Melbourne "punching above its weight" but in the wrong way!

A volunteers' pamphlet for the 1956 Olympic Games shows a photo of the then Lord Mayor (Sir Frank Selleck) and describes Melbourne as " a proud city of 1.5 million people" and its suburbs with tree lined streets giving privacy to "neat homes”.  The accompanying photograph shows a single story brick  c 1930s style villa surrounded by well scaled trees.  Melbourne could have been described similarly 20 years later  in 1976 when the population was about 2.7 million. Although the population had been growing rapidly the aggressive push to boost its population had not really got started.

The push by government, voicing business interests, really got going when the State Government let us all know that their 2002 planning blue print "Melbourne 2030”  was about Melbourne accommodating 5 million people by that year. (another 1 million)  At this time it seemed, anecdotally to me, that the people of Melbourne were hardly aware of the rate of population growth, as most of it was being accommodated on the urban fringes. I remember driving past a new development towards Geelong around this time with a group of bush walkers when one of them asked ingenuously, “Where are all the people coming from?” It was as though this was the first time he had become aware of what was happening. 

Well, we all know now that most of the growth in population is coming from overseas migration and we are all feeling it as our city centre and suburbs are being adapted, retrofitted, and transformed, with surgical ruthlessness.  We have been told we all have to pull our weight in the task of accommodating what amounts to another Melbourne and then another …in a never ending process. 

The changes are so rapid now that daily, we all drive past vacant quarry-like blocks of land in established suburbs wondering what had been there yesterday.  You can barely ever drive a suburb or two away without encountering road blocks marked with orange and white tape and witches hats, diverting us from our normal direct route.   These are constant but minor works compared with the major works part of the State Government's "Big Build"  which will continue for many years.  The Big Build includes the "North East Link" road project and the ongoing  “Metro Tunnel Project," which started in 2018, diverting tram routes and  necessitating the loss of about 80 trees along the once  beautiful boulevard, St. Kilda Road.  The most recent, and possibly the biggest, is the “Suburban Rail Loop.” This project has left people scratching their heads, wondering  about all the upheaval and expense to link suburbs that may not have previously needed linking, such as  Cheltenham and Box Hill. The answer the Government would give is that people in the future will want this link. Maybe they will, as people will live all along these routes in very high densities. 

These massive works are basically for people who are not here yet. 

During the campaign against the "East West Link", prior to 2014 when the new State Government dropped the project, there was a parallel campaign to use land which had been set aside for a rail link to Doncaster from the city. This would have been relatively simple and a most useful piece of infrastructure but the State Government has chosen not to follow through.

Not big enough? 

The City of Melbourne is now quite a dismal place, with only small pockets of apparent prosperity. The overall look  is "down at heel” and under construction.  Homelessness is a huge problem and is highly visible in the city centre. The works and hoardings associated with the "Metro Tunnel Project" are overwhelming and alienating in scale. 

Homeless beggars are encountered every block or so as you walk up Swanston Street, the main north-south thoroughfare. As people don’t carry much cash now, begging  must be a very hard gig.  It has been a cold winter with some overnight temperatures not far above zero degrees, and  I don’t know how these people survive. 

A visit to the city is no longer pleasant, exciting or uplifting, but sad and worrying. 

As it happens, the Olympic Games are not being held in Melbourne in 2024 but a returning visitor to the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games would notice a terrible deterioration in this once pleasant and manageable city.