Will Australia ever build inland?

Question

I think Australia needs to build more cities, either inland, or in more areas on the coast. It would help Australia's population rise and create more jobs. I haven't been to Australia, but from what I hear, you're taking it quite a lot of immigrants at the moment. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I gather their going to the main cities on the coast, mainly Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney? If Australia keeps taking in all those immigrants, won't your cities just become overcrowded, over poluted, generally unpleasent places to live? I mean, Australian cities have a water shortage as it is, so how can you keep providing for immigrants?

As far as I can see, Australia in it's current form, is a very pleasent place to reside for 20 million, but it would be very unpleasent for 40 million. Because inland Australia is very dry, it would be very hard to build new cities there, so immigrants are just going to keep going to your cities. So really your just cramming people into your cites.

Answer 1

Well, yes. Inland Australia is quite inhospitable so they have a real problem with population growth. You seem to know all the ins and outs of the situation so why ask?

Answer 2

No and the simple reason is lack of water, which you have already noted.  However there are a large number of moderate to medium sized towns along the coasts and a small distance inland which could do with expanding.  

Some of these do not have a problem with sufficient water, for instance the retiring mayor of Rockhampton said in the 1980s that if it did not rain for 40 years the city would still have enough water.  The population was between 45,000 and 50,000 then, mostly living in suburban style homes with extensive gardens and lawns.  I think the place has put on another 8,000 since then but it could have absorbed 20,000 without much strain.  There are probably dozens of towns in much the same position.  

Tax breaks offered to corporations to set up in these larger provincial centres would help a lot.  People keep moving into Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth because that is where they perceive the work is.  Corporations set up in these places because they perceive that is where the labor supply is.  

As for immigrants, the only places they have heard of are Sydney and Melbourne, perhaps Brisbane.  So when they get off the plane, they tend to stay in the same city.  Since most of them are not citizens, it could be a condition of entry that they live outside these centres for at least two years.  

This policy was applied to some immigrants in the 1950s.  Some of them didn't like it very much at first, but got used to the idea after a while.  I was just talking to one at noon, she didn't think much of Canberra in 1965 (there probably was not much here then) but since then has decided that she likes the place.  

These larger towns already have pretty good municipal infrastructure, water, reliable electricity and phones, sewerage, you name it.  While in some cases the supply of skilled people may be short, the offer of a job in a decent town with relatively inexpensive land and easy to get about in must be attractive.  

I'm a government worker in Canberra.  Ten years ago there was a proposal from some bullet headed idiot to move some government departments out of Canberra into the "real" Australia.  By that, this moron meant Sydney or just maybe Melbourne.  If government departments needed to be moved into the "real" Australia, it would have made much more sense to pick a town other than Sydney or Melbourne.

I see you got an angry answer from someone here.  The fact is that transportation of convicts to Australia ceased in 1860.  By that time nearly twice as many free people had arrived. Even before the gold rushes that began in 1851 about half those arriving were free.  Between 1851 and 1860 the population more than doubled.  So more than 140 years ago only  1/4 to 1/3 of the population was convict or directly descended from convicts.  Since 1860 free immigration has never stopped.  

Australians of Greek, Italian, German, Danish, Dutch,  Czech, Baltic and Hungarian ancestry are unlikely to be directly descended from 19th century British convicts, and even less so the Vietnamese immigrants of the 1970s or the more recent arrivals from Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka or Africa.  The third largest Greek city in the world is Melbourne, two of my neighbours are Italian.  

As it happens my great-great grandfather was a transported convict, he must have been among the last few batches arriving.  What he did, I have no idea, but it's pretty clear that he didn't do it again or anything like it.

Answer 3

Are you asking a question? Because you seem to of answered it.  

As someone who has not only traveled, but also live in most of Australia, there is know way we can populate the centre, the rain fall lacks the abilty to inhabit life.  This is why through out of most of the NT they have open fences for cattle, otherwise they could not run them.  Lots of land is used for National parks as well, have you see the size of Kakadu? It is bigger than some countries.

If you want to live in the middle of the country go for it, I bet you will not last out a week!

Answer 4

It's not so much that we have a water shortage but how we choose to use and manage our water (I'm from Perth).

We use fresh drinking water to flush our toilets and water our lawns - there is pretty well no recycling of water.

May I ask what country you are from?

Answer 5

no cuz it's a friggin desert!!!

Duh....

Answer 6

We don't have the water to support the people we have now, becuase it is misused. With sane water use policies we could support more people, but fortunately we don't have the divisive fears of migrants that folk in other lands do, and that's fine by me. 98% of us here are either migrants or descended from them, so we don't get so frightened as those in UK or USA do.

Answer 7

Yes but the only problem is lack of water,

I have heard of plans on flooding Lake Eyre with Ocean water to create a vast inland sea, That would be nice

Answer 8

What, 5-6 cities the size of london, in your dreams, london has 14 million people. I'd like to see how many years it takes perth to grow to 14 million.

we don't need to build more cities, Australian cities are definitely not overcrowded or over polluted, they are pretty big, but they have a low population density. You haven't seen a polluted city yet if you think we have pollution.

The government cant just say "build a city here" if nobody wants to live there, thats capitalism, democracy.

You say we have lots of immigrants, but we cant use the interior of Australia. Well even if nobody can lvie in the dessert, on the east coast there is still vast amounts of free land in which to populate. about 90% of Australia is dessert, only 10% is habitable land, but the size of Australia makes that 10% very large.

Australia is not growing in population the way you imply, we are growing at about the same rate as any other country even with the immigrants. Look at South Korea, not sure what the exact population is, but i think its around 40-60 million people concentrated on land slightly larger than Tasmania. That isn't even overpopulated.

Answer 9

i totally get you

well i think building more cities is the next step after what is currently happening

melbourne and sydney are australia's only mega cities; the rest are really small

right now i think we should expand these cities like what perth is currently doing which is a rapid expansion