Over the past two decades, Australian urban economies have been dramatically transformed by, and associated with, digital technologies. The development of digital information and communication technologies such as Wi-Fi, Internet, and high speed broadband are, inter alia, altering the nature of work and rendering more flexible where work occurs. New digital technology firms such as Facebook or Google, digital hardware firms including Apple and Microsoft, and e-commerce firms such as Amazon have grown in economic significance with a concomitant influence on urban space. Alongside these large corporations are a multitude of small firms, often led by individual entrepreneurs, producing goods and services such as applications for producers and consumers in the digital economy. Digital economies are most often, but not always, geographically concentrated in urban centres characterized by high levels of unaffordable rental housing.

The negative impact of innovation districts on housing affordability is widely recognised. Prosperous technology based innovation districts such as Silicon Valley (US) or high-tech clusters near downtown cores are markedly linked to a rise in dwelling prices and rental costs (Katz and Wagner 2014). In attracting knowledge and creative workers, and the services they desire, these linked-in districts are gentrified further as they become even more attractive to well-paid workers. In this respect, innovation districts are known to reduce housing affordability and displace many lower-income earners and long-term residents. If workers – particularly fledgling entrepreneurs – in innovation sectors are unable to secure housing in, or within easy reach of, such innovation districts they are less likely to seek employment there; this deterrent, in turn, reduces the economic competitiveness of said districts (Moonen and Clark 2017).