Workforce by Design: Treating Regional Planning as Labour Market Strategy
What if we stopped planning cities for buildings and started planning them for talent?
Published on 9 September 2025
The Expensive Mistake We Keep Making
Every regional council in Australia has made the same costly error. They zone industrial land, approve housing developments, and build infrastructure—then hope the right workers somehow materialize. When skills shortages inevitably emerge, they wonder why their perfectly planned business parks sit half-empty while employers can't find welders, nurses, or software developers.
This backwards approach costs regional economies billions in lost productivity. But a handful of forward-thinking regions worldwide are flipping the script, designing their physical environments specifically to attract, retain, and develop the workforces their economies need. The results are transforming what regional economic development can achieve.
Why Traditional Planning Fails Modern Workforces
Regional planning emerged from an industrial era when workers followed factories. Zone heavy industry, build worker housing nearby, add schools and shops—the formula was straightforward because work was fixed and workers were interchangeable.
Today's economy inverts every assumption. A biotechnology researcher chooses where to live based on lifestyle, schools, and cultural amenities—then finds or creates work. A skilled tradesperson evaluates housing affordability, career progression opportunities, and whether their partner can find employment. A healthcare worker considers professional development access, childcare availability, and community connectivity.
Yet regional planning still separates "economic development" from "urban planning" as if they're different conversations. Economic development teams chase employers while planners approve subdivisions, neither asking the crucial question: will this create a place where the workers we need actually want to live?
The data reveals the cost of this disconnect. The Regional Australia Institute found that regions with integrated planning approaches see 23% better talent retention than those treating workforce and planning as separate issues. When the City of Greater Bendigo redesigned its planning strategy around healthcare workforce needs, it reversed five years of medical professional shortages within 18 months.
The New Planning Calculus
Workforce-centered planning starts with a different question. Instead of "what businesses do we want to attract?", it asks "what workforce would transform our economy?" The physical planning then follows from that workforce strategy.
Consider Wagga Wagga's approach to becoming a cybersecurity hub. Rather than just building a technology park and hoping, they worked backwards from the workforce profile of cybersecurity professionals. These workers value walkable neighborhoods, third-place social spaces, and strong school STEM programs. The council rezoned its CBD for mixed-use development, converted heritage buildings into co-working spaces, and partnered with Charles Sturt University to create visible tech presence downtown. The cybersecurity workforce grew 400% in three years.
This isn't about picking winners—it's about understanding that different workforces need different environments. Manufacturing technicians prioritize affordable housing near industrial zones with good schools for their families. Creative professionals cluster in areas with cultural amenities, flexible live-work spaces, and vibrant nightlife. Healthcare workers need professional development access, childcare near hospitals, and housing that accommodates shift work patterns.
The Three Pillars of Workforce Planning
Housing as Talent Infrastructure
Housing isn't just shelter—it's the primary factor determining whether workers can afford to accept regional jobs. But most regional housing strategies count bedrooms, not careers. They approve suburban developments that suit retiring city residents but not young professionals. They preserve character restrictions that prevent the apartment living many knowledge workers prefer.
Workforce-centered housing planning matches development to employment strategy. If you're building an innovation economy, you need inner-city apartments where young professionals can walk to work and socialize. If you're developing advanced manufacturing, you need family homes with workshops where technicians can pursue side projects. If you're attracting healthcare workers, you need quality rentals for temporary staff and pathways to ownership for those who stay.
Orange showed how this works, partnering with developers to build specific housing types for Charles Sturt University graduates. By guaranteeing purchase of units that met young professional preferences—central location, modern design, NBN-ready—they created supply that wouldn't have emerged from pure market forces. Graduate retention increased 30%.
Transport as Career Connectivity
Regional transport planning typically focuses on moving people to existing jobs. Workforce-centered planning designs transport to expand career possibilities. This means different infrastructure priorities entirely.
High-frequency transport between regional centers matters more than perfect coverage within them. A professional in Ballarat with 30-minute rail access to Melbourne effectively participates in both job markets. A nurse in Tamworth with reliable air service to Sydney can access specialist training without relocating. These connections transform regional career prospects from limited local options to unlimited networked possibilities.
But it also means rethinking local transport. Knowledge workers who can work anywhere evaluate regions on lifestyle accessibility. Can they bike to work? Walk to coffee meetings? Access airports without driving? Regional centers that prioritize cars-only transport eliminate themselves from consideration by the very workers they most need to attract.
Social Infrastructure as Retention Investment
The infrastructure that retains skilled workers isn't industrial—it's social. Yet regional planning treats community facilities as nice-to-haves, funded after "real" economic infrastructure. This misunderstands what drives workforce decisions.
Childcare isn't a social service—it's economic infrastructure determining whether dual-career families can accept regional positions. Libraries aren't community amenities—they're co-working spaces for remote professionals and study spaces for upskilling workers. Sports facilities aren't recreation—they're the social connection points that prevent professional isolation.
Toowoomba demonstrates integrated social infrastructure planning. They located childcare centers in commercial zones where parents work, not just residential areas where they live. They designed libraries as professional spaces with meeting rooms and video-conferencing facilities. They created sports precincts that combine elite facilities attracting events with community access that builds social capital. Professional retention increased markedly.
The Zoning Revolution
Traditional zoning—rigid separation of residential, commercial, and industrial uses—actively impedes workforce development. Knowledge workers don't want to commute from suburban houses to isolated office parks. Skilled trades need workshop spaces that residential zones prohibit. Healthcare workers pulling irregular shifts need services available outside standard business hours.
Progressive regions are abandoning Euclidean zoning for performance-based approaches. Instead of dictating uses, they specify outcomes—noise levels, traffic generation, environmental impact—and allow any use that meets them. This enables the live-work arrangements modern workforces expect.
The transformation of Launceston's inner north shows the possibility. By replacing prescriptive zoning with performance standards, they enabled old warehouses to become maker spaces where engineers prototype by day and socialize by night. Former shops became live-work studios for designers who want zero commutes. Industrial buildings host breweries that employ chemists and marketers alongside production workers. The area went from decline to Tasmania's fastest-growing innovation precinct.
Implementation Pathways
Start with Skills Audits, Not Land Audits
Traditional planning begins with land capability assessment. Workforce-centered planning starts with skills gap analysis. What capabilities does your economy need? What workers do employers struggle to find? What talents do you lose to other regions? This workforce audit drives all subsequent planning decisions.
Design Precincts as Talent Clusters
Stop planning isolated business parks. Design precincts that cluster complementary workforces. Healthcare precincts that combine hospitals, research facilities, and medical technology companies create career ecosystems that attract and retain health professionals. Advanced manufacturing precincts that integrate TAFE facilities, apprentice housing, and maker spaces build skilled trades pipelines.
Create Living Labs for Workforce Experimentation
Designate areas for planning experimentation—places where you can test flexible zoning, innovative housing models, or new transport approaches. Mount Gambier's Green Triangle Innovation District suspended traditional planning rules in a defined area, allowing market testing of what knowledge workers actually want versus what planners assume they need.
Measure What Matters
Stop measuring planning success by development applications approved or infrastructure dollars spent. Measure workforce outcomes: professional retention rates, skills gap closure, career progression possibilities, dual-career household satisfaction. These metrics reveal whether planning serves economic strategy or undermines it.
The Competitive Advantage
Regions that integrate workforce planning into physical planning gain compound advantages. They spend less on workforce attraction because their built environment does the recruiting. They achieve better infrastructure ROI because they build what workers actually use. They create innovation ecosystems because complementary talents cluster naturally.
Most importantly, they become antifragile. When industries change—and they always do—regions with strong workforce planning adapt quickly. Their skilled workers pivot to new sectors. Their flexible planning accommodates new uses. Their social infrastructure maintains community cohesion through transition.
The Opposition You'll Face
Established interests will resist workforce-centered planning. Property developers profit from greenfield subdivisions, not complex urban regeneration. Existing residents fear change, particularly higher-density housing. Traditional planners struggle with outcome-based rather than prescriptive approaches.
But the cost of inaction is higher. Every skilled worker who rejects regional opportunities due to housing unavailability, every professional who leaves due to limited career options, every young family that chooses elsewhere due to lacking amenities—these are economic development failures that better planning could prevent.
The Future Is Already Here
Some regions already prove workforce-centered planning works. Geelong's transformation from manufacturing to knowledge economy succeeded because they redesigned their waterfront for knowledge workers, not tourists. Townsville's emergence as a defence technology hub happened because they planned specifically for defence workforce needs, not generic industrial development.
The tools exist. Digital twins allow testing planning scenarios for workforce impact. Real-time mobility data reveals how workers actually use cities versus how planners think they do. Social media analytics identify what attracts or repels professional talent.
The question isn't whether to adopt workforce-centered planning but how quickly regions can transform their approaches. Every month of delay means lost talent to regions that understand planning is economic strategy, not just land use management.
The Call to Action
Regional leaders face a choice. Continue traditional planning that separates physical development from workforce strategy, then wonder why skills shortages persist despite beautiful business parks. Or recognize that in the modern economy, workforce is destiny, and plan accordingly.
This requires courage—to challenge established interests, to experiment with unconventional approaches, to measure success differently. But regions that make workforce the center of planning decisions won't just fill skills gaps. They'll create places where talent wants to be, economies that adapt naturally, and communities that thrive sustainably.
The industrial age is over. The age of talent has begun. It's time regional planning caught up.