A century of cities: The rise and fall of Australia’s top 20 cities from 1954 to 2054

A revealing look at the rise and fall of Australia’s top 20 cities from 1954 to 2054.

Sometimes in property and in business it’s necessary to take a long view. Look back, learn the lessons of the past and then look to the future.

Come with me on the journey through time. Back to the 1950s, then forward to today and then forward again to 2054. Here is a century during which the Australian nation transitioned from a colonial outpost to cosmopolitan global community.

The vehicle for this swashbuckling journey isn’t a time machine but a list of figures: Australia’s largest 20 cities at each point in time. How these cities rise and fall tell a powerful story about our nation. It reveals the lifestyle preferences of the Australian people and the drivers of demand for residential, commercial and industrial property.

I have assembled a best-estimate list of Australia’s 20 largest cities (as defined) in 1954, in 2021 and as projected in 2054. While the definition of cities changes over time, I have accepted the contemporary view of each city in each year.

The estimates for 1954 and for 2021 are sourced from the ABS and similar and comprise greater metropolitan areas for capital cities as well as Statistical Urban Areas for other cities. The projections to 2054 are sourced from ABS (medium series) official projections for the capitals and from state-based projections for other cities.

Let’s zip back in time to the mid-1950s.

Colonial Australia’s biggest cities, 1954

Here is a time when Sir Robert Menzies was prime minister, when returning diggers married their sweethearts, and when the baby boom was in full swing. The biggest city on the Australian continent was the behemoth Sydney with almost two million residents (see graphic 1).

 

Sydney overtook Melbourne as Australia’s largest city soon after federation. The reason, I think, was that Sydney commanded a bigger hinterland comprising a large chunk of the eastern seaboard.

Melbourne followed then Brisbane (minus Ipswich which was considered a separate city), Adelaide which was then a burgeoning manufacturing hub and Perth. At federation Ballarat was bigger than the West’s capital.

By the mid-1950s Perth’s boom still lay decades into the future and would follow resource discoveries in the Pilbara and on the Northwest Shelf.

The second tier of Australian cities comprised manufacturing (and entrepot shipping) hubs at Newcastle, Wollongong and Geelong. As Australian manufacturing struggled later in the century (due to reduced tariffs) these communities would, for a time, struggle.

The Queen with Sir Robert Menzies and chancellor of the Australian National University Sir John Cockcroft.

Also in the top 20 were cities triggered into life by gold rushes; this included cities like Bendigo, Ballarat and even Kalgoorlie. Indeed Kalgoorlie was this nation’s 20th largest city in 1954.

Broken Hill too was founded on an ore discovery (silver) but its contribution to Australian prosperity goes beyond mere mining. The largest mining company in the world, BHP, was founded in Broken Hill in 1885. The company moved to Melbourne during the Marvellous Melbourne era and from there it has taken on the world.

Just two years into the reign of Queen Elizabeth II two-thirds of Australians lived in 20 cities.

The rise of global Australia’s cities, 2021

Fast forward 67 years from 1954 to 2021 and the Australian population has almost trebled due to large scale migration and a relatively high birth-rate reflecting young people’s confidence in Australia’s future.

Both Sydney and Melbourne surge past five million. Indeed Melbourne begins to close the gap on Sydney. Brisbane absorbs Ipswich. And south of Brisbane a strange new force coagulates a series of coastal villages into an Australian conurbation known as the Gold Coast.

That force was lifestyle as well as retirement and also the idea of intercity commuting. The property and infrastructure industry responded with high rise, with canal estates, with new suburbs, with airports, shopping centres and other amenities.

By this time in history Broken Hill subsides. The Blue Mountains is swept up into the greater metropolitan area of Sydney. Agricultural service cities like Launceston and Toowoomba though growing are outpaced by faster growing cities like the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast and Cairns. Also still growing is Rockhampton but not fast enough to hold its position in the top 20 altogether.

 

The Australian urban system of 2021 is driven by different geopolitical, demographic and lifestyle megatrends that weren’t evident in 1954. No amount of future thinking could have conceived of what was to unfold and especially since 1990.

Indeed globalisation was all the go. By 2005 US journalist Thomas Friedman encapsulated this bold new trend in his book The World Is Flat. Australia could sell its coal, iron ore, gas and later education and tourism services to a wider world. Australians were no longer tied to agriculture as the basis to our prosperity. We found new markets, new resources, new ways of selling our expertise. We could lift our prosperity to a level that was disproportionate to our ability to consume what we produced.

The Gold Coast skyline. Picture: @vlad_sherman_photography

City jobs flourished. Knowledge workers materialised to drive the new businesses. Lifestyle cities, like the Gold Coast, surged. As did copycat cities (and smaller coastal towns) across Australia. These new lifestyle, sea-change and treechange, and now work-from-home communities thrive within drivable distances of every capital: Victor Harbour outside Adelaide, Mandurah near (and now part of) Perth, Surf Coast outside Melbourne.

And what’s good for the coast south of Brisbane is good for the northside too. Neither the Gold Coast nor the Sunshine Coast existed in 1954. They do so today for they reflect, and they service, the Australian penchant for seaside lifestyle living. We Australians don’t have Miami; we have a belief system based around the sea-change and treechange.

Future Australian cities, 2054

And now we come to the fun part. What will the 20 largest cities in Australia look like in 2054? The ABS only provides estimates (based on assumptions) for capital cities.

State governments provide projections as a municipal level which don’t always extend to the mid-2050s. I have had to make a few judgment calls. And I’ve had to run these calculations for 30 cities in order to produce the top 20.

Over the 33 years to 2054 the Australian population is expected to rise to 38 million which is a net extra 12 million on today’s figure (see graphic 3). Most, say seven million, is expected to derive from overseas. When viewed from this altitude the pandemic’s two-year border closure presents as a little more than a rounding error.

 

By mid-century Melbourne is expected to regain the title it lost at federation as Australia’s largest city. The reason, I think, is that Melbourne offers more people better access to more affordable housing. Plus, in the post-Covid era manufacturing is likely to return “home” to places offering greater depth in technical manufacturing skills: cities like Melbourne, Geelong, Adelaide and regional centres like Ballarat and Bendigo.

The standout figures in the mid-century assessment of the Australian urban system is the net extra three million added to Sydney and Melbourne prompting large-scale planning and investment in infrastructure. Australia must evolve world’s best practice in city planning, in infrastructure delivery, in creating affordable and adaptable housing, in building entrepreneurial skills in property and finance. With these skills we retain control over our own destiny.

The surprise by mid-century is the rise of the resources city of Mackay and of Albury, a lifestyle treechange work-from-home city positioned centrally within the Melbourne-Sydney-Canberra nexus and with university, manufacturing, administration and military diversity.

Conclusion

So what are the lessons? Good prospects: Australia is a good prospect for property and other investment in the 21st century as long as we retain military support from the US. There is scope to develop locally based industries and businesses, and we remain an immigrant nation.

Global events: The drivers of city growth are often triggered by global events (eg conflict driving immigration), local policy settings (eg immigration), the development of new markets (eg recent trade deal with India), the tapping of new resources (eg solar, lithium, agribusiness) and Australian ingenuity and enterprise to deliver products to market (eg FIFO enabled the last resources boom).

Expect change: No single industry can support the continued rise of a city over the course of a century. There might be golden years – such as the 1950s for wool or 1960s for manufacturing – but eventually more powerful forces from beyond the region prevail and change the business landscape.

Develop agility: Australian cities in the top 20 and beyond, cannot plan for every future iteration. Instead, such communities can future proof their communities by cultivating entrepreneurship (eg support local business), by skilling local workers (eg invest in training centres), by creating a culture of resilience (eg build pathways to business development), by strengthening local communities (eg celebrate young entrepreneurs).

Sometimes in property and in business it’s necessary to take a long view. Look back, learn the lessons of the past and then look to the future. Whichever way this exercise is conducted I keep coming back to the logic that Australia is growing, we need accommodation, property and infrastructure and all attendant services are therefore good businesses to be in throughout the 2020s and beyond.

Bernard Salt is executive director of The Demographics Group; research and data by data scientist Hari Hara Priya Kannan