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Article: Beyond lucky.(Beyond lucky)(AUstralia's economy)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- May 7, 2005
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The economy has a lot more going for it than mineral resources
MOST people know three things about Australia, and all of them are wrong. They think it is vast, remote and lucky--as in "the lucky country", meaning blessed with natural resources and therefore in fact "unlucky", because resources diminish the incentive to specialise in less capricious sources of wealth.
But Australia's true strengths are quite the opposite. It is in fact a highly urbanised and even compact country, with over half of its population living in just five cities, and almost 85% living in towns. It may be impossibly remote from Europe, but it is well connected to Asia. With ...