Central Highlands vs Southern Midlands

Central Highlands (Tas.) and Southern Midlands are both large, rural Tasmanian areas, but they differ sharply in how people get around. Southern Midlands is far more walkable, with 23.9% of homes in a 15-minute-city walkshed compared to just 9.2% in Central Highlands (Tas.). This is seen in daily essentials: 29.4% of Southern Midlands homes are within a 10-minute walk of public transport, while no homes in Central Highlands (Tas.) have this access. Southern Midlands also has far more homes within a 15-minute walk of schools (25.3% versus 6.0%) and parks (40.5% versus 20.4%).

The gap in walkability has widened over time, with Southern Midlands scoring well higher than Central Highlands (Tas.) even though both are described as car-dependent. They do share some common traits, such as having the same mean terrain slope of 9.5% and a typical age of 24 for First Nations residents. In Southern Midlands, First Nations household incomes are about the same as the national figure, whereas they are well below that figure in Central Highlands (Tas.).