are about 100km apart (radius 50km) whereas fifty years ago the radius was around 25km. Thus you see the major towns, all about 100km apart - Goulburn, Canberra/Queanbeyan, Yass, Cooma, Gundagai remain robust while the intermediate towns such as Gunning, have shrunk.

 

The town of Mortlake in Western Victoria is an interesting case. It recently was reported as the highest growth postcode in regional Victoria for houses in the last 12 month period. A few years ago I counted 140 houses for sale there and a look just now comes to 7. There's also nothing there to rent.

It never really had a bad reputation but was just dead for a long time. I have two properties there held for many years but wish I'd bought more.

 

Those who work in the brothels decided to go permanent instead of casual!?

 

Heaps of country towns in agricultural areas in WA are dead/dying due to decreasing population.

Larger machinery need less farm labour, bigger farmers buying out smaller farmers, lower population means means less kids at school, meaning less teachers required, Yr 7 moving to high school means off to boarding school. Banks going online, branches closing, no staff required.

Better cars means driving for an hour to “bigger” town for kids activities/sport/shopping becomes the norm.

It’s a vicious cycle.

 

When we were travelling around in our motorhome we noticed quite a few towns that were struggling. A few had shops closing. many wouldn't survive without the nomads.
In one town all the shops were closing (chemist, grocer etc had everything half price). I can't remember the name of the town. But I'd say there'll be more.
We camped behind a few pubs that said they'd be closed if it wasn't for the fact that they offered free camping if you had a drink and a meal there.

 

There was a sell off of some vacant blocks about 2 years back. Some blocks as low as $30k but were flood affected.

I should have pulled the trigger on one around $45k which needed to be raised. Building wasn't going to be cheap so I kept my hands in my pocket.

 

Someone told them it was a work for the dole scheme.

 

The difficulty now would be getting the tradies and the supplies.