Who’s the fairest of them all? Or the healthiest? Australian cities ranked

Will the debate about which Australian outperforms all other cities ever cease?

Now, there’s a national cities and regions wellbeing index that measures and ranks 518 local government areas across the nation, perhaps there will be a reprieve because you can check out your area based on what is most important in your hierarchy of goods.

The newly updated online tool from SGS Economics and Planning allows anyone to access information about each local government area’s wellbeing and economic health, with rankings and measurements assigned to how each LGA fares in housing, health, environment, jobs, work/life balance and GDP.

Key results

Unsurprisingly (to locals at least), the full report saw Greater Sydney come out on top of the overall ranking, taking eight spots out of the top 10 highest-performing areas on wellbeing, with Greater Brisbane and ACT next.

Greater Melbourne outperforms the rest of Victoria in all aspects of wellbeing, including the environment.

However, to our surprise, no areas in Victoria reached the top 10 in overall wellbeing.

The overall wellbeing rankings painted a strong picture of the rural-city divide, with remote Northern Territory and Queensland recording the lowest wellbeing levels. Rural LGAs also record the smallest and largest differences in male and female weekly income. The largest gender pay gap was recorded in regional Western Australia, followed by Greater Perth and regional Queensland.

While rental affordability is generally consistent across Queensland, Tasmania and Victoria, other metropolitan areas generally have tougher rental affordability than their regional counterparts.

It’s time for the policy needle to move

SGS Economics and Planning’s national data lead Julian Szafraniec says the organisation funded the creation of the index with the intention of “informing a debate about where investments should go and the choices we all need to make in the future”.

“It is important to note the index is not a scorecard for your local area.”

The public policy advisors said the index will serve as the nation’s only objective wellbeing framework that measures multiple dimensions of wellbeing.

“Traditional measures of growth and success, such as GDP, don’t make sense anymore,” said Szafraniec. “You can have a high-paying job yet can’t afford a home. Business could be booming then be stripped away by a major climate event. We need to focus on measuring what matters.”

He adds that understanding local communities and economies would be a valuable starting point for federal, state, and local strategies that are too focused on “hail-mary solutions”.

Other statistics:

• capital cities generally performed better than the rest of the state, and ACT had the best overall wellbeing
• Greater Sydney performed strongest on income/wealth and health
• Greater Brisbane performed highest on the economy
• Darwin performed well on employment, knowledge & skills, and the environmental dimensions
• both cities and regional counterparts were equally aligned when it came to equality, community work/life balance and gender pay gap/domestic work gap
• the highest performer on the environmental dimension was Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia, and South Australia
• top five performing regions in equality, community and work/life balance were the Yarra region in Victoria, Hobart, Streaky Bay in South Australia, Sydney, and the ACT
• the largest urban-regional divide in wellbeing was evident in gaps in life expectancy, and a greater proportion of regional residents lived with multiple chronic illnesses compared to city residents

The highest and lowest performing cities in each dimension:

Dimensions	Highest Performers	Lowest Performers
Economy	Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Australian Capital Territory Perth	Palm Island Gwydir Yarrabah Torres Strait Island Carrathool
Income & Wealth	Hunters Hill Ku-ring-gai Mosman Woollahra Northern Beaches	Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yunkunytjatjara West Daly Tiwi Islands Central Desert East Arnhem
Employment, Knowledge & Skills	Yarra Vincent Melbourne North Sydney Sydney	Yarrabah West Daly West Arnhem Tiwi Islands Roper Gulf
Housing	Lockhart Bogan Esperance Cobar Bourke	Yarrabah Perth Palm Island Ceduna Walgett
Health	Ku-ring-gai Lane Cove The Hills Willoughby North Sydney	Walgett East Pilbara Coonamble Bourke Derby-West Kimberley
Equality, Community & Work Life Balance	Yarra Hobart Streaky Bay Sydney Australian Capital Territory	Coolgardie Waroona Roxby Downs Mandurah Carrathool
Environment	Mildura West Coast Derwent Valley Mandurah Southern Mallee	Tiwi Islands Darwin Palmerston Port Hedland Litchfield

“The important next step is what policymakers, businesses and communities do with the evidence we’ve uncovered. As a nation, we must use these findings to inform how we prioritise investment, budget for socio-economic outcomes and advance equitable community wellbeing,” said the company’s senior associate, Michelle Tjondro.

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