Region. Factors driving quality jobs

The Metropolitan Strategy’s jobs target – 280,000 net additional jobs in Western Sydney by 2031– cannot be achieved without substantial re-engineering of the regional economy. Manufacturing and materials handling sectors are not significant jobs generators and face significant challenges in maintaining current employment bases, with the recession and national measures addressing climate change. Quality jobs will not appear by market forces alone but come with geographical competencies making an area attractive to investors, quality infrastructure building an area’s links and networks, and urban structures that build efficiencies into business and everyday life, according to Professor Bill Randolph, from the UNSW Faculty of the Built Environment and Sharon Fingland, the assistant director, of the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (WSROC) in a meeting with Tom Gellibrand, the new deputy director, planmaking and urban renewal, in the Department of Planning.