SYDNEY, May 11 (Xinhua) -- Although the Western Australian city of Perth has made inroads in its pursuit to become a more "livable city," following a downturn in revenue after the state's resources boom, a new report on Friday has revealed there is still a long way to go.
Co-author Dr Jonathan Arundel from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology's Center for Urban Research told Xinhua the definition of liveability should reflect all the things that people need in their daily lives.
"The definition that we have been working with for a number of years is a community that is safe, attractive, socially cohesive, inclusive, it's environmentally sustainable, it has diverse housing, convenient public transport, walking and cycling infrastructure," he said.
"It also includes things like access to employment, education, public open space, health and community services, leisure and cultural opportunities as well."
While the state's housing affordability issues have improved over recent years to see the city become Australia's premier location for first home buyers, unemployment remains a key concern.
Since the 2008-09 mining boom that saw minerals and petroleum exports surge, Western Australia's unemployment rate has soared well about the average for the rest of the country.
Nationally Australia's unemployment rate sits at 5.5 percent, but in Western Australia the figure is 6.9 percent.
As a result, residents in Perth have been forced to travel further for work and according to Arundel, this has had a big impact on liveability.
"The Western Australian Government has a target under their Liveable Neighborhoods Policy which requires 60 percent of Perth residents to have access to public transport," he said.
"So that is 400 meters to a bus stop or 800 meters to a train station, but when we looked at the frequency of public transport and access to a transport service that runs every half hour, only 18 percent of Perth dwellings achieve that."
Because Perth is a very low density city, access to work, services and facilities through public transport is a major challenge.
"Australian cities were built for cars and the way to combat that is to think about building cities for walking, cycling and public transport," Arundel said.
"The way to do that is to increase the density."
"But of course that goes against the long held ideal in Australia of a quarter acre block with a big backyard, but a suburb full of quarter acre blocks doesn't create the density for that walkability."
While some areas of Perth struggle with this issue, developments in newer suburbs did fair much better in the report.
"We actually found that some areas outside of Perth that were designed with this in mind are actually doing quite well and achieving walkability," Arundel said.
