Australian Planner

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Activating smart work hubs for urban

revitalisation: evidence and implications of digital
urbanism for planning and policy from South-East
Queensland

Bronwyn Buksh & Clare M. Mouat

To cite this article: Bronwyn Buksh & Clare M. Mouat (2015) Activating smart work hubs for urban
revitalisation: evidence and implications of digital urbanism for planning and policy from South-East
Queensland, Australian Planner, 52:1, 16-26, DOI: 10.1080/07293682.2015.1019751

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Published online: 20 Mar 2015.

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Australian Planner, 2015
Vol. 52, No. 1, 16–26, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07293682.2015.1019751

Activating smart work hubs for urban revitalisation: evidence and implications of digital urbanism
for planning and policy from South-East Queensland
Bronwyn Buksha* and Clare M. Mouatb
a
Research and Project Coordinator Regional Development Australia – Sunshine Coast, Moreton Bay, Gold Coast, Logan/
Redland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia; bSchool of Earth and Environment, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA,
Australia

(Received 20 December 2014; accepted 9 January 2015)

Digital urbanism recasts suburban and regional geographies within national and global urban systems by
transforming communities and workplaces. This paper explores the planning and policy implications of
activating smart work hubs across South-East Queensland during 2012–2014. It demonstrates key evidence of
the nature, approach and priorities of smart work hub projects previously untested in Australia and pioneered by
Regional Development Australia. The paper reorientates attention to the networked interplay of agglomeration,
collaborative consumption and coworking towards urban revitalisation challenges for suburban and regional
development that strengthen local communities: specifically potential demand assessment; commuter and
knowledge worker patterns; and assessing public–private benefits of smart work hubs. Importantly the paper
concludes with critical factors needed to advance research and the extensive engagement undertaken into wider
and sustainable practice. By outlining a research agenda and practical implications, the empirical insights will
find traction within and beyond Australia.
Keywords: smart work hubs; digital urbanism; regional development; agglomeration; collaborative
consumption; spatial planning

Introduction: rethinking digital urbanism in smaller
urban centres
Digital urbanism recasts urban and regional geo-
graphies within national and global urban systems by
transforming communities and workplaces. The
paper examines the contemporary planning and
policy geographies attending rapidly evolving digital
urbanism within the Australian urban system. Else-
where innovative studies have reoriented attention to
shifting geographies within the national urban system
by attending to the spatial organisation and loca-
tional dynamics of corporate headquarters (Tonts
and Taylor 2010, 2011). Yet (after Bell and Jayne
2009, 683, 2006; Budge 2011) the paper argues
that preoccupation with the powerful global city
geographies of central business districts and capital
cities means the inadequate attention given to ‘smal-
ler urban centres has profound consequences for
urban studies’ and practice. Specifically, locational
dynamics of suburban and regional centres as hubs
and networks within urban capitalist systems offer
rich empirical and research insights that champion
‘the necessity of developing sophisticated and
nuanced comparative approaches to understanding
the complexity of cities and urban life’ (Bell and
Jayne 2009, 683).
Clearly, as this paper will show, the Regional
Development Australia (RDA 2013) Digital Hub
Project (hereafter the DWHub Project) actively
embraces this complexity. ‘Digital work hubs are a
regional network of highly-curated collaborative
workspaces that co-locate a number of activities
including coworking (freelancers, entrepreneurs,
start-ups), and telework (public and private sector
professionals) into vibrant urban agglomerations/
clusters’ (RDA 2013, 3). Each hub generates and
capitalises on locational dynamics of sustainable
prosperity suitable for smaller centres as discrete

*Corresponding author. Email: bronbuksh@gmail.com

# 2015 Taylor & Francis


and networked hubs. Capitalising on digital urban-
ism, the DWHub Project encompasses ‘[t]he chal-
lenges of mobility and borders … [that] require
planners to think of new ways [and scales] of
approaching regional development and policy’
(Dufty-Jones and Wray 2013, 109) to shape and be
shaped by smaller urban areas. Materially, then, this
paper takes ‘[a] new perspective on an old debate
between mixed-use small towns vs. mono-functional
suburbia’ and goes beyond exploring behavioural
characteristics, impediments and governance of
digital urbanism expressed in life/work styles (Aliza-
deh and Sipe 2013; Alizadeh 2012a, 2012b).
Expressly, this paper marks and bridges a neglected
area in planning for digital urbanism in smaller
urban centres.
Smaller urban centres face paradoxical tensions
of competition and collaboration. Locally the para-
dox plays out in issues of equity, governance and
spatial planning against institutional context of
fraught and disconnected State and Federal policy
responses and infrastructure investment such as
national broadband networks (Alizadeh et al. 2014)
via public agencies constrained by neoliberal thinking
(Beer et al. 2005; Dollery et al. 2011).
One core tension arises when smaller urban
centres can invest in digital technology clusters to
defeat the tyranny of distance and scale (thereby
building capacities to operate competitively and offer
sustainable investment and employment) yet these
clusters also require a framework for effective policy
and workplace models (to leverage entrepreneurship,
align employment with workforce, and strengthen
communities and networks). Specifically, how and
why the DWHub Project confronts this paradox in
smaller urban centres and offers such a foundational
activation framework underpins this paper.
In sum, the paper orientates attention to activating
and spreading the smart work hub agenda. This
involves gauging the emerging locational dynamics,
recognising the extensive evidence-gathering and
engagement undertaken, and lessons relating to calib-
rating the planning and policy implications of the
DWHub Project across South-East Queensland
(SEQ) during 2012–2014.1 To this end, first, the paper
briefly defines and outlines the evolving smart work
concept and desirable strategic planning imperative
that emphasises collaborative consumption opportun-
ities unique to SEQ and more widely as ‘smart work
hubs’2 across Australia. Via the DWHub project:
[c]ollaborative consumption is a new economic
model that uses network technologies to transform
business, consumerism and the way in which [com-
munities and residents] live and work. It is based on
Australian Planner 17
a shift in consumer values from ownership to access
to products and services. (RDA 2013, 1).
Second, the paper presents select empirical insights
from the research specifically assessing hub demand
and capacity, exploring knowledge-intensive worker
patterns, and public and private benefits of smart
work hubs such as workforce participation and
health. Particular attention is given to the interplay
of agglomeration, collaborative consumption and
coworking with the aims of addressing the neglected
revitalisation challenges for (sub)urban and regional
development. Importantly, the paper concludes with
key components needed to move the research and
extensive engagement undertaken into practice and
local resolution.
Smart work hubs in Australia: The SEQ Digital Work
Hub Project
This section will outline select empirical insights and
showcase the DWHub Project: the nature, aim; the
case study area and core statistics (Figure 1); and the
international genesis of smart work hubs. During
November 2012–December 2014, using local govern-
ment areas (LGAs) within the wider study area, the
DWHub Project was jointly developed under the
auspices of five RDA regions within SEQ: Sunshine
Coast, Moreton Bay, Brisbane, Logan/Redland and
Gold Coast.3 The public sector project aim was to
provide a regional focus on growing area of research
in Australia in order to stimulate both public and
private sector support and investment. The RDA
(2013) report presents an activation framework pre-
viously untested in Australia. Addressing a broad
range of elements, evidence and trends from interna-
tional best practice (Amsterdam) to a regional focus,
the report defines and synthesises pivotal compo-
nents to make up a successful business model in a
regional context, and takes an integrated lifecourse
approach to employment and education.
Smart work centres (SWCs) have emerged in
Europe at the overlap between corporate telework-
ing4 arrangements from home and shared coworking5
facilities for creative and independent entrepreneurs
(CUD 2012). The SWCs ‘centres and systems’ model
began five years ago in Amsterdam with seven
centres and has expanded rapidly to 120 by 2011
(Cisco Systems Inc. 2011). SWC success is intrinsic-
ally linked to Amsterdam’s Connected and Sustain-
able Work policy framework, which aims to reduce
travel time, carbon emissions, make the city greener
and improve community lifestyle and well-being.
This flexible working programme with multiple
applications addresses a wider work, social and
18 B. Buksh and C.M. Mouat

Figure 1. The digital work hub study area.

Source: RDA 2013, 2.

Figure 2. Cisco SWCs benefits to stakeholders.
Source: After Cisco Systems Inc. 2011 in RDA 2013, 11.
economic ecosystem (as seen in Figure 2). Govern-
ance, culture and incentives have been the main
success elements (CUD 2012). SWCs are managed
by a private sector model, and backed by local and
state government.
Therein the agency and currency of post-industrial
digital urbanism are transformed as the costs and
benefits of agglomeration are networked on a wider
and faster scale. Global megatrends predict that power
will shift from the institution to the individual, and as
ideas move between people via large data and global
networks, insight and relational dynamics become
the post-industrial currency (contra conventional
economies of time and scale). Further, addressing
city and regional urban divergence challenges, col-
laborative workspaces will provide the catalyst for
attractive diverse, vibrant work precincts based on
co-location, adjacency and community (Deliotte &
AMP Capital 2013).
The DWHub Project (RDA 2013) concluded that
when combined with lifestyle choices of knowledge
workers, co-location of businesses in regional smart
work hubs will contribute significantly to regional
agglomeration strategies aimed at reducing the eco-
nomic divide between global/capital cities and both
suburban and regional centres. Smart work hubs via
an Active Work Model and local capacity building
strategies can be part of a new urban policy frame-
work to revitalise urban and peri urban areas. The
Active Work Model encourages people to choose
their work locations dividing their working week
between a central office base, a smart work hub and
home (RDA 2013). Also building local knowledge-
intensive industries would help to address disruption
Australian Planner 19
by developing knowledge and skills, foster entrepren-
eurship and investment for start-ups. Integration of
knowledge workers into a connected urban agglom-
eration improves not only the economic base but also
the health and well-being of communities (Kelly
et al. 2012).
One caution about this progressive agenda concerns
the optimism that small urban centres ‘will become
an economic, cultural and social hub in [their] own
right – a global city – but will still be the place people
recognise’ (Newman et al. 2012). Further, technological
approaches to suburban regional development can
emphasise a functional instrumental rationality. Local
activation must address such trade-offs through
engagement. Accordingly, the relational foundations
of the DWHub Project’s collaborative consumption
approach emphasise a cultural and policy dimension
that is organic as well economic and ergonomic.
In line with the key mandate of RDA, an
important component of the project was to develop
knowledge sharing and partnerships (via forums and
consultation) as well as to make the research pub-
lically available to enable smart work hubs across
South-East Queensland. Three specific data sets were
commissioned in the form of two reports and once
econometric model and was analysed as part of a
wider literature review and hands-on knowledge
gathered from operators, private and public organi-
sations and local forums throughout the project.
A series of information graphics and maps were
created for this analysis for wider communication
purposes. A selection of key evidence of the spatial
nature, collaborative approach and emerging priorit-
ies of the pioneering DWHub Project follows.
20 B. Buksh and C.M. Mouat
Key preliminaries: demand assessment and vital
statistics for smart work hubs
Assessing demand for smart work hubs was a key
preliminary6 that required commissioning extensive
data collection supporting the DWHub Project. The
capacity to gather vital statistics on population,
employment and commuting helps establish conser-
vative baseline data for smart work hubs (refer Table 1)
and concept testing to generate a bespoke activation
framework based on emerging best practice. For
example, the RDA (2013) concluded that the total
number of workers from all study regions who
commuted to Brisbane metro each day for their main
location of work was 190,842 and further broken down
into public and private sector workers (RDA 2013,
p16). Unsurprisingly Figure 3 shows Brisbane attract-
ing large numbers and range of inward daily commut-
ing workers in a trend that is likely to continue.
Approximately half of the commuters from each
region travelling to Brisbane work in the inner city
area. Significantly the research shows workers com-
mute significant distances are more often crossing
LGA borders. This raises familiar planning concerns
such as transport, housing affordability and oil vul-
nerability towards climate-just urban management
(Gleeson and Steele 2010).
When integrated with employment and dwelling
density, transport greatly influences the quality and
economic vitality of a region (Mees 2010; Mees and
Dobson 2011; Kelly et al. 2012; Kelly and Mares
2013; Stevens and Buksh 2012). SEQ, expected to
remain one of the fastest growing Australian regions,
currently lacks quality, networked and accessible
public transport in many regional areas outside the
inner Brisbane metro (Mees and Dobson 2011)
despite transport improvements in select areas (Aus-
tralian Government 2013b; SGS Economics and
Planning 2013). Encouragingly, the 2013 State of
the Regions report highlighted government invest-
ment in transport infrastructure as a key mechanism
to build the Australian economy and its regions
(National Economics 2013). Increasing residential
Table 1. DWHubs potential demand and capacities (after RDA 2013).
Potential Potential local
Region commuter demand business demand
Gold Coast 2467 12,041
Sunshine Coast 837 6817
Moreton Bay 8160 3384
Redland 3016 1405
Logan 4459 1909
densities and centralising employment in urban
centres (contra greenfield development) are bolstered
by improved active transport and public transport
mode share but hindered by longer average commute
times (SGS Economics and Planning 2013). If SEQ
centres (excluding Brisbane CBD) accommodated
10% more highly skilled jobs growth, an extra $3
billion of benefit would be generated plus ongoing
benefit of $1.6 billion per annum (SGS Economics
and Planning 2013).
Demand assessment is broader than this brief
outline. Obviously, activating smart work hubs offers
collaborative synergies and targeted application over
conventional aspirational plans and practices.
Although not a panacea, regional smart work hubs’
offer significant opportunities to improve local trans-
port infrastructure – diffusing commuting burden
and productivity opportunities, for example – and
promoting coordinated policy action over a wide
political and geographical scale in keeping with wider
regional prosperity goals.
Planning for shifting geographies of knowledge-
intensive clusters
Smart work hubs trigger richer knowledge about how
people work, move and live in and between city,
urban and regional centres. Establishing where
knowledge workers live and work within the SEQ
study area enables deeper and tailored strategic
monitoring and planning for demographic changes,
education and skill provision, community resilience
and well-being. This is increasingly important across
the SEQ region, which is predicted to reach 4.6
million residents by 2031 (Australian Government
2013b). SEQ offers prime mechanisms to address
Australia’s comparative lag in infrastructure and
telework. The RDA (2013) reports on National and
SEQ trials and policy including Queensland Digital –
Draft Queensland Digital Strategy (Australian Gov-
ernment 2013a, Queensland Govt. 2013).
Smart work hubs require clusters of skilled and
knowledge workers. Subsequent uneven and shifting
Total Early Number of hubs
combined adopters per region
14,508 589 6 hubs
7654 379 EQUALS 4 hubs
11,544 712 DEMAND 12 hubs
4421 857 FOR 5 hubs
6368 1670 7 hubs
 Australian Planner 21

Figure 3. Regional Commuter flows SEQ.

Source: RDA (2013, 14).
22 B. Buksh and C.M. Mouat
geographies are currently sorting regions into ‘brain
hubs’ of employment and ‘brain drains’ from com-
munities where knowledge workers live. ‘Graduate
thick’ clustering in urban locations with highly
educated workers and innovative, high value-added
enterprises are diverging structurally, economically
and culturally from regional ‘graduate thin’ locations
with fewer opportunities for all (RDA 2013). For the
surrounding regions of Brisbane, skilled workers
have been identified as the strongest labour demand
into the future and currently over 190,000 people
commute each day to outside their region for their
main job (RDA 2013, 20–22 for detail).
The socio-economic consequences of whom and
how workers commute literally hits home and chal-
lenges prosperity of urban centres. Most of the
knowledge-intensive activities are found in Austra-
lia’s major cities and to a lesser extent in other
regional employment centres (Kelly and Mares 2013).
Subsequently, high-value knowledge jobs clustered in
cities force up housing prices within 15 km of the
workplace. Concurrently, affordable housing stock is
developing in the outer suburban and peri-urban
regions, which does not necessarily result in afford-
able living and can entrench low-income households.
Smart work hubs can bring jobs closer to people,
bring people closer to jobs (even digitally) and
stimulate improved networks and transport links
(after Kelly and Mares 2013, 36).
The relative industry weighting (expressed as a
location quotient) in the National Competitiveness
Matrix below assesses where knowledge workers and
highly skilled workers Live and Work within the
study area (Figure 4). Only Brisbane performs above
the national average for highly skilled workers living
within the region in which they are employed. The
Gold Coast is closest to the national average. As
expected, commuter suburbs of Moreton Bay, Logan
and Redland experience the largest proportionate
loss of skilled workers from their regions. However,
net exits of skilled workers from Ipswich, the Gold
Coast and Sunshine Coast remain significant oppor-
tunity losses. The retention of skilled workers in each
these regions will contribute significantly to their
gross regional product, direct and indirect employ-
ment, innovation and social capital.
Smart work hubs radically transform the employ-
ment environment and policy attention. Research
consistently demonstrates the value of town and
activity centres in the function and productivity of
cities (Trubka 2009; Trubka et al. 2010a, 2010b,
2010c; Daley and Lancy 2011). Yet policy profes-
sionals must address how to increase the spatial
distribution of high-value jobs without lowering
productivity that can occur with decentralisation or
new jobs in one area taking jobs from another
(Australian Government 2013b; Kelly and Mares
2013). Evaluating past Australian efforts at decen-
tralisation initiatives show that performance often
misses targets (Productivity Commission 2012, 86–
87) and the effect on the whole economy is unclear.
In response, the Active Work Model, where commu-
ters work two to three days a week in a smart work
hub, has the potential to ameliorate severe impacts
on commuters’ destinations, and increase knowledge
and information flows, networking across a range of
professional disciplines both public and private sec-
tor. It also serves to increase local jobs, skills and
innovation through face-to-face collaboration. It is
estimated that for each knowledge worker retained in
a community, three to five services jobs are created
(Moretti 2012). Workforce participation of know-
ledge workers is a public policy and investment
strategy that has wider economic and social benefits
across the city fringes and regional centres.
Smart work hub outcomes for public and private
benefit: a healthy living?
The productivity, transport, agglomeration, infra-
structure, participation, density and design argument
concludes with the impact that all of these elements
play on individual and community well-being. Com-
bined they provide an important part of the structure
that enables people to live healthy and fulfilling lives
(University of Melbourne 2012). The benefits of
smart work hubs rest on existing infrastructure,
policy conditions and savvy determination to capita-
lise on them and address prevailing inequities. This
imposes large costs on those residing in outlying
locations: the further away you are from the city the
greater the disadvantage. Currently SEQ centres
accommodate less than 10% of dwellings and less
than 40% of job (SGS Economics and Planning
2012, 2013). Moreover, at present there are only a
few ‘hubs’ operational in SEQ that meet the WHS
standards for the employee commuter population
and building a local coworking community and
anchor tenants is a ground up and resource demand-
ing activity.
Taking an integrated lifecourse approach and a
longer term view, the social and financial equity
arrangement of smart work hubs is a core foundation
to their ongoing sustainability. Social drivers of the
Active Work Model are around social inclusion,
double income families, single-parent participation,
retirees and for people disadvantaged by disability
and carer responsibilities. A major beneficiary of this
emerging flexible work is women with children or
carer responsibilities. It is estimated that if Australian

Figure 4. Location quotients for residence and place of work.
Source: ; RDA 2013.
women did as much paid work as women in Canada,
Australian GDP would be $25 billion higher (Kelly
and Mares 2013). Crucially, an overlooked driver for
many regional communities is the benefit of youth to
be around knowledge-intensive sectors, both in an
aspirational and mentoring capacity and an oppor-
tunity to return or stay within regional areas in their
profession of choice.
Further, the health metric case for liveability has
been undermined by the pattern of low-density
housing, at a distance from jobs and services. This
is evident from the accelerating incidence of diseases
such as obesity and diabetes, and mental health
issues such as stress, anxiety and depression across
Australia (Australian Government 2009). Social
Australian Planner 23
connection is crucial to well-being. Through social
connections we share skills, information and re-
sources and this makes communities more dynamic
and resilient (Kelly et al. 2012). Wise consideration of
how smart work hubs operate as part of a wider
platform to address these public policy challenges is
found in the increased connection opportunities and
reduced travel time and ecological footprints. These
connections provide public and private benefits as
seen in Figure 2 that have transferable benefits to
other (yet-to-be) networked areas within the (inter)
national urban system.
High-level demand figures of smart work
hubs were evidenced for both teleworkers (commu-
ters) and local business (individuals, entrepreneurs,
24 B. Buksh and C.M. Mouat
freelancers) within the study area (RDA 2013). The
concept testing (interviews) of the key potential
target groups provided the calculation for the early
adopter numbers for each region (Table 1). This
equates to total economic gains based on a single 120
member HUB working an average 3.5 days per week
of $19.2 million p.a. into the local economy. This
analysis was based on a $50 per day membership
price. However at a $25 membership fee per day price
point the uptake and overall regional benefits
increased. While the assessment focused on creating
dollar value add based primarily on direct job
creation, the additional health and well-being from
reduce commuter stress, time to exercise and time
available in community contributes further assets
with quantifiable benefits outside the scope of this
work. Importantly benefits are totalled for each of
the study areas using individual measurements of
hours saved commuting, carbon emissions saved, car
accidents saved and additional time in community
gained (RDA 2013, 32–51 for detail).
Curating is a critical and distinctive element of
the smart work hub agenda and creates value by
connecting places activities and people to deliver
strategic results. For entrepreneurs, businesses and
start-ups this includes connecting to a wider ecosys-
tem of accelerators, investor networks and interna-
tional markets (Refer to Biz Dojo 2013 & Hub
Australia 2013 in RDA 2013 8-9).
Succession planning, for example, is a vital
curation because fledgling or small businesses flour-
ish and are replaced by new businesses, and policy
and management champions take their skills into
new opportunities. Hence, the resolve to activate and
disseminate smart work hubs in uniquely Australia
ways appropriate to (sub)urban and regional devel-
opment is our current agenda.
Activation: accelerating the hub development with local
resonance …
The DWHub project (RDA 2013) established a series
of conclusions across urban and workforce planning
and policy platform and significantly the key compo-
nents required for the successful business models –
design, curation and establishing the network. With-
out the high population density that cities enjoy,
suburban and regional smart work hubs will be
dependent on relationship-based networks, anchor
tenants and the provision of high-speed data lin-
kages. This followed with an Activation Plan of nine
key recommendations (RDA 2013, 29) of which the
first and most significant to develop an activation
model at both a local and SEQ scales was to build
cohesive networks, partnerships and knowledge.
Stakeholder and community engagement is
required to achieve the wide policy benefits raised
in this paper. Establishing dynamic cross-sector
relationships that allow problem solvers a platform
to deliver solutions and create networks is crucial.
This will help to create hubs and clusters in their
most advantageous form and in turn have real
impact in local community and wider city/regional
development. Of key value in the SEQ context is to
create commercially viable ventures that can solve
the problem in a way that either engages an existing
business or provides the basis for building a new,
viable business. The aspiration is to solve problems
by creating commercially viable solutions, rather
than accumulating recommendations for others to
do something, particularly government.
A group of 25 leaders and creative thinkers from
across both the private and public sectors in South-
East Queensland, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne
came together in May 2014 to start the dialogue of
how to work together to support establishing a
network of smart work hubs. While still in the
conceptual stage pledges were made that brought
together stakeholders to advocate for, and accelerate,
innovation hubs across city, urban and regional
areas. The aim is to communicate best practice,
facilitate innovation and new enterprises, share
knowledge and resources and to build collaboration
around local projects. Contribution has included
stakeholders from technology system providers,
research institutions, private enterprise, all levels of
government, financial, institutions, venture capital-
ists, coworking and start-up operators.
This paper concludes by briefly raising the three
priority areas developed by this collaboration and as
a call to action.
Priority Area 1 – Demonstrate the investment
opportunity
Develop business models and a pilot programme to
attract investment by funds, venture capitalists,
industry and government.
Priority Area 2 – Connect the network
Embed knowledge and best practice through collab-
oration across all industry sectors.
Priority Area 3 – Develop the systems
Build the benefits of agglomeration that our cities
enjoy across urban and regional areas via centre and
systems approach to smart work hubs.

It is impossible to fairly report on the level of
engagement and curation undertaken within this pro-
ject. This RDA project has stimulated the conversa-
tion – and importantly captured the imagination
across a diverse group of stakeholders due to its
flexible application based on local economy – empow-
ering local communities to solve their own problems
but with wider global connection and resonance. In
sum, making it happen is part of ongoing conversation
and we invite your contribution.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to James Davidson for RDA Digital Work
Hub Report (2013) redaction, editing and production
management.
Funding
This work was funded by the Australian Government
Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development
RDA National Broadband Network (NBN) Readiness
Funding (Round 2). With additional funding and
coordination by RDA Sunshine Coast (lead), Gold Coast,
Logan & Redlands, Moreton Bay and Brisbane.
Notes
1. Fuller details, public sector policy motivations, condi-
tions and tailored locational dynamics were outlined in
a comprehensive report available at www.digitalwor-
khub.com.au.
2. RDA (2013) coined the phrase ‘Digital Work Hub’;
however now the term ‘Smart Work’ is more commonly
used in subsequent RDA documents and across Austra-
lia (such as Wilmot et al. 2014).
3. Commuter data were also collected for Ipswich and
included as a part of the study area.
4. Telework is the practice of working remotely while using
ICT to stay connected to the office.
5. Coworking is where professionals share a workspace
with a focus on building innovation and connection.
6. Similarly, Wilmot et al. (2014) recently undertook a
demand assessment for Sydney.
The underlying research materials for this article
can be accessed at http://www.rdasunshinecoast.org.au/
wp-content/uploads/2013/12/RDA-Digital-Work-Hub-
Project-Final-Report-Dec-2013.pdf RDA 2013 Digital
Work Hubs: An Activation Framework for South
East Queensland.
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