Farewell to the outback: we’re moving to suburbs and the beach: [1 Edition]
Stapleton, John. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 04 July 2001: 6.
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Abstract
[Casey] is quintessential suburbia — quarter-acre blocks, barbecue areas and large shopping centres, amid the undulating green of theDandenong foothills. “This place contains pretty much all the average Australian could want,” Mr Salt said.
The suburb is king in all the following rankings. Third for growth is Liverpool in Sydney’s southwest, with an increase of 6310 or 4.4 per cent. Fourth is southwest Brisbane, which added 6170 people or 2.3 per cent, while fifth is Sydney’s Blacktown, with an increase of 6110 or 2.4 per cent. Four of the top 10 growth areas are in Melbourne, with three each in Sydney and southeast Queensland.
The Big Shift suggests that in terms of demography, Australia may as well be two planets. On the dark side are southern, cold, inland, agricultural, processing-based towns such as South Australia’s Whyalla and Broken Hill in western NSW, which have lost almost a third of their population over the past 24 years.
Full Text
AUSTRALIANS show no sign of abandoning their rush away from the inland and remote towns to live in the suburbs and along thecoast.
The things many people want, such as the beach and a warm climate, have ensured the Gold Coast retains its position as thefastest-growing municipality in the country.
According to demographer Bernard Salt’s latest report, The Big Shift, the Gold Coast grew by 3.4 per cent or 13,252 people in the year to June 2000. In the past 24 years the population has grown by 298,000 or 279 per cent.
No other place comes even close. At the present rate of growth, the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast will become a 200km-long urban mass, with Brisbane in the middle, within 50 years.
Second ranking for demographic growth is the city of Casey on the southeastern edge of Melbourne, which added 7749 people, or 4.6 per cent, in the year to June 2000.
Casey is quintessential suburbia — quarter-acre blocks, barbecue areas and large shopping centres, amid the undulating green of theDandenong foothills. “This place contains pretty much all the average Australian could want,” Mr Salt said.
The suburb is king in all the following rankings. Third for growth is Liverpool in Sydney’s southwest, with an increase of 6310 or 4.4 per cent. Fourth is southwest Brisbane, which added 6170 people or 2.3 per cent, while fifth is Sydney’s Blacktown, with an increase of 6110 or 2.4 per cent. Four of the top 10 growth areas are in Melbourne, with three each in Sydney and southeast Queensland.
The Big Shift suggests that in terms of demography, Australia may as well be two planets. On the dark side are southern, cold, inland, agricultural, processing-based towns such as South Australia’s Whyalla and Broken Hill in western NSW, which have lost almost a third of their population over the past 24 years.
Broken Hill takes the title of the city with the greatest decrease in population, with 505 people, or 2.3 per cent, leaving in the year to June 2000. Whyalla, with a loss of 423 people or 1.8 per cent, is second, never having recovered from the downsizing of its shipbuilding and steel-making operations during the 1980s.
While 19 million Australians live in growing or stable communities, about 120,000 live in areas where people are leaving. Fifty-seven local government areas have recorded a population loss in excess of 24 per cent since 1976, with continued loss in the year to June 2000. Most of these were within or on the edge of the wheatbelt.
While images of declining rural towns tug at the heartstrings of the urban middle class, Mr Salt says we should let go of the outback myths.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t have pumped up population densities in the soldier settlement programs in such a way that, by the second generation, farm units weren’t economically viable,” he said. “Perhaps we should allow these rural areas to settle to a new and lower demographic base.”