By Benjamin Preiss
The Age is focusing on Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo and Albury-Wodonga’s future.Credit: Illustration: Marija Ercegovac
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A city of almost 200,000 people, powered entirely by renewables. Stately apartment buildings that rise above celebrated historic streetscapes. Tram and train networks moving an increasingly young population about town rather than cars.
This is not a city in Scandinavia or the US. It’s a vision for Victoria’s biggest regional centres, and the year is 2050.
In a series focusing on the imminent transformation of the state’s regional cities, The Age is exploring how Bendigo, Geelong, Ballarat, and Albury-Wodonga will change in the coming decades.
Geelong is among the most rapidly growing regions in Australia, and much of that is young people.
“We’re having a youthquake,” says Giulia Baggio, chief executive of the G21 Geelong Region Alliance.
Tim Olifiers moved to Geelong in 2020 and plans to stay.Credit: Eddie Jim
Eighteen to 35-year-olds are the city’s fastest-growing age group, increasing by more than 8500 people in the five years to 2021.
Property analyst Tim Olifiers, 27, is one of Geelong’s recent arrivals. He moved from Melbourne in 2020 and loves the lifestyle.
“Here you can get anywhere in 10 or 15 minutes,” he says.
But Olifiers says the city centre needs more restaurants and bars, and smoother connections to the glittering waterfront. He says a better hospitality scene would encourage more companies to open offices in Geelong, allowing employees to work in the city rather travelling to Melbourne.
In decades gone by, Geelong had a reputation as an industrial city with Ford employing thousands of workers. Now the National Disability Insurance Scheme, WorkSafe Victoria and Deakin University are among the big employers.
“There’s a lot more highly skilled professional jobs,” Baggio says.
The transport challenge
The halcyon days of public transport, when Victoria’s regional cities were connected and Ballarat and Bendigo had their own tram networks, ended more than half a century ago. But while that infrastructure receded, beautiful botanic gardens bloomed in its place and continue to thrive.
People from around the world descended on regional Victoria for the 19th century gold rush, and Geelong rode to prosperity on the sheep’s back. Albury-Wodonga, meanwhile, grew its way to success in the fields surrounding it.
Gold rush-era boom: The intersection of Sturt and Lydiard streets in Ballarat between 1890 and 1899. Credit: State Library of Victoria
In the following decades, each of these cities battled demographic decline as economic booms turned to bust.
Now, planning experts and community leaders say regional cities can mine their past to chart a way forward.
Monash University urban planning senior lecturer Liz Taylor wants to see trams running again in Bendigo and Ballarat, saving cars for longer trips.
She also believes regional cities need better connections to one another, pointing to the direct passenger trains that ran between Geelong and Ballarat until 1978.
This would mean regional AFL matches, workplaces and university campuses are only a train ride away for residents in either city.
Building train lines requires years in planning and construction, while the costs quickly run into the billions of dollars. But Taylor believes connecting Ballarat and Geelong by rail would bring people closer together.
RMIT Centre for Urban Research professor Andrew Butt says Geelong, which has a population exceeding 276,000, should embrace “game-changing infrastructure”. Think of a mini metropolitan rail system or light rail connecting growing suburbs to the city centre.
A report prepared for the state government in 2021 lays out an ambitious long-term metro rail concept for Geelong, with a train line extending to the growth areas of Armstrong Creek and Torquay North in addition to more stations in established suburbs.
Geelong is expected to house 396,000 people by 2041 and hit 500,000 by 2050.
“It’s a great-sized place, but dependent on sprawl,” Butt says.
The 2026 Commonwealth Games were supposed to deliver an infrastructure boost to the regions. Despite cancelling the event, the state government insists it will deliver more housing and sports facilities to regional centres.
However, Butt wants to see more development in Geelong’s CBD – particularly in car parks that could be transformed into apartments with shops below.
Bendigo is among Victoria’s booming regional cities.Credit: Joe Armao
Changing skylines
University of Melbourne urban planning professor Alan March insists regional cities should accept higher-density living as they continue to absorb many new residents. “It is a no-brainer,” he says.
Good quality apartment blocks of four or five storeys, March says, are the “sweet spot”.
He says regional cities can take inspiration from central Barcelona, where medium-density is the norm and apartment buildings have “beautiful internal courtyards”.
Residents can walk to shops and services they need. The Spanish city offers many parks where children explore playgrounds and locals gather around bocce games, while others can easily find a spot to read a book.
He believes Albury-Wodonga is a prime candidate for medium-level density housing where people could live in apartments close to nature, including the Murray River.
Community leaders say more medium-density development is needed in Albury. Credit: Jason Robins
Development is powering ahead in Albury-Wodonga – particularly in the suburban growth areas. The twin cities’ mayors agree that apartment blocks, and even office buildings, will need to rise in the centres of their riverside towns to absorb surging populations and provide places to work.
In Ballarat, business leaders are pushing for a city powered entirely by renewables by 2050 in a region flush with wind farms and rooftop solar. Here, too, medium-density apartment living seems inevitable to contain the spreading suburbs.
Bendigo’s leaders see education, including international students, as central to their future. They believe students, migrants and white-collar workers will help drive demand for apartments in the city centre and reshape its skyline.
In Greater Geelong, business leaders see a promising industrial future that has begun with big retailers establishing distribution centres at Avalon Airport in addition to Australia Post. Thousands more people living in Geelong and Melbourne’s outskirts will work here in the coming years, as this industrial area eats into the fields surrounding the airport.
As the regional cities grow and become more densely populated, public outdoor areas will only become more important. Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation chief executive Rodney Carter believes Indigenous knowledge can help guide the way forward for regional cities, starting with the design of open spaces. He imagines by 2050 more local parks and gardens will include Indigenous flora that has adapted to the landscape over thousands of years.
“We can’t keep doing things in the same way,” he says.
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