KATHERINE FEENEY writes in the BRISBANE TIMES:
From a ‘big country town’ to the second-fastest-growing region in Australia: how big is too big for Brisbane?
According to estimates used to draft the latest South East Queensland Regional Plan, substantial growth is expected to see the greater region grow to house 4.4 million people by 2031.
In the plan, due for review in 2014, that population is spread over 11 regional and city councils including the Gold and Sunshine coasts, and requires 754,000 additional homes to have been built between 2006 and 2031 to accommodate the increase.
The latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows the population of the Greater Brisbane Region (which excludes the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast) was 2.15 million people at July 2011, a figure nearly half the state’s population of 4.47 million people. READ MORE.