The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures,which track the people of the nation’s capitals and major regional centres,showed the pandemic-era drop-off in major-city population growth has ended.
But some regional centres are growing rapidly. Geelong’s population has reached 302,000,up 2.1 per cent over the past year and by more than 24,000 since 2019.
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Johanne Martens,a biologist from Germany,and her husband,Santiago,a materials engineer from Argentina,both moved to Geelong eight years ago and met at Deakin University. Their son,Leon,was born 11 weeks ago.
After initially renting in fast-growing Waurn Ponds,the young couple bought their first home in Corio – a more affordable,historically disadvantaged suburb in the city’s industrial north.
Martens has already noticed rapid change during her relatively short time in Victoria’s second-largest city – particularly around Armstrong Creek,and near Lara,to the north.
“When I first moved here,it was all paddocks,and now it’s all houses,” she said.
“You don’t see just houses being built,but whole suburbs are being built really quickly.”
Martens wished more green spaces and neighbourhood shops were prioritised in the new estates,rather than big shopping centres and single-storey homes jammed together.
“It’s a missed opportunity. In all of these new suburbs popping up,it’s just more of the same.”
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KPMG’s demographic director,Terry Rawnsley,said some parts of the country had enjoyed large population growth during the pandemic,in part due to the inability of young people to move to major centres.
“During COVID,young people had to stay where they were rather than being able to move around. So the flow of people changed,and now that’s changed,” he said.
Rawnsley said an area such as Armstrong Creek was attractive to people moving to the Melbourne area.
“You might look at Melton[in Melbourne’s west] and work out for $200,000 less you can live in Armstrong Creek,” he said.
The fastest-growing areas are the outer suburbs of our major cities. Three of the five fastest-growing are in Canberra – Strathnairn (50 per cent) and Taylor (46 per cent) in the north and the new western area of Denman Prospect (20 per cent).
The largest number of residents moved into the outer-western Melbourne suburb of Rockbank (4299) and the western Sydney suburb of Shanes Park (3908).
The figures revealed that Perth,with a population of almost 2.3 million,added 80,000 residents during the year,slightly more than the 78,000 added to Brisbane.
But Queensland’s major regional areas continue to grow quickly. The Gold Coast,with a record 735,000 residents,and the Sunshine Coast,now at 408,000,have grown by more than 70 per cent since the turn of the century.
Canberra-Queanbeyan now has more than half-a-million residents while Albury-Wodonga is the 13th regional centre with a population over 100,000.
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