In November last year, social researcher Mark McCrindle projected that Sydney’s population could hit 9 million people by 2051, courtesy of mass immigration:
Sydney is on track to reach nine million people by 2051, nearly three million more than predicted in 1998.
“If we’re wondering why our cities are groaning with insufficient infrastructure, it’s because the planners have been going off the wrong numbers,” social researcher Mark McCrindle said
“Australia’s population growth is now one of the highest in the developed world. We have added 390,000 people in the past 12 months.”
In 1998, the ABS believed the net arrivals from other countries would be between 70,000 and 90,000 per year. But 231,900 migrants came in the past 12 months.
… the major factor that has blown out previous population modelling has been the rise and rise of Australia’s net overseas migration,” Mr McCrindle said.
Modelling suggested there would be 29,000 people added to the NSW population each year, but last year there were 116,000.
Around the same time, McCrindle noted the destruction of Sydney’s living standards caused by the population deluge:
Mr McCrindle agreed that housing costs were a problem, as were commuting times.
“Sydney has the longest capital city commute times in Australia and there is the high cost of maintaining a car and toll roads, so people start to question if this is the lifestyle they want,” he said.
“If you’re living 90 minutes west of the beaches then some people may feel they may as well be in another city.”
Today, McCrindle has blamed rapid population growth for worsening housing affordability in Sydney and Melbourne:
Mark McCrindle, social researcher and founder of McCrindle Research, says Australia’s rapidly rising population is a fundamental driver of demand for housing.
The population growth for Australia over the past 10 years is 18 per cent, which is very high by world standards…
Driven by high property prices and an increasing preference to live closer to the city centre, two in five people in Sydney and Melbourne now live in apartments, McCrindle says.
Whereas the average adult earnings has increased 54 per cent to $80,000 over the past 10 years, the median house price in Sydney had increased by 130 per cent, to $1.21 million. Home ownership rates have fallen to 25 per cent in 2014, from 36 per cent in 2002, McCrindle says.
Property ownership is considered as central to the achievement of the great Australian dream, but is increasingly out of reach for younger people and low-income earners…
The below chart tells the story:
Anyone genuinely concerned about housing affordability must necessarily also be concerned about Australia’s mass immigration ‘Big Australia’ policy, which is a key driver of Sydney’s and Melbourne’s housing and infrastructure woes.
Who decided that Sydney and Melbourne must turn into crowded, expensive, high-rise hellholes?
