It singled out the contrast between two Melbourne suburbs for special mention – the households in the well-to-do suburb of Toorak earn almost nine times more,on average,than households in the suburb of Broadmeadows about 20 kilometres to the north west.
In all the Australian cities in the OECD study the average income in the highest paid neighbourhood was always more than five times the lowest paid. It identified only three other countries with such a high ratio – Mexico,Japan and France.
The divergent patterns of urban advantage and disadvantage go much deeper than just income.
A Macquarie Universitystudy published in November found NAPLAN results have become more"geographically polarised"within Australian cities.
Most schools in Melbourne’s outer north west and outer southeast had below average NAPLAN scores but schools in the city’s inner and eastern suburbs were mostly above average.
In Sydney most schools in the city’s west and south west had below average scores but schools in the northern and eastern suburbs were almost all above average.
The study’s leader author,Crichton Smith,said"you can literally draw a line"between schools with above-average results in Sydney’s north and east and below-average results in the west and south west.
Virtually no schools in any Australian city’s advantaged suburbs were below the national average,and almost no schools in disadvantaged areas were above average.
Worse still,the educational disparity across cities has been growing –"the location-based divide has increased"since NAPLAN testing was introduced in 2008,the researchers found.
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Health problems such as obesity are also unevenly distributed across our cities. Sydney’s lowest obesity rates,for instance,are in Ku-ring-gai and Willoughby both council areas with very high average incomes.
But last year’s Domain Healthy Melbournestudy showed suburbs with the lowest health rank were clustered in relatively low-income districts on the city’s outer fringe.
Longevity also varies greatly depending on postcode.
Sydney’s northern suburbs region enjoys the longest life expectancy at birth in Australia at nearly 87 years. That’s almost five years longer than in the district of Blacktown in the city’s west. Life expectancy at birth in Melbourne’s affluent inner-east is three-and-a-half years longer than in the city’s outer southeast.
The contrasts in longevity are even starker at the suburb level.
Analysis by the Public Health Information Development Unit at Torrens University shows the median age of death between 2010 and 2014 at Mount Druitt in Sydney’s west was 68 years. That’s 19 years lower than in the Northern Beaches neighbourhood of Narrabeen-Cromer (87 years).
In the suburb of Craigieburn on Melbourne’s northern fringe the median age of death of 68 years was 18 years lower than the inner-east neighbourhood of Kew (86 years).
The disparities in income,education and health outcomes across our cities are not just unfair. They impose a significant cost.
The economy suffers when workers are unable to access good employment opportunities,affordable housing and public transport.
Studies in the United States show it is becoming increasingly difficult for those born in disadvantaged urban areas to ever move out.
A growing gap between haves and have-nots is not inevitable in Melbourne and Sydney.
But combating the extremes of income,education and health in major metros is a pressing policy challenge.
Left unchecked,inequality and spatial segregation will threaten the stability and vitality of our cities.
Matt Wade is a senior writer.