Where Australians live and will live

Introduction

Urban and intra-urban areas

Australia has one of the world's least dense national populations but it also has one of the most spatially concentrated. Today, roughly 84 percent of the population lives within fifty kilometres of the coast, with declines in population density for inland areas and less than one person per square kilometre for the whole continent. The majority of Australians live in areas with 100 or more people per square kilometre but these are confined to less than a third of Australia's total area. This trend in population settlement reflects a high level of development and concentration in Australia's major cities and other urban areas, as well as the ongoing tendency for post-war migrants to settle in the largest urban areas rather than provincial cities or rural areas. Major urban areas are those with a population of more than 100 000, while other urban areas may have a minimum population of 1000. Census statistics since the early 1970s show an increase in the proportion of the population living in major urban areas and the stabilisation of this level since the early 1990s. The most significant increases continue to be in the densest populated capitals, Sydney and Melbourne, with significant internal and overseas migration into Sydney's outer suburban areas.

Population change in these major cities has occurred with growth in the expanding urban fringes and in several inner suburbs as well as older inner and middle suburbs along major transport routes and coastal areas. Growth in these areas is due mainly to:

• the movement of young people into older established housing areas away from gentrified inner and middle suburb;
  
  
• the development of land formerly occupied by factories and schools by State, local and city governments;
  
  
• the ageing of residents who moved into the middle suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s, with many old people dying or moving into specialised accommodation and the leaving of residences to the housing market.

Non-metropolitan areas

In contrast to the high levels of urbanisation of Australia's population is the decrease in the number of Australians living in rural areas. However, rural numbers have recently stabilised at roughly 14 percent of the population, and overall population growth for non-metropolitan areas surpasses that of Australia's capital cities. This growth has been achieved through significant internal migration and is due largely to changes in:

• the focus of employment away from manufacturing to industries like tourism and information technology outside of large cities;
  
  
• the high costs of operation, congestion and pollution being felt by businesses with large city locations;
  
  
• improved transport and information technologies allowing people to be no longer tied to specific places for employment or income;
  
  
• lifestyle preferences for coastal localities and tourist and retirement destination areas.

However, a decline in rural population continues to occur in dry farming and pastoral areas, particularly with the exodus of school-leavers. The divergence occurring between the populations of both high-growth and of stable or declining areas has made population change in non-metropolitan Australia more diverse and less predictable in the long-term.

States and territories

Changes have occurred in the distribution of population between Australia's States and Territories. The number of Australians living in the south-eastern states of New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia has decreased since the 1970s from 75 percent to 69 percent, while those living in Queensland have increased from 15 to 19 percent and in Western Australia have increased from 8 to 10 percent, with a lesser increase for Australia's Territories. Overall, northward and westward shifts have occurred in the distribution of Australia's population.

These trends highlight the significance for demographic change of internal migration between the States, which has contributed mainly to the growth of Queensland and, to a lesser extent, Western Australia, with lesser growth in South Australia and Tasmania and the slowing of growth in NSW and Victoria.