There’s something strange going on in the best-located suburbs of our biggest cities. As the national population surges, they are shrinking.

In Melbourne’s affluent east and bayside areas, a swath of suburbs had population declines between 2019 and 2023, even though the city as a whole grew by 4 per cent in that period. It was a similar story in Sydney, where the headcount shrank in districts across the eastern suburbs, lower north shore and inner west.

Illustration: Simon LetchCredit:

Inner Sydney and inner Melbourne also have a growing number of “tombstone suburbs”, where deaths consistently outnumber births. In Hunters Hill, a waterfront neighbourhood on Sydney’s lower north shore, there were 113 more deaths than births in 2022-23, while in Melbourne’s well-heeled Camberwell, deaths outnumbered births by 78 that year.

Meanwhile, outer suburbs have been adding people at breakneck speed. The population of Rouse Hill-McGraths Hill in north-western Sydney surged 52 per cent between 2019 and 2023. In the Melton-Bacchus Marsh region in Melbourne’s west, the population jumped 22 per cent over that period.

These trends are warping Australia’s two biggest cities, as outer suburbs are forced to accommodate a disproportionate share of a growing population.

Terry Rawnsley is an urban planner with KPMG. Credit:

Analysis by leading urban economist Terry Rawnsley shows the inner urban population slump has........

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