FACTBase Bulletin 14 - Australian Smart Cities: A Preliminary Assessment

This paper offers a simple analysis of how human capital, measured in this case as formal university level qualifications and enrollments, varies across Australia's major cities.

Key Findings

• Human capital in Australia can be measured by the number of people with Bachelor’s degrees or higher.
• In Australia there has been a view that human capital is a likely contributor to innovation, competitiveness and growth.
• In Australia between 1996 and 2006, the total number of people with Bachelor’s degrees or higher increased from 1.45 million to 2.48 million, a rise of 71.1 percent.
• The strongest growth nationally was recorded in Brisbane (85.7 percent) followed by Perth (74.2 percent).
• One of the characteristics of many of the most successful cities is the presence of major learning and research institutions thereby contributing to the human capital.