In the first decade of the new century Melbourne's population grew by more than 650000. In those 10 years, from 2001 to 2011, it gained even more people than it had added in the eighty years between its founding in 1835 and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. For a large, traditional city to grow by almost 20 per cent in one decade was surprising. Here too was one of those unusual periods when Melbourne grew much faster than Sydney. Its population was numbered at 4 137 000 on census night in August 2011, and if it was to grow at the same relative pace it might overtake Sydney before the year 2050.

Part of Melbourne's attraction, compared to Sydney's, was cheaper housing. Moreover, Melbourne was hemmed in less by rugged ranges, and so had room for easy expansion. For long Sydney's notable assets had been geography, and especially the wonderful harbour, but now most Sydney people lived far from the opera house and harbour bridge and rarely saw them except on television.

A new spearhead of Melbourne’s expansion was the western volcanic plains. While the suburban city of Casey in the east was the largest of all the municipalities with 250 000 people, and still growing, Melton and Sunbury and others in the west were expanding too. At the 2011 census the fastest-growing municipality in the metropolis during the preceding decade was the western city of Wyndham, which grew at more than 50 per cent. Its hub, Werribee, was long remembered as the home of large egg farms, market gardens, and also a quiet stopping place on the road from Melbourne to Geelong.