The CBD and the suburbs

For decades the prosperity and wellbeing of our suburbs was sustained by great postwar investments in social and physical infrastructure – much of this to support the burgeoning defence, white-goods and automotive industries in the suburbs. These industries fuelled the growth of other sectors, creating complex webs of interlinked firms that we call industry networks and clusters today. There is a view prevailing in some policy and academic circles today that the CBD is the motor force of the modern economy and that much industrial development in suburban Australia cannot be sustained in the face of globalisation.