Locational Disadvantage and Household Locational Decisions: Changing Contexts and Responses in the Cessnock District of New South Wales, Australia, 1964-1999

Following the rapid demise of local coalmining in the 1950s and early 1960s, the former coal towns of the Cessnock area have survived in their newfound dormitory role, with cheap serviced housing acting as a major constraint on out-migration and an incentive for in-migration for low-income householders, mainly engaged in external commuting or outside the workforce. Behavioural responses to widening local job deficits in the early 1960s were reported in this journal (Holmes, 1965). From household surveys and other sources, Holmes examined the interplay between individual, household and locality variables and presented a spectrum of projected future outcomes for localities, according to accessibility, size and service provision, either attached to the Newcastle-Maitland labour market as low-income outer suburbs or experiencing varying rates of decline while providing low-cost welfare housing. While these broad trends have continued over the last 35 years, significant variants, not predictable in 1965 have emerged, notably: the increased residential attractiveness of some small localities; the strengthening of welfare migration, notably from Sydney; the increase in non-workforce households; and, some evidence of emerging socio-economic polarisation in larger towns. In these respects, Cessnock localities can be viewed as a microcosm of wider trends in Australian society, trends which are most fully revealed in disadvantaged metropolitan peripheral localities