Decentralisation delusion as Melbourne surges towards 9 million

By Leith van Onselen

The Australian last week gave a good summary of the population pressures afflicting Melbourne as the city experiences an unprecedented population boom:

At the Melbourne train station of Williams Landing in the city’s southwest, the flower beds lining the carpark are repeatedly squashed into the dirt. It’s not that people don’t ­appreciate the decoration. But as commuters flock each morning to the station, which is on the major public transport artery linking the west to the CBD, they are forced to park wherever they can as the carpark overflows, spilling on to footpaths and surrounding greenery.

It’s not an uncommon sight for residents of Melbourne’s outer suburbs, where congestion on the city’s freeways and out of reach or inconvenient public transport are causing frustration… Even battling traffic to get to the station can be a nightmare…

As Melbourne works to retain its mantle as the world’s most liveable city, trends such as these show the Victorian capital is grappling with the burden of an unprecedented population boom that has outpaced forecasts and placed a strain on infrastructure…

Livability increases as people’s commute time decreases, according to research released today by PricewaterhouseCoopers for The Australian.

The study found that Melbourne has reached a critical point where a mix of factors is putting upward pressure on travel time. The downsides of this are manifold.

…those who do not travel long hours are likelier to get medical advice, eat fresh fruit and vegetables, spend time with their family or spend money in their local community…

Victoria is in the grips of an economic and population boom no one could have predicted. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show 146,600 people moved to the state last year, the highest growth rate of all states. In the year to June last year, Melbourne grew by 126,175 people, making it the Australian capital with the highest growth rate for the 15th year running. And the ABS predicts that if high ­migration, fertility and life expectancy rates continue, Melbourne will overtake Sydney as the ­nation’s biggest city by 2036 and reach nine million people by 2050.

“Melbourne was designed ­really well for a city of two or three million, with a radial transport network feeding into the CBD, but actually there’s a limit to that ­design,” van Smeerdijk says…

A livability snapshot released last month by the Interface Councils — a group of 10 municipalities located on the outer ring of Melbourne — collated state government data and found growing pockets of inequity were developing on the outskirts, with unemployment, obesity, family violence, education and youth engagement issues on the rise. More than 40 per cent of residents don’t live near public transport, a fifth spend more than two hours commuting each day and almost three-quarters are completely car dependent, the study found. And unemployment in these areas was the highest in the state, at 6.9 per cent, 1.1 per cent above the average.

The article went on to argue that Melbourne needs to become a polycentric city with multiple business centres, rather than continue as a monocentric city with a central CBD. This, it argues, would bring jobs closer to where people live and would make Melbourne a “30-minute city”, whereby residents can access ­employment, schools, shopping, services and recreational facilities within 30 minutes of home.

A different notion of decentralisation was also advocated by the State Liberal-National Opposition, which continued to push for Melbourne’s population growth to be diverted to the regions:

Victoria’s country communities are at the heart of the Liberal Nationals’ plan to decentralise population growth in our state…

The Andrews Labor Government is desperate to divert attention from the fact it has failed to plan for the future population of our state.

Unlike Labor, the Liberal Nationals have been consulting with country communities, stakeholders and local government across Victoria to develop a population plan to grow our whole state – not just Melbourne.

Decentralising our population by creating good jobs that will support more small business opportunities in our regional centres is central to the Liberal Nationals’ plan for regional development.

As a lifelong Melbournian, I too have watched in disbelief as Melbourne’s population has expanded at a frantic rate, growing by a whopping 1.1 million people (30%) in the 12 years to June 2016:

Yet, nowhere in either article was the primary driver of Melbourne’s insane population growth even mentioned: the federal government’s mass immigration program.

The reality on the ground is that Melbourne is grinding to a halt as the population deluge is quickly overrunning economic and social infrastructure.

Worse, the Victorian Government’s own bullish forecasts of population growth have already been smashed (see red below). As shown in the next chart, Victoria’s population was in 2015 projected to hit 10 million people by 2051, with Melbourne’s population hitting 8 million people:

However, this projection assumed that annual population growth would not exceed 120,000 over the next two decades:

Victoria’s population growth in the five years to 2016 was massively revised upwards following the Census. And these upward revisions, combined with the growth of 150,000 in the year to March, have smashed the Victorian Government’s own bullish assumptions.

If the current population growth persists, Melbourne and Victoria are headed for populations of roughly 9 million and 11.4 million respectively by 2051, representing growth of some 90% over 2016 levels.

Decentralising the city is a nice idea in theory, but how do they propose it be done? The reality on the ground is that Melbourne has become more centralised than ever as traditional industries like manufacturing – previously located on the fringe or in regional areas – have shuttered, replaced by so-called ‘knowledge jobs’ (read ‘bullshit jobs’) concentrated in the CBD. Australia’s policies encouraging property speculation, rent-seeking, unproductive investment and a high dollar have also increased centralisation within the CBD.

The Liberal-National Party’s idea of shifting population growth to the regions is equally delusional and unrealistic.

Decentralisation has been on Australia’s political agenda for around 100 years without success (other than the creation of Canberra). So what makes the Victorian Liberals believe they can magically turn the tide?

And what good is decentralisation if it means is that ‘urban sprawl’ is replaced by ‘regional sprawl’ as the regions simply become commuter towns for Melbourne? Or, to put it another way, regional dormitory suburbs are created instead of fringe suburbs?

In any event, the uncomfortable truth is that the settlement pattern of new migrants into Sydney and Melbourne has become extreme over the past five years, according to the latest Census. As noted by Tim Colebatch:

…the third wave of migration we are seeing now is almost completely city-centric. In Sydney on census night, the 224,685 Chinese migrants… But in the rest of New South Wales, with its 2.65 million people, the census found just 9578 Chinese migrants. Only 4.2 per cent of those in New South Wales live outside Sydney.

Sydney is also home to 96.3 per cent of the state’s Vietnamese-born population, 97.4 per cent of its Iraqi migrants, and 97.6 per cent of its Lebanese…

Migrants to Victoria are similarly concentrated in Melbourne. The few square kilometres ruled by the Melbourne City Council houses four and a half times as many Chinese-born residents as the 210,000 square kilometres of regional Victoria, which includes cities like Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo. Melbourne is home to 97.2 per cent of Victoria’s Chinese migrants, 96.8 per cent of its Sri Lankans, 94.9 per cent of its booming Indian-born population, and 98.0 per cent of its Vietnamese…

Migrants usually flock to the cities. It’s natural that newcomers go where they have friends or family. But what we are seeing now is that natural tendency carried to extreme lengths.

Rather than accepting mass immigration as a fait accompli, the State Liberal Party should aggressively lobby their federal counterparts to establish a national population policy that slashes immigration and does away with a ‘Big Australia’ on the grounds that is placing undue strain on infrastructure and housing, and is reducing living standards of incumbent residents.

Few Melbournians want a city of 9 million people mid-century. The one we have currently is barely functioning properly at 4.7 million. Enough’s enough.

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