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The town of Wangaratta,about 250 kilometres north of Melbourne,illustrates how important manufacturing was for many regional centres. Despite its relatively small population (now about 30,000) Wangaratta was a major producer of IBM personal computers during the 1980s and 1990s. It exported computer equipment worth $200 million in 1993.
But like factories in many regional towns,the Wangaratta IBM plant has disappeared.
Economist Terry Rawnsley,who researches the performance of Australia's regional economies,says three decades of"economic evolution"has created far more fragmentation.
Big cities have become hubs for high-value,knowledge-intensive services such as finance,professional services,IT,communications,education and research.
"Now when you look at the economic structure of big cities they're radically different to the regions,"says Rawnsley.
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Meanwhile,resource-rich regions have been reshaped by Asia's booming demand for minerals and others have emerged as centres for tourism and education.
But overall,growth in regional Australia has lagged that in the capital cities for more than a decade.
One telling illustration of this more fragmented landscape is the economic gulf which has opened between Australia's two biggest cities and the rest of their respective states.
Sydney's economic output per person was a record $31,300 more than in the rest of NSW last financial year. Melbourne's output per person was $22,000 more than the rest of Victoria – also a record and double the difference in 1990.
Like many big globally connected cities,Sydney and Melbourne have performed strongly in recent years amid robust population growth.
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Urban researchers have found complex,high-value economic activities are becoming more and more concentrated in large urban centres and that suggests inequality between big cities and other regions is set to grow.
Author and urban theorist Richard Florida has dubbed this"winner-take-all urbanism"– where a small group of elite districts forge ahead,while most others struggle or fall behind.
Rawnsley says the way Australia's various regions now perform from year to year is quite varied and"that means they are exposed to different one-off shocks and different long-term trends."
The coronavirus pandemic is one of those shocks.
Major industries in Melbourne and Sydney have been among the earliest casualties,including international education,international tourism,aviation,events management and arts and recreation services.
"In the short-term it is Sydney,Melbourne and to some extent Brisbane that will feel this first because they are more globally connected and the structure of their service sectors will be affected,"says Rawnsley.
That might reduce the economic gap between the big cities and their hinterlands,at least temporarily.
Elements of the federal government's economic stimulus measures may also favour regional areas,particularly special payments to those on welfare.
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"There are a lot of cheques going to pensioners and Newstart recipients and they are over-represented in regional areas,"says Rawnsley.
But the scale of the disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak means the economic damage will eventually become very widespread.
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While cities were hard hit at first,they are likely to recover more quickly than smaller regional towns. Big urban populations can be expected to quickly fire up demand once the coronavirus emergency passes,especially near major employment hubs.
Rawnsley warns:"Firms that close down in less populated regional towns will take longer to spring back."
Australia's more complex regional picture will make crafting nationwide policies to assist with recovery following the downturn more difficult.
The economic gap between city and country is already one Australia's most disruptive political fault lines.
And the coronavirus emergency threatens to add to those tensions.