Five million now call Melbourne home — so how have we changed since 1986?
MELBOURNE’S population passed three million in 1986, a time of Crocodile Dundee and a skyline packed with cranes in a frenzy of construction. How has our city changed to welcome another two million people?
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MELBOURNE passes a historic milestone this week, with the city’s population tipped to tick over five million for the first time.
The city passed the three million mark in 1986 — a time of Crocodile Dundee, John Farnham and a CBD skyline with dozens of cranes engaged in a frenzy of construction.
How has Melbourne changed over three decades to accommodate an extra two million people, and what changes are to come as Melbourne overtakes Sydney in a few years to become Australia’s most populous city?
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Ashley Fell, from social research firm McCrindle, says the face of Melbourne has altered markedly since 1986, but that it is better placed than Sydney to cope as both cities surge towards populations of eight million by around 2050.
She says Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show Melbourne’s population was 4.85 million in June this year.
If the growth rate of 2.65 per cent has been maintained since then, she says Melbourne should hit five million people today.
“Sydney reached a population of four million in 1999, and it took Melbourne another eight more years to reach that milestone. It’s been two years since Sydney hit five million, and now Melbourne has hit five million,” Ms Fell says.
“Now, Sydney and Melbourne are both predicted to reach six million in 2025, and from then on, Melbourne is going to win the race, so with each million people it’s taking Melbourne less time to catch up to Sydney and it will be Australia’s most populous city from 2025.”
While the population of both cities is growing, Sydney’s growth rate is slower because it is losing people to interstate migration, while an estimated 1500 people a week are moving to Melbourne and other parts of Victoria.
Why is Melbourne growing so fast?
Ms Fell says while Sydney’s spread is hemmed in by the Sydney Basin, which is surrounded by rugged mountains and rocky hills and gorges, Melbourne has fewer physical boundaries to growth.
She says Melbourne has a more extensive urban sprawl as housing estates and new suburbs march across the plains to our north, west and southeast.
The City of Casey is Victoria’s most populous council, with 327,000 residents last year.
The Melbourne CBD’s once dead heart after hours is now full of life, with high-rise apartments housing tens of thousands of people there, north of the Hoddle Grid and through Southbank and Docklands.
Stands of residential towers are also dotted in the suburbs, and since the 1990s there’s been a push for in-fill development in spaces between urban areas, and a redevelopment of older housing stock on large blocks in outer suburbs for multi-unit dwellings.
“If you look at Greater Melbourne, one-in-three dwellings is a townhouse or apartment — 31.5 per cent. That’s higher than the national average of 25.8 per cent, but if you look at Sydney, it’s got 43 per cent living in apartments or townhouses,” Ms Fell says.
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Denser high-rise and townhouse developments are growing along public transport corridors, she says, creating lifestyle or “walkable” communities with their own distinct characters and features, Ms Fell says.
But in Victoria, changes to Melbourne’s residential lifestyle are having another effect.
“Melbourne has less of a proportion of the population living in medium- and high-density housing, and there’s a bit more of an urban sprawl happening, but some of the regional cities are copping some of the overflow,” she says.
“Australia’s fastest growing city after Melbourne is Geelong, and other regional cities like Ballarat, Bendigo and Albury-Wodonga are seeing a faster rate of growth than the national average.”
Our roads, public transport are actually pretty good
Governments in Victoria have done a better job than their northern neighbours to prepare roads, public transport and services to cope with future demand, Ms Fell says.
“Melbourne seems more equipped than Sydney does to handle that population growth,” she says.
“Sydney is playing catch-up at the moment with regards to light rail, where Melbourne has got fantastic trams in the inner city.
“What the data is showing with the growth in regional areas is that the population is dispersing and, while a lot of Melburnians might disagree, the infrastructure is in place to cope with that dispersed population. Victoria has done that really well.”
In the future, governments and planners must work to ensure that decentralisation continues, Ms Fell says, with migrants contributing to 62 per cent of Australia’s population growth and 87 per cent of migrants settling in the capitals.
“Everyone is moving to the capitals. That’s where the employment is. That makes sense, but if we can redistribute the population to regional areas that are looking for that growth, it will ease the growing pains we are feeling particularly in Sydney and Melbourne,” Ms Fell says.
“Two-in-five Australians live in either Sydney or Melbourne, and we have the land mass to accommodate this kind of population growth, but we are so concentrated in our capital cities.”
Despite seven straight years as the world’s most liveable city and its drop to second place recently, Ms Fell said Melbourne is still experiencing growing pains.
“Melbourne is being recognised internationally for its liveability but housing is expensive in Melbourne. It’s a little bit cheaper than Sydney, and the culture and the cafes that the city offers are real drawcards, but it is still quite difficult for younger people.
“Again, compared to Sydney, it seems Melbourne has the infrastructure to accommodate a bigger population, but there are increased waiting times for essential services like hospitals and schools.”
What do we need to do to keep up?
Ms Fell says the ABS estimated in 1998 that Australia would hit 25 million by the middle of this century, but we hit that milestone 32 years early this month.
While she says she’s “comforted” by Victoria’s efforts on infrastructure in recent years, she argues that governments must keep ploughing money into infrastructure invention to get ahead of the population estimates for Melbourne and Sydney.
“Melbourne is on a trajectory to six million people by 2025 and eight million in the middle of this century. We need to consider what we’ve learned over the past few decades and plan for this population growth that we are going to see in Greater Melbourne,” she says.
“We need to look at our shortcomings from past population projections and accommodate those lessons as we head towards these global cities of eight million people, which is the size of London right now, by the middle of the century.”
HOW MELBOURNE HAS CHANGED
Major developments since 1986 include:
•Massive low-density housing developments across the west, north and south-east of Melbourne.
•Urban sprawl has extended to include Geelong, Drouin and Warragul
•Major population growth in regional centres including Ballarat, Bendigo and Albury-Wodonga.
•New suburbs including Docklands, Southbank, Caroline Springs. Delahey, Taylors Hill, Sandhurst (near Cranbourne) and Laurimar (near Doreen).
•Under the Napthine government, Melbourne’s urban growth boundary was extended to include areas like Diggers Rest, Wallan and Beveridge.
•Planning changes since the 1990s have allowed large-scale in-fill development in urban areas and the redevelopment of large suburban blocks for dual occupancy and unit development, putting pressure on local infrastructure.
•The creation of Southbank. In 1986, the south bank of the Yarra was a largely derelict industrial area but by the late-1980s underwent a vast redevelopment that continued into the 1990s and included the vast Crown Entertainment Complex, opened in 1997.
•The creation of Docklands. The Docklands Authority, aimed at redeveloping the industrial port area, was set up by the Cain government in 1991 but was moved forward in the Kennett era and developed as a residential and business hub.
•Major high-rise apartment developments in the CBD, which continues at pace in the northwest of the CBD and to the north of the Hoddle Grid.
•High-rise residential living is now a key feature in suburban centres such as Box Hill, Doncaster and Port Melbourne, and along transport spines such as High Street through Northcote and Preston.
•The development in the 1990s of a new football stadium at Docklands and the demolition of AFL Park.
•MCG redevelopment with the Great Southern Stand (opened 1992) and reconstruction of the Ponsford, Olympic and Members’ stands (opened 2005.
•Federation Square, opened 2002.
•Demolition of Spencer Street station, replaced by Southern Cross station in 2006.
•Major redevelopments of the Austin/Mercy, Royal Women’s, Royal Melbourne, Box Hill and Alfred hospitals, along with the Monash Medical Centre and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and the construction of the Northern Hospital.
•The closure of the Preston and Northcote Community Hospital and Prince Henry’s Hospital.
•Re-development of the old Queen Victoria Hospital into the QV office and retail centre.
•The Melbourne Central development, including an office tower and shopping centre, which opened in 1991.
•Relocation of the Melbourne Museum from the State Library Building to Carlton under the Bracks government, along with expansion of the library.
MAJOR TRANSPORT DEVELOPMENTS
•The extension of electrified suburban rail lines to Cranbourne, Sunbury, Craigieburn and Mernda.
•The closure of rail lines to Port Melbourne and St Kilda and conversion to light rail lines.
•Extension of tram lines to Mill Park, Wantirna and Box Hill.
•The closure of country services during the Kennett years including from Ballarat to Maryborough and Mildura, from Dandenong to Wonthaggi, from Sale to Bairnsdale and from Ballarat to Horsham.
•The reinstatement of lines to Maryborough, Bairnsdale and Ararat by the Bracks government, but it failed to fulfil promises to return rail to Mildura and Wonthaggi.
•Re-construction of major regional lines and the introduction of V/Locity trains under the Bracks and Brumby governments.
•The connection of the Mulgrave and South Eastern freeways with the failed South Eastern Arterial under the Cain government in 1988, with the road upgraded to freeway standard under the Kennett government in the 1990 and later renamed the Monash Freeway.
•The extension of the Monash/Princes Freeway, which provides continuous duplicated highway almost to Sale.
•The Regional Rail Project, providing better access to Melbourne for suburban and regional trains from the north and west.
•The Princes Freeway widening between Melbourne and Geelong.
•Improvements to freeway standard out to Bendigo, Ballarat and the Latrobe Valley and the completion of the Hume Freeway to the NSW border in 1992.
•The M80 Ring Road project, connecting Greensborough and Laverton North, which opened progressively between 1992 and 1999 and is subject to ongoing widening.
•The Craigieburn Bypass connecting the Hume Freeway and the M80.
•The ongoing M1 widening project along the Monash and West Gate Freeways
•The extension of the Eastern Freeway from Doncaster Road to Springvale Road in 1997.
•The opening of CityLink, widening the Tullamarine Freeway with the West Gate and then-South Eastern Freeway with overpasses and tunnels in October 1998.
•The opening of the EastLink toll road, linking the Eastern Freeway at Mitcham with the Frankston Freeway and Peninsula Link, in 2008.
•Metro Tunnel rail construction underway.
•Major extensions of terminals, runways and road infrastructure in and around Melbourne Airport.
•The selection of Avalon as Melbourne’s second airport.
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