Experts believe the major Australian city will struggle to keep up with the massive load of new settlers in the years to come – lowering people’s living standards
A stunning coastal city has been tipped for a massive boom that will eventually make it as big as New York – but it will struggle to meet the mounting demand.
Melbourne, a southern seaside city, is one of Australia’s biggest, with its permanent population of more than five million rivalling the country’s capital, Sydney. That already huge population is set to nearly double in the years to come, officials believe, increasing closer to New York’s more than nine million. But the assessment isn’t a particularly welcome one, as Melbourne is already struggling to cope with “huge challenges” caused by its current load.
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Business leaders and politicians gathered to discuss the city’s growing population at the Melbourne growth symposium, predicting more than nine million people would call the city home by 2050. Bob Birrell, president of the Australian Population Research Institute, said the projections show “huge challenges of population growth”, adding: “They are here with us.”
Melbourne’s population has been increasing at a much more significant rate than many other Australian cities, with data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showing 142,000 people moved there between 2023 to 2024 alone.
The jump, the largest in the entire country, meant that, as of last year, 5,350,705 people now live in Melbourne, just over the number of people – around 5,231,147 – who lived in Sydney in 2021. The exponential increase is set to make Melbourne larger than Sydney by around 2031.
More people living and working in the city will mean increased congestion, new strains on local infrastructure and a decline in liveability, according to Mr Birrell.
Mark Crosby, a Professor of Economics at Monash University, said the projections bode well for Melbourne given the city’s largely poor track record of managing population booms. He told News.com.au: “The population was four million at the 2011 Census and now, depending on the estimate, it’s about 5.2 million to 5.4 million.
“The last million or so people, we’ve really struggled to deliver all the things a city needs.” Dr Birrell said the current pace of growth will mean that people will likely end up priced out of the city, with “no meaningful improvement on the horizon”.
He said: “The building industry can’t provide enough housing, let alone affordable housing. The main driver of demand for housing is immigration. I don’t see any meaningful improvement on the horizon, especially with the extent of population growth that’s projected.
“The only outcome is that home prices remain high and young people continue to be priced out – or they take on enormous mortgages that account for 40 per cent or more of their salaries.”