As our cities and metropolitan areas become increasingly congested, demand for decentralisation has never been higher. With Sydney and Melbourne vastly becoming overcrowded the opportunities for smaller regional areas to become hot zones for growth are ever increasing.
It is vastly important for towns like Griffith to capitalise on the growth opportunities and be a leader at the forefront of attracting new prospectus to the region.
With a thriving multicultural facet, Griffith has never been more pitched to be ready for an influx of new industry and professionals.
However, Griffith is competing against major growth areas like Tamworth, Wagga, Albury and Bathurst to gain the attention of potential new community members.
Part of decentralisation is cultivating a progressive approach to expansion and activity.
The lack of housing availability, services and activities are not only harming the town, it is hindering it.
Lack of opportunities for people to gain secure and meaningful employment is causing the talents of this town to vacate at alarming rates.
Let alone attracting talented vibrant professionals to the town, when there are other comparable country towns with more to offer.
Quotes from the community consultation survey conducted in May of 2016 highlighted the need to encourage new and innovative sustainable business/industries, encourage more festivals and build on current multicultural events.
Promote youth leadership, work to build a positive future for the city, improve recreational facilities and the most referenced call to action was fixing Lake Wyangan.
The Lake Wyangan debacle has been going on for over a year now with seemingly no end or resolution to the remediation of the lake.
In the meantime, it is a degrading asset that can be invested and used by the community to attract tourism.
We have various groups calling for decentralisation of the cities and yet no progressive plans to attract professionals to the area?
Millennials already make up a sizable portion of the global workforce, and could account for 75 per cent of all employees by 2025.
So those whom ignore these facts at their own peril.
A 2016 survey of 7700 millennials in 29 countries, which found one-in-four would quit their job or do something different within the next year.
This includes moving to new cities and towns to further their careers.
Employers need to understand what ultimately drives Millennials is the idea of YOLO - you only live once.
So the question for a Millennial becomes, if I only live once, why would I want to work for you?
Why would I want to visit a place with nothing to do? Getting hooked by your habitual reactions isn’t going to help anyone. Solution-based vision is imperative to our region for its survival.
The longer you leave a problem to be fixed, the longer and more expensive the solution is.
The window of opportunity to capitalise on growth is closing as we compete with the regions and it’s up to the community to drive the change.
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