Melbourne surpasses Sydney in population
 

Didn't catch this news when it came out.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-populous-city

I find this Sydney-Melbourne zigzag fascinating. Sydney was older but Melbourne was the larger city for most of the 19th century. Sydney reached 50,000 first, but Melbourne reached 100,000 first due to the gold rush. Then Sydney pulled ahead around the turn of the 20th century. But Melbourne is faster growing today and since the mid-19th century they've always been pretty close in size.

It's not like Toronto/Montreal where Toronto eventually pulled ahead and never looked back.

19th century populations:

1851

Sydney 53,924
Melbourne 23,143

1861

Melbourne 139,916
Sydney 95,789

1871

Melbourne 206,780
Sydney 137,776

1881

Melbourne 282,947
Sydney 224,939

1891

Melbourne 490,896
Sydney 383,283

Metropolitan populations, going back to 1901 (2021 is prior to the update).

1901

Sydney 481,117
Melbourne 480,279

1911

Sydney 629,503
Melbourne 582,275

1921

Sydney 899,059
Melbourne 766,465

1933

Sydney 1,235,267
Melbourne 983,173

1947

Sydney 1,626,083
Melbourne 1,275,525

1954

Sydney 1,863,217
Melbourne 1,524,062

1961

Sydney 2,183,231
Melbourne 1,911,895

1971

Sydney 2,807,828
Melbourne 2,436,335

1981

Sydney 3,204,696
Melbourne 2,806,000

1991

Sydney 3,672,855
Melbourne 3,156,700

2001

Sydney 4,128,272
Melbourne 3,366,542

2011

Sydney 4,627,345
Melbourne 3,999,982

2021

Sydney 5,231,147
Melbourne 4,917,750

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global...etwork#Alpha_+

According to the GaWC, it's determined that Sydney is the most important city in Australia when it comes to economics and finance, then it's Melbourne. I believe that Melbourne, however, is the most important city when it comes to the arts and theatre.

Either way, there may be a time when Sydney comes back for it's crown as the largest city in Australia, and it's pretty sad that Montreal has to be stuck in the doldrums while Toronto is building 300 M towers in almost every part of the city.

They're essentially the same size. What I think is more interesting is Australia has two dominant cities of equal size than whether one is slightly ahead of the other.

IMO Sydney is still the alpha. Legacy matters.

Outside of the Australian Open, which is the least prominent grand slam tennis tournament, I don't think there's much associated with Melbourne (and not even sure if most know the Oz Open is in Melbourne, not Sydney). It's one of those cities everyone has heard of, but where there isn't much associated with the name, like a Frankfurt or Dallas.

Anyone know why Melbourne is closing the population gap? More immigrants? More business friendly environment?

Is this city limits or region?

Metropolitan areas. But "suburb" has a different meaning in Australia - it pretty much means neighborhood or community.

The actual city of Sydney is pretty small. 200,000 in 10 square miles. Not that much different than what is said to constitute Downtown Toronto.

And the city of Melbourne has a smaller population, but is less densely populated. 150,000 in 15 square miles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Melbourne

Just from a very superficial level, it seems that Sydney is more constrained in its geography and Melbourne has more space to spread out into, which could explain why it's growing faster. Cheaper land values usually means cheaper housing and faster growth.

Montreal is not really stuck in the doldrums. Even if Toronto is growing faster.

Indeed, Toronto's influence barely figures in francophone Montreal and Quebec. Montreal is the "alpha" for Quebec and that's what matters. Quebecois media and cultural institutions are in Montreal.

Montreal is a far better city for breaking with the shackles of anglo business dominance even it was at the "expense" of being "#1."

*

From the article: "The other main population classifications used, Greater Sydney and Greater Melbourne, still have Sydney at 5,259,800, ahead of Melbourne at 4,976,200."

That said, the article quotes a demographer at the Australian National University concerning Melbourne’s faster population growth in recent decades. She states that is the product of Melbourne's appeal to international migrants as well as Australians living in other states: "Melbourne has an air to it that diversity seems to be celebrated more,” Allen said, noting recent overseas migration from India to Melbourne had led to a strong community which in turn has established the city as a preferable destination for migrants from the subcontinent."

The demographer also noted that Melbourne’s cheaper cost of living, particularly for housing, "makes the city stand out from Sydney as a more attractive place to live given both cities’ educational and employment opportunities are largely on par."

"Sydney and Melbourne basically identical in population" doesn't make a good headline.

Top 10 countries of birth for immigrants.

Greater Sydney

China 238,316
India 187,810
UK 181,476
Vietnam 93,778
Philippines 91,339
New Zealand 85,493
Lebanon 61,620
Nepal 59,055
Iraq 52,604
South Korea 50,702

Greater Melbourne

India 242,635
China 166,023
UK 161,913
Vietnam 90,552
New Zealand 82,939
Sri Lanka 65,152
Philippines 58,935
Italy 58,081
Malaysia 57,345
Greece 44,956

.

Not sure if Montréal would be a better city overall but today's Montréal is definitely a city that works way better for a far greater share of its population.

Which Metro has the larger GDP?

In a way, this seems like Dallas-Houston. You often hear about "white collar" Dallas and "blue collar" Houston but their income and educational attainment levels are basically identical.

Let me clarify that this is misleading.

If we go by the official Australian statistics boundaries (GCCSA), Sydney is still larger. (as at 2022 5,297,000 for Syd vs 5,031,000 for Melb).

It's only if you use a smaller boundary measure (SUA), that Melbourne overtook Sydney by that measure, because Melbourne incorporated the town of Melton just outside of it, into its SUA boundary last year.

But for official purposes the Australian statistics bureau uses the GCCSA, and by that measure Sydney is still larger.

And further clarification: SUA = Significant Urban Area. Effectively from the centre of the city to the edge of the contiguous sprawl.

GCCSA = Greater Capital City Statistical Area. These are areas that include significant parts of adjacent cities outside the main urban area but economically connected to the state capital.

Sydney's GCCSA is larger than Melbourne's primarily because it includes a significant proportion of the southern half of the Central Coast that is north of the contiguous part of Sydney.

Melbourne's GCCSA does not include Geelong (which is a natural thing to compare).

GCCSAs = our 'metro' populations for international comparisons and this is almost always what we are referring to when we talk about populations of cities. SUA is a technicality. Melbourne's GCCSA is still on track to overtake Sydney's in the next decade or so for many reasons including but not limited: it's cheaper to live in Melbourne and you can get comparative salaries in Melbourne.

We almost never refer to city ('LGA' - Local Government Area) populations because both metros comprise ~30 cities/shires/councils - (all of them are LGAs).