Water is probably one of the key ways in which government subsidises centralisation. It has taken an approach that the most absurd communist beureacracy would be proud of - rationing. The government does not just tell people how much water they are allowed to use, they also dictate how they should use it and the specific times when they are to use it. So you end up with homeowners spending half an hour carting a few cents worth of water round the yard in buckets. This costs productivity. Many of those homeowers end up spending hunreds or thousands of dollars on chiropractors - carrying a heavy, sloshing, difficult wieght off to one side is about the worst thing you can do to your back. Chiropractors in the major cities have never been so busy. It has gotten to the absurd stage where the various governments are paying huge sums of money for water tanks for capital city residents (but not in rural areas) even though the water from these tanks costs more and is far less clean and useful than desalinated water. The residents of rural communities end up paying part of the cost so that city residents can tip very expensive water onto the ground.

Meanwhile factories and farmers also only pay a few cents for the same amount of water, so they end up treating it like it is only worth a few cents - with predictable consequences. If they had to carry it in in buckets they would use far less, but the business community reacts far more quickly against communist style idiocy.

The obvious solution is to charge more for water (and reduce other taxes). Sure, homeowners are not going to change their habits overnight if it only costs them a few cents to water the garden. But businesses will. Most will simply adapt and spend what is necessary to be more efficient with water. The benefit for homeowners is that they can then use more efficient drip irrigation systems to water their garden, and they won't have to carry buckets of water round like a medieval villager.

Some businesses will not adapt because they can't find a way around the water problem. They will eventually relocate to areas with plenty of water and not many people. People will follow the jobs and the net result will be a population that is less concentrated in a few major capitals and their immediate surrounds. Local councils have made it their priority to avoid any business going bankrupt, no matter how water hungry it is. Surely in a time of water insecurity it would make sense to let those businesses that must consume the most water go bankrupt (or at least move out of town), rather than those small businesses who can't afford to deal with all the water bureaucracy. Carry buckets of water is not the only bad idea councils have had - there are plenty of forms for small businesses to fill out also, and plenty of mandated solutions that must be implimented regardless of their economic merit.

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Public service jobs moving to Ipswich

http://news.smh.com.au/public-service-jobs-moving-to-ipswich/20080303-1wiu.html

More than 1,200 Queensland public servants will be relocated to Ipswich, west of Brisbane, under state government plans to revitalise the regional centre.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has announced a multi-pronged approach to redevelop the city's declining CBD.

The plan centres around the development of a transport hub to replace existing infrastructure and the relocation of state government jobs to the city.

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Half of Humanity Will Live in Cities by Year's End

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/03/080313-cities.html?source=cmailer

Humans are about to become a majority urban species for the first time. Does this trend mean poverty or prosperity for the world's urban dwellers?

A UN forecast released last week reports that half of all humans will live in urban areas by the end of the year—and 70 percent by 2050—even though cities occupy only about 3 percent of Earth's land surface.