The growth of Melbourne 1986-2011, animated

Following on from my recent post about the changing socio-economic landscape of Melbourne, this post simply looks at the changing shape and density of urban Melbourne using 5-yearly census data at collector district (1986-2006) and SA1 level (2011).

Straight to it: here is map of Melbourne residential density, click to enlarge and animate:

You can see the sprawl of Melbourne over the years, including changes that suggest shifts in the urban growth boundary after development previously seemed to have stopped against a line (particularly evident on the western edge of the City of Brimbank).

Here is another animated map showing the inner city area, with a density scale ranging from 10 to 100 persons/ha, so you can distinguish higher densities than the map above. Click to enlarge and animate.

You can see a lot more going on in established areas on this map, including densification in the CBD, St Kilda, St Kilda Road (conversion from office space), Parkville, Port Melbourne around Bay Street, Kensington Banks, Brunswick, Fitzroy, Southbank, South Melbourne, Elwood, Maribyrnong, Carlton, and many more.

A few things to note:

• The size of the districts changes each year, particularly around the fringe. You’ll often see a large red patch where a larger block is only partly inhabited in one year, only to be replaced by smaller denser patches in future years. Patches of green that disappear might be the enlargement of a district causing a blending out of a small pocket of high density, rather than an actual drop in density.
• Shades of pink indicate densities between 5 and 10 per hectare on the large map, and between 10 and 20 per hectare on the inner map. Lower densities are shown as white.
• In 2011 the ABS changed their statistical geography. I have used SA1s from 2011 as the most comparable area unit to a census collector district, however they are generally smaller and so densities may appear to jump slightly in 2011 in some areas.

See also earlier posts for:

• animations of density at the (larger) SA2 level for larger Australian cities,
• a comparison of Melbourne residential density between 2006 and 2011 at the (small) meshblock level, and
• a look at the change in density at SA2 level, 2006 to 2011