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Experimental Urban Centres and Localities and Remoteness Areas
Further information about the methods and criteria will be provided in the experimental release which will include:
These experimental UCL and Remoteness Area boundaries will not be an official part of ASGS Ed. 3 and will be released at a later date in a separate publication clearly marked as experimental to differentiate them from the official areas. Through this experimental release, the ABS will provide users and stakeholders a chance to evaluate the utility of the new methods and criteria prior to potential implementation in ASGS Ed. 4, scheduled for release in 2026. The ABS also wishes to minimise confusion to users and stakeholders by clearly labeling this release as experimental. The reasons for releasing the experimental boundaries in addition to official boundaries are:
Consultation on Experimental Urban Centres and Localities and Remoteness Areas During consultation in 2019, test Urban Centre and Locality (UCL) boundaries for a subset of Australia were provided to users for evaluation. Most users were supportive of the proposed changes, however a number of potential issues were raised. These included concerns about:
Although the change in criteria will result in a change in time series, UCLs by definition are a dynamic geography, designed to accurately reflect the extent of urban areas in Australia. ABS data will be available to users at the UCL level regardless of the building blocks from which they are aggregated.
Some stakeholders queried the process for determining a Rural Residential population density criteria of 25 persons per sqkm. A range of methods using cadastre (land parcel) size, address point density and population density were tested. On balance, a threshold of 25 persons per sqkm was found to most consistently differentiate rural residential areas from other regions with distinct rural or urban characteristics. Investigation has also been undertaken regarding the concerns over having discontiguous UCLs. One key concern was the potential impact of these on Remoteness Areas. The ABS conducted a test revision of Remoteness Areas for part of Australia in collaboration with the Hugo Centre for Population and Housing. There were a small number of changes in Remoteness Area boundaries resulting from changes to UCLs, however these were not widespread. The ABS was also able to determine that the current criteria for Remoteness Areas is still meaningful, regardless of changes to the UCL criteria. Experimental Remoteness Areas will be included in the experimental release to ensure that users have a clear idea of how Remoteness Areas will be affected. Following the experimental release, the ABS will conduct further consultation with stakeholders to decide whether the alternative methods and criteria should be adopted for ASGS Ed. 4 in 2026.
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