Between 1950 and 1983 the population of Victoria was almost doubled to four million. In that third of a century, change had a speed and an unpredictability not seen since the early pastoral years and the first gold years.

Melbourne's own population approached three million. The city spread out further and further, with a few spearheads of housing stretching beyond Mornington and out to Berwick, and swathes of housing running into the Dandenongs and beyond Eltham. The extension of the suburbs was shorter to the north and west, where the volcanic rock lay on the surface and much of the landscape was flat. Curiously Werribee, Keilor and the outer suburbs of the west lay first in the path of the prevailing winds and so were less prone to pollution, but that was not usually enough to redeem them in the eyes of developers. The whole metropolis was now nearly as widespread as Greater London, by one definition, and even experienced taxi-drivers rarely saw some suburbs.

Three municipalities each held more than 100 000 people by 1977: they were Waverley, Moorabbin and Broadmeadows. Another five municipalities each had more than 80 000 people: Camberwell, Doncaster & Templestowe, and Nunawading in the east, and Preston and Sunshine in the north and west. Of these eight largest cities within the metropolis, only two were of any size 50 years earlier. The inner suburbs which once dominated the population ladder had fallen.