I read two documents last week that expose a planning problem: the place of elderly in our region. One is a report from Eurostat on ageing in Europe. The other is the draft strategic plan for Lake Macquarie.
Lake Macquarie planners should read the Eurostat report before they finalise their plan.
The demography of Lake Macquarie is intriguing. The LGA contains some of the region's wealthiest households, and some of the poorest. It also contains new housing developments, but not many compared with the other Lower Hunter LGAs.
Indeed, a peculiarity of the Lower Hunter's growth is the big Y running out of Newcastle with one arm heading north and the other west up the New England Highway. Up each arm a developer's bull dozer confronts few obstructions as it roars through the green lights of rate-hungry councils.
In this growth belt the median age of residents at the last census was well below the Australian median of 38 years. Metford, for example, has a median age of 33, Thornton is 35 and Chisholm 31. In the newest sub-divisions, the median age is astonishingly youth-like. Gillieston Heights' median age is a mere 29 years while Cliftleigh is a crèche-like 24.
But ocean, lake and forested slopes limit greenfields development in Lake Macquarie. Real estate prices lock-out young families, while long-term residents bat on, racking up the years.
Ocean, lake and forested slopes limit greenfields development in Lake Macquarie. Real estate prices lock out young families, while long-term residents bat on.
The census tells the story. The median age is 47 years at Marks Point, almost 10 years higher than the national average. Heading anticlockwise, the median age for Valentine is 45, Eleebana is 44, Marmong Point 45, Bolton Point 43, for Coal Point a whopping 50, and Rathmines 46.
But ageing isn't necessarily a bad thing, according to the Eurostat report. Ageing in Europe is more advanced than Australia where the high intake of young migrants means higher birth rates. Europe's median age is 43 years.
The highest medians are in Italy and Germany at 46 years, with Portugal, Spain, Greece, Serbia and Croatia lagging by only two or three years. High rates of out-migration in the post-war decades in these nations diminished permanently their cohort of young families and children. The exception is the United Kingdom where the median age in 2018 was 40 years, the lower figure a consequence of the popularity of the UK, London especially, as a destination for young workers from across the globe who stay on and start families.
The NSW Intergenerational Report in 2016 predicts the median age of NSW residents will reach 41 in 2056, a couple of years lower than Europe's 2018 median. By 2056, NSW will climb to 11.2 million people, up from 7.6 million in 2016. About half of this growth will come from migration, the other half from natural increase.
Little of this youthful growth seems likely to encroach Lake Macquarie's golden oldie fortress. It's a fair guess that in a couple of decades a kid goofing around the foreshore of the lake will be a kid from Gillieston Heights visiting grandparents.
But, if Europe is a guide, the future looks good. Ageing by definition means people live healthier lives. Over half of Europeans aged 65 years or more rate their health as good or very good, with high engagement rates in sporting, social and cultural activities. Moreover, older people in Europe increasingly own their homes and live comfortably within their means. There is no reason to think ageing in Australia will look too much different.
The looming problem in Australia, however, is the isolation of older people in family homes in suburbs that aren't sympathetic to people without independent mobility. This is where good planning is required.
Lake Macquarie planners need to mix up the housing around the perimeter of the lake in ways that let people grow old in their neighbourhoods while inviting in young families with kids, including those with modest housing budgets.
And then transport services, other than private cars, need to link these neighbourhoods to the wider world.
The alternative - a lake rimmed by grannies and grandpops stranded in big houses they can't maintain - isn't the geographical core of a successful 21st century city.
- Phillip O'Neill is professor of economic geography at Western Sydney University.
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