The latest State of the Region's report shows Civic needs to grow in order to feel like a city centre, Canberra Business Chamber chief executive officer Robyn Hendry says.
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Ms Hendry said the movement of federal government departments into Civic would be welcome, and while local residents needed services, not all town centres "need to be equal".
The new report, prepared by National Economics, said Canberra's town centres were too close together to be the centres of separate labour markets, but too far apart to act as a satisfactory metropolitan centre.
The report's authors argue this is preventing Canberra from breaking free of its dependence on the federal government and growing a diversified local economy.
But not all local commercial groups agree.
Property fund manager Shane Quinn of local business advocacy organisation, The Woden Group, said he would be very concerned about any attempt to move more employment out of town centres.
"I think you have to be careful seriously sacrificing other town centres at the benefit of just one of the five employment nodes on Canberra. I think you have to have a balanced approach," he said.
He said employment was needed for good local services.
"Loss of employment really affects daytime amenity and vibrancy of the town centre," he said.
Ms Hendry, on the other hand, said the findings meant Canberra needed to focus on growing Civic.
"The city centre is really lacking in commercial vitality," she said.
"Government departments moving into the city would be welcome ... We do recognise that people do need services where they live, but not at the expense of not having a city."
Recent moves by Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce have seen state governments attempt to poach hundreds of Australian Public Service jobs in agricultural research corporations away from Canberra.
Ms Hendry said this made the task even more urgent.
"Debating at length whether a department has to be in one particular town centre or other is probably not the main focus. Our bigger worry would be shuffling them out of Canberra," she said.
The battle over where 5500 Immigration and Customs public servants, who had at one point been tipped to move out of Belconnen, has heated up debate over keeping federal departments in town centres.
Their importance to the centres was made even more plain in private sector research by Urbis in April that found each Commonwealth public servant put more than $10,000 into the town centre where they work, 15 per cent more than the average government worker elsewhere in Australia.
But Ms Hendry said developing Civic was key to Canberra's future.
"We believe certainly it's appropriate to have services out where people live and Canberra's design was based around a model of five town centres but we don't believe those town centres need to be equal," she said.
Canberra's "heart" was at stake, Ms Hendry said.
"Centralising further in the city centre would provide a greater city identity, which would give critical mass one would normally find in the heart of the city," she said.
Ms Henry said this could be through either bringing in government departments or allowing more residential development in Civic. But she said improved public transport was critical to this centralisation.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr rebuffed the report's critique, and said the ACT government is committed to town centres.
"The ACT government will continue to support all of Canberra's town centres by ensuring our employment bases are spread across the city," he said.
He said they were crucial to growth and responsible for avoiding traffic jams.
"I'm sure many Canberrans would agree that we don't want to become a city gridlocked by traffic congestion – which is why it's important that we don't lump all of our services and employment bases in the one area," he said.
