Future Gold Coast: Bernard Salt identifies what city needs to transform as population booms

One of the country’s leading demographers has predicted what the Gold Coast will look like — and what it needs to flourish — as the city’s population rushes towards the million mark.

IT’S time for the Gold Coast to acknowledge its heritage and destiny - a lifestyle city developed in the late 20th century in the Miami mould.

It wasn’t developed because Australia needed this city; it was because Australians wanted the lifestyle only this city could provide.

It started as a retirement destination then bolted on the lifestyle thing (canals and whatnot), then came the theme parks, then it added the commuter bit where workers lived where they wanted not where they had to.

And this includes Brisbane commuters and FIFO workers.

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The city is only going to get busier.

What is the next iteration, the next Gold Coast story, to be added to this glittering, golden city? It has all the accoutrement of an international city namely casino, international airport, sporting events with global branding, three universities and even the odd national business HQ.

Just as the Gold Coast that many old-timer locals will recall had to evolve to and beyond the theme parks, today’s Gold Coast must reimagine itself into the future.

The one defining theme has been its extraordinary rate of growth. It hasn’t relented. It hasn’t risen and fallen significantly over the decades. It isn’t something “the government” has had a hand in.

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No, the Coast’s claim to fame is the Australian people (and more) have wanted it to exist and evolve for two, if not for three, generations.

The next iteration for the Gold Coast is for this city to accept its heritage and its destiny.

The Coast should accept it will top the million mark in the late 2030s. What does a golden city, separate in every way from Brisbane, look like?

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Bernard Salt. Picture: supplied.

Here’s what I foresee at one million:

● North-south fixed rail public transport and hubbing around four to five different points like Southport, Surfers Paradise, Robina, Coolangatta. A long thin sausage of a city won’t work; the priority must be to secure the fluidity and the workability of a north-south transportation flow;

● An international airport with direct links to the US, a series of first and second tier Chinese cities, NZ, Singapore and perhaps some cities in India. It may require a new runway and a new and expanded terminal. In an ideal world, this airport would also evolve as a hub for agribusiness product to be jetted into Asian markets;

● A business hub centred on Southport containing innovative start-ups spinning out of the education sector and supported by one of the most dynamic and entrepreneurial local cultures in Australia. To date, Australia’s start-up culture has clustered around hipster hubs of Sydney and Melbourne. When these businesses become successful it’s time for the founding partners to take their enterprise to a lifestyle spot like the Gold Coast;

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Chinese tourists Lin Kung Chen, Linge Chen, Judy Wu and Chungyi Wu sinking XXXX Golds and Bundaberg Rum during their trip to the Gold Coast. Picture: Nigel Hallett

● China tourism will double in a decade and possibly again in the next decade. When Japan topped inflowing visitors to Australia, the Gold Coast responded by showing street names in Surfers Paradise in Japanese. Maybe it’s time to brush up on Mandarin. Maybe schools could support Mandarin as a second language.

● Maybe the Coast should form a Million Club of businesses and individuals focussed on making the Coast’s trajectory towards this milestone a positive experience. Let other cities wallow in congestion and big-city angst as we embrace our can-do heritage of creating an entire city within a generation. To the rest of Australia, indeed world, we the proud and self-confident can-do people of the Gold Coast, are a forward-looking lot intent on creating and shaping our future. This Million Club would benchmark the Coast with other cities, envision the infrastructure and culture needed to enhance our future and look at ways of making it happen.

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The city will soon reach the one million mark. (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)

● Maybe the Bulletin in concert with other media (or maybe not), could initiate a Young Heroes of GC Enterprise program where new businesses, headed by the under-30s are showcased and supported with media profile. Let’s be proud of the next generation in one of the most entrepreneurial can-do cities on the Australian continent.

● Do not think for a minute the Gold Coast, which delivered the best Commonwealth Games ever, is going to accept a back seat in the southeast Queensland 2032 Olympics program. Gold Coasters will want venues, training facilities, high-profile events and more. If SEQ does secure the 2032 Games is not the point. The point is there is reputational capital and funding and attention that accrues to cities in the process of competing for it. My view is even if we fall short on the 2032 bid there’s always 2036. At some point the Games will return and when they do, the Coast must be a player, a provider, a beneficiary, a promoter of these 21st century Australian Games.

The city has everything going for it. Picture: Tim Marsden

In some ways the Gold Coast is the leading edge of the Australian people and not just because it is the exemplar of the sea-change lifestyle. Unlike Canberra, the Coast was created out of nothing but the sweat and energy of entrepreneurial Australians. Let us honour that code, history and can-do attitude by taking control of the future.

The future can be something that happens to us as we go about our business and get on with life. Or we can shape it.

I say, let us shape the future, our future, in this great city so it remains the very best place to live, work, study, create, employ, care and compete in the 2020s and beyond. Go Gold Coast. Go Australia.