Article: Growth pains on the city's fringe

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From the Melbourne Age click here!

Growth pains on the city's fringe


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Growth pains on the city's fringe

Date August 1, 2012 Tim Colebatch

MELBOURNE'S outer suburban fringe is growing at its fastest pace in decades, adding almost 1000 people a week, as greater Melbourne is swelling with almost a quarter of Australia's population growth.

New estimates by the Bureau of Statistics report that, in the past decade, the five areas experiencing the biggest growth in Australia were all outer suburbs of Melbourne.

South Morang grew from a fringe of 6667 people in 2001 to a large suburb of 38,895 by 2011. In one decade, it added the entire populations of Carlton, Fitzroy and Collingwood.

Point Cook was a close second; it began the decade with 2092 people and ended with 33,393, almost as many as South Yarra and Toorak combined. In the west, Caroline Springs added 21,400 people. In the south-west, Tarneit grew from 1427 to 22,473, while in the north, Craigieburn and Mickleham together doubled from 16,647 people to 35,807.
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All told, the bureau estimates greater Melbourne grew by a massive 647,164 people in a decade, its population rising 18.6 per cent to 4.17 million in mid-2011.

In the sheer scale of growth, no other Australian city came close. Sydney grew by 477,645 people or 11.6 per cent to just over 4.6 million.

If both cities continued growing at this pace, Melbourne would overtake Sydney by 2028 to reclaim the title of Australia's biggest city - for the first time since 1901.

Perth and Brisbane both grew faster than Melbourne - Perth growing by 26 per cent to 1.83 million, and Brisbane by 25 per cent to 2.15 million.

The bureau has revised its figures after the census found its estimate of Australia's population was roughly 300,000 too high.

The rapid growth of foreign students coming to Australia to study, interstate and overseas tourists, and service industries more broadly, has been the key to Melbourne's rapid growth. The bureau estimates 60 per cent of the state's population growth came from overseas migration, and just 40 per cent from natural increase.

No other city since the 1960s has experienced growth on this scale, or the strain it has placed on services: from public transport to hospitals, electricity and road space. Those growth strains are widely seen as a key reason for the unexpected defeat of the Brumby government in 2010.

While most foreign students settle in the city and inner suburbs, the city's population growth has been overwhelmingly on the outer fringe. The census found three rings: rapid population growth in the inner suburbs, modest growth (or even decline) in the middle and outer-middle suburbs, and booming growth on the urban fringe.

The 11 innermost councils - Melbourne, Maribyrnong, Moonee Valley, Moreland, Darebin, Yarra, Boroondara, Stonnington, Glen Eira, Port Phillip and Bayside - added 167,500 people over the decade.

Seven outer fringe councils - Wyndham (Werribee), Melton, Brimbank, Hume (Craigieburn), Whittlesea, Casey (Berwick/Cranbourne), and Cardinia (Pakenham) - added almost 350,000 people between them.

There was less growth in the middle. The population in Keilor, Wantirna, Endeavour Hills and Frankston shrank.

Regional Victoria saw rapid growth around Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo and in towns along the coast or the Murray River. The Barwon region added 29,285 people, more than 5000 of them in Torquay alone. But that growth was offset by widespread population losses inland, especially in an arc from the Western District through the Wimmera and Mallee to the irrigation areas in northern Victoria.

More than 1000 people left rural areas around Mildura. Almost 1200, or one in six of the population, departed from around Kerang. More than 3000 left the Wimmera.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/growth-pains-on-the-citys-fringe-20120731-23d73.html

[ozbob]

From the Melbourne Age click here!

Northern growth corridor residents driven to despair

Northern growth corridor residents driven to despair

Date August 1, 2012
Adam Carey

THIS week a group of residents of Melbourne's booming northern growth corridor began a sort of game on Facebook, comparing how long they spent on the road that day driving to and from work.

They also recorded the route they took, an exercise that had a distinct sameness to it. South Morang only has one north-south arterial road, and it has become increasingly choked as the suburb's population grew by 32,000 in the 10 years to 2011, making it Australia's fastest growing suburb.

For much of its length, Plenty Road has only one lane in each direction. A 2.4-kilometre stretch is being duplicated in response to the intense traffic growth, which leapt from 10,000 vehicles each weekday in 2008 to more than 17,000 last year, according to VicRoads.

But for now, the roadworks are only making the peak-hour commute even more arduous and some in the Facebook group reported that it took more than half an hour to traverse just one suburb.

Veteran Whittlesea city councillor Rex Griffin said the local roads were failing, and with tens of thousands of homes expected to be built in neighbouring Doreen and Mernda in the next 10 to 15 years, the area was in danger of traffic meltdown without major investment.

''The roads aren't working and people are in a situation where they're trying to use public transport, but they've got to try to get to public transport,'' he  said.

South Morang has Melbourne's newest railway station, which opened to much fanfare in April.

However, Cr Griffin said the station was not actually in South Morang, but just across the suburban border in Mill Park. Its 450-space car park is full by 7.30am each weekday.

Last week, the Labor-dominated Whittlesea city council that governs Melbourne's northern growth corridor voted unanimously to pressure the state government to extend the South Morang line to Mernda. Neither the government nor the opposition has a policy to extend the line.

Mernda local Lyndon Summers, who is part of the Facebook campaign with a page ''Extend the line to Mernda'' boasting more than 1000 ''likes'', said the area remained under-serviced. ''It takes me 45 minutes to drive to South Morang station from Mernda if I leave after 7am. If you're going to build housing estates, you need to have public transport. Even if you're not going to build something straight away, you need to think about the future,'' he said.

One last thing about the Facebook campaign. It was kickstarted by a group member who posted an old rail map of Melbourne when the line extended as far as Whittlesea. Back then, the train from Flinders Street station to Mernda took about 70 minutes. Yesterday one group member posted that a similar journey by car had taken him 90 minutes.

With GEORGIA WILKINS

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/northern-growth-corridor-residents-driven-to-despair-20120731-23d76.html