Follow the improving NBN.
Imagine.
Imagine you are on your veranda. You look up for a moment and stare across an open paddock. You sip your tea. The sun is shining; the birds are singing and there’s a hint of a warm breeze. You’ve just finished a leisurely lunch made from fresh ingredients you bought this morning. There’s no noise, no traffic, and no hustle and bustle. Just peace.
You look down at your laptop and go back to work.
You’re nearly done.
This is not a new idea. Swapping city life for one in the country is everyone’s pipe dream.
But for most, it’s just a dream.
“I’d love it but my home is here, not in the country”
“I’d love it but my job is here not in the country”
“I’d love it but…, you know I’d love it.
However, despite the misgivings about a country life – distance, isolation, work - thousands have already taken the plunge. A tree-change revolution is taking place all around us right now.
It’s true to say that living among majestic gumtrees, within earshot of birdsong, where you CAN see the stars, the air is fresh and the traffic is negligible has always been one of those things on everyone’s bucket list. People think about it all the time. It is for them secret, unspoken desire.
But most Aussies live in a big city. We live mostly down the east coast, between the big three - Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne. The cities are where the work is, where the best schools are and where most of us grew up. Australia’s big cities are some of the largest and most sophisticated in the world.
And yet we are always looking over our shoulders to the green fields beyond.
“And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond’rous glory of the everlasting stars…”
Banjo Paterson’s poem ‘Clancy of the Overflow’ is an extraordinary ballad. Even back then, over 100 years ago, the romance of the bush was an infectious idea.
“As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover’s life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know...”
Paterson paints a romantic idea that has captivated the Australian public for over 100 years. We are, in reality, largely prisoners of our huge urban sprawl but for most of us, the idea that we would up stumps romance of life in the country is an alluring pale light that has never faded.
Banjo believed that we should never doubt the power of magnificent space, of silence sometimes punctuated by distant bird call, of small communities unhurried in their embrace of common sense and places where ambition isn’t a measured by the wealth you accumulate but by the resilience of the relationships built around you.
As we grow older it is family and friends we value more and more. In our biggest cities, in our haste to survive, these relationships are often the ones that suffer.
Banjo again.
And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.
However, things are on the cusp of being forever upended. Australia is experiencing a rapid change in how we work and where we live.
Nothing, as they say, stays the same forever.
Not many are talking about how these changes will affect our lives. How much life may be turned completely upside down.
Many people may go from being very rich to very poor. Some may profit from the change.
But many will not.
It all comes down to this
None of us like change. If the rate of change is fast, then it’s bad. In fact, it’s worse than bad. It could be catastrophic.
But it happens all the time.
So, what are we talking about?
It is likely, over the next decade that the parts of Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane may be abandoned.
Property owners and developers in these cities will lose – big time. Buildings will empty as the occupants move away. Business will suffer, government services will relocate.
The center of our cities may become ghost towns.
Why? Because the world is now digital. You don’t need to go to work every day, just to work.
This is because our telecommunications links are faster, the technology is better and computers are lightning fast
So, if you use a computer every day you are a digital worker. Which means you can work from anywhere you want.
Cities are traffic, pollution, and stupid rent. Cities are noise, stress and insane pressure. Why should you put up with that?
As it happens you, your loved ones and the people around you won’t. At least not for very much longer.
Working from home is an increasing reality. Businesses are falling in love with paying less rent, paying less for power, less for desks, phones, pens, and pencils.
And as time goes on businesses may increasingly ask their staff to work from home.
Imagine that. You work from your home traveling to the old workplace maybe once a week.
Why do you need to live in a big city? Why wouldn’t you live in the country?
In the country, it’s quieter, there’s no traffic and people are in less of a hurry. Most importantly, you and your family are safer. And possibly much richer.
In rural areas property is cheap. You can buy more for less. The average price difference for a property in the country compared to the inner city is in the hundreds of thousands.
Most towns have all the services people need. Schools, medical centres, major shopping centres, and the trades. Electricians, plumbers, builders, and mechanics. And when you make an appointment with a tradie they turn up, on time.
In a small country town, everyone gets to know you. And you get to know them.
Meanwhile, back in the city, as the exodus continues there are deserted offices, derelict shops and the high-rise residential buildings become increasingly empty.
City dwellers are grumpy, angry and possibly unemployed.
The owners of the big buildings are crying, getting poorer and poorer every day. Watching the value of their investments plummet.
Urban house prices may take a big hit. Even outer suburban property prices would probably stagnate. People who had borrowed heavily against the value of their home would be very unhappy.
And then Ladies and Gentlemen: WE ARE OFF TO THE RACES!
In the city of Detroit, a combination of technological change, the flight of businesses and civil unrest has resulted in a 61% reduction in population. From a high of 1.8 million people in 1990 less than 700,000 live there now. Parts of Detroit have been razed to the ground, entire districts have disappeared. A new term, the ‘urban prairie’, has emerged to describe the empty spaces previously occupied by neighborhoods.
Many in Detroit sold their properties and moved away. It created a tidal wave of people unloading their homes and prices fell very rapidly. Today you can buy a house in Detroit for less than $1000.
Forty-two cities in the United States are in decline. A similar number in Canada. The idea that cities will just continue to grow is proving to be wrong.
Surely this can’t happen here? Why would it?
In the past, it was the major factories which made the cities bigger. The factories attracted the workers and the workers attracted the trades. The trades and the workers attracted the shops. And then came the banks, railroads, schools and so on. ‘Abracadabra’ - we have our big cities.
But the factories have moved away. Labour is cheaper overseas and Australia doesn’t protect manufacturing or workers anymore. Look to what happened to Australia’s car makers.
Where will those workers go? Will they stay in the city? Or go to a rural area where the air is clean, there’s no traffic and a lot more space?
Where they can, in the words of Darryl Kerrigan ‘feel the serenity’.
Think hard about this. You know it’s true.
The current (wishful) thinking is that the ‘services sector’ (financial, educational, transport) will keep everyone in the city. And attract even more people to the city.
But that’s rubbish.
Digital workers can be digital anywhere.
Australia’s investment in the NBN means that nearly everyone will have access to a fast internet connection. Optic fibre, fixed wireless, and satellites are all being used to cover the country.
Most of Australia’s rural areas are covered by fixed wireless. Next time you are in the country look around. You’ll see the towers everywhere.
The network is still not complete, but it’s getting close.
At the moment speeds of up to 1gig per second are possible.
But here’s the exciting thing.
New wireless technology will boost these speeds to a reliable 10gig per second. And in order to achieve this the NBN doesn’t need to make a new network or replace a tower. All they need to do is take out the old box and put in a new one.
10 gig per second is enough for even the most demanding digital worker.
This upgrade is on the horizon. Telecommunication companies are testing the technology now. Once it’s proven the installation will be rapid.
So, let’s add it up.
Why move away from the city to the country?
In the country, there’s good internet, cheap property, nicer people, less traffic, clean air, space, all the services.
…wow.
In the city, there’s traffic, pollution, noise, stress AND the chance your urban real estate investments may become worthless. In the not too distant future.
No competition.
Ok, that’s it get out of my way - I’m movin’.
Now, there’s every chance I could also be wrong. But in my life, (and I’m no spring chicken) I have lived in the suburbs of a big city, in the inner part of a very big city and now I live in the country.
I have pursued huge career goals, been paid a small fortune for my time and been in charge of lots of people. At the time, none of this was possible if I lived outside of the city.
But now, all I need is an employer with vision, a good internet connection and a computer.
Plus, I can tell you from experience that living fulltime in the city, in the pollution and the noise and the traffic is for the birds.
So, when my friends say to me, perhaps casually over a cup of tea.
Why do you live all the way out there?
Well, in the words of a famous Australian songwriter..
I tell them right away.
Give me a home (and some work) amongst the gumtrees.
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