Melbourne’s urbanisation development - 24 May 2022
The urbanisation development of Melbourne is highly effective. There are more and more high-rise apartment buildings; shopping centres are gradually expanding; railway stations are being expanded and renovated; more and more private cars are on the road. All these changes remind people that Melbourne is experiencing rapid urbanisation. However, these changes seem to have brought more drawbacks than benefits. Therefore, a professional house auctioneer in Melbourne and an overseas immigrant who has lived in Glen Waverley for 10 years are interviewed to share their feelings and views about the urbanisation of Melbourne.
High-rise apartments in the CBD – 27 May 2022
More and more apartment buildings have been built in the Melbourne central area. Since the space in the centre is limited, the population density can only be increased in the form of high-rise apartments. ABC News reporter Kathy Lord said a report shows that “high-rise apartments are being built in Melbourne at four times the maximum densities allowed in places like Hong Kong, New York and Tokyo.” She said these buildings are very tall and take up too much space in the city, many people doubt whether the density of central Melbourne can lead to long-term liveable results.
Melbourne City – 24 May 2022
The speed of Melbourne's population growth is also fast and evident. Stanley et al. said Melbourne is expanding at a quicker rate than other comparable cities in developed countries. “Population growth averaged more than 2.5% a year between 2011 and 2018,” they said. As population density increases, housing prices are rising at the same time. High-priced houses in the central area force many people to move to the suburbs, where cheaper housing seems to attract more attention. In fact, “Melbourne is also fast becoming an economically and socially polarised city,” Stanley et al. said.
The cost of living in the suburbs – 25 May 2022
Stanley et al. said, “If Melbourne is divided into inner, middle and outer urban areas, the greatest share of the city’s population (46.6%) lives in the outer local government areas.” This proportion is rising with the growth of the population. It may increase to 57.5% between 2011 and 2016. However, Stanley et al. said the jobs offered in outer urban areas are the fewest for residents, many workers need to commute long distances, resulting in traffic congestion. More cars are used to get to work, the proportion of commutes is more than two hours, and the travel times from outer urban areas to central Melbourne will continue to increase in the future, they said.
A real estate auctioneer– 21 May 2022
Jichen Quan is a professional real estate auctioneer and a partner at Ray White Burwood. He has been an auctioneer for 3 years, and before that, he worked as a real estate agent for 7 years. During these 10 years of work experience, he accumulated rich knowledge about real estate and obtained profound market insight. In 2021, he participated in 103 real estate auctions, which was the peak of his career. He said that “in the past decade, the general price of houses in Melbourne was in a rising trend. However, it has been greatly affected by the pandemic in 2019 and the lockdown in 2020. Up to now, the median house price in Melbourne has changed by about 20% –30%.”
Suburb houses – 21 May 2022
The auction of the house at 7 Tynong Street in Box Hill North officially began at 1pm on May 21. The auction took about 40 minutes to finish. The house was finally sold for $1,280,000. Quan said that “in fact, the development of urbanisation is not only shown in Melbourne City and its surrounding suburbs. Nowadays, more and more people may choose to buy bigger houses in the outer suburbs instead of small houses around the CBD. Due to the influence of the pandemic, more people have started to pay attention to their lifestyles, whereas living in the crowded CBD may not be comfortable.”
Lovely living room – 21 May 2022
This is one of the living rooms in the auction house. The house is located in Box Hill North. Quan said that “there is significant urbanisation development in three Asian suburbs, which are Box Hill, Glen Waverley, and Doncaster. Since 2015, more and more infrastructure, apartments, and shopping centres have been built, renovated, and expanded in these three suburbs, which brings more market value to these districts.” The distance between Box Hill Central and Box Hill North is not too far. Living in this house is convenient and comfortable. It seems like a good choice.
The Glen shopping centre – 26 May 2022
As Quan mentioned, Glen Waverley is also a key area experiencing suburban urbanisation. According to Wikipedia, The Glen Shopping Centre was approved for expansion in 2015 and 2017 respectively. It now has more than 240 stores and about 78,000 square metres of total area. Mark Pan is an overseas immigrant who has lived in Glen Waverley for 10 years. He came to Australia with his family in 2012. During this period, he witnessed the urbanisation development of Glen Waverley. “For example, I like drinking milk tea so much, but there was only one milk tea shop near the shopping centre a long time ago, and it was always crowded with people. Now we can easily find over 10 milk tea shops there,” he said.
Buying a private car – 26 May 2022
Not only can houses and buildings reflect the progress of urbanisation, but transportation is also an important element in urbanisation. It is not hard to imagine that a large number of private cars will cause traffic jams on the highway during daily rush hours. According to Budget Direct, “from 2011 through to 2020, over 11 million new cars were sold in Australia.” On average, the market for new cars has grown every year since 2011, and although it began to decline after 2017, the data still shows that more and more people are buying their own cars. Mercedes-Benz is one of the top 10 selling car brands in Australia.
Melbourne V/Line – 27 May 2022
Apart from the substantial increase in private cars, the development of public transport also shows the progress of urbanisation. The operation of V/Line provides passenger train services on five commuter lines and eight long-distance routes in Victoria. It effectively reduces the time consumption of travelling between the central business district and rural areas and allows suburban residences to come to the city in a fast and convenient way. Based on the data provided by Wikipedia, V/Line is able to carry 22.4 million passengers a year, and most of them are commuters. This shows a mature public transport system in Victoria, which signifies the development of urbanisation.
