Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/131975
regionaldevelopment Shifting sands I The influx of sea changers raises questions about how to manage rapid population growth and development in Australia's coastal communities. Oryana Angel reports. 66 n Australia more than 85 per cent of people live within 50 kilometres of the coast, and most of the biggest cities are situated not far from the beach. We are clearly a nation with a taste for living by the sea. "Population growth around the coast is likely to continue at above the national growth rate into the foreseeable future," says Alan Stokes, executive director of the National Sea Change Taskforce. "I don't know one coastal community that can comfortably cope with the increasing demands associated with this growth." Figures show the coastal growth rate is 60 per cent higher than the national average. Areas such as the Gold Coast now have a larger population base than Canberra. This trend isn't going to stop any time soon, either. In fact, when the expected 4.5 million baby boomers implement their retirement plans in the next decade or so, the majority will make their way to coastal regions. The Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Mandurah (and the coastal region south of Perth) and the Surf Coast and Bass Coast that flank Melbourne are all coastal areas already under particular pressure, says Stokes: "These places have much higher-than-average growth rates and are under major pressure to keep up with increasing demand for infrastructure and services." One of the issues compounding the problem is the fact that we don't have a realistic snapshot of people living in these coastal regions to ensure better allocation of funds and services. Professor Graeme Hugo, of the University of Adelaide, says the current census figures for nonmetropolitan coastal populations do not give a complete picture of the populations of those areas. "The census was taken midweek in winter," he says. As many of the people in these areas are holiday-makers, daytrippers and owners of second homes who visit on weekends or for the summer, information captured in the census provides only a partial picture of the population. "This has implications across a number of services," Professor Hugo adds, referring to health services, roads, water reticulation, sewage treatment, waste collection, local council services and so on.