City Sizes and Economic Roles: Urban Typologies within the Australian Urban System

The aim of this paper is to investigate the empirical correlations between population distribution, urban economic structure, and spatial relationship to propose a conceptual classification framework for the Australian urban system. This paper sets the pre-COVID-19 benchmark for future research which will investigate the impact of COVID-19 on the economic geography of the Australian urban system. This research confirms that the formation of Australia’s urban structure is informed by a combination of population, economic concentration, specialisation and diversity and geospatial configuration. We propose an urban structure framework characterised by sub-systems and archetypes of cities based on their economic structure. The framework consists of standalone regional centres and cities which form a networked megaregion. Additionally, we propose five archetypes of cities based on their functional roles. The Australian urban system presents a unique hybrid economic geography where its structure of networked megaregions of cities and standalone regional centres each with its complementary functional roles, presents itself an interesting case study to inform population policies for other geographies.