Overpopulation In Brisbane: Olympic City’s Housing Crisis

Overpopulation In Brisbane: Olympic City’s Housing Crisis

Overpopulation in Brisbane has reached unprecedented levels and preparing to host the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games is not the only challenge currently faced by the Queensland capital.

As Brisbane’s population growth continues, its housing crisis deepens. Vacancy rates in most greater Brisbane suburbs dropped below 1 per cent in January 2024, with housing availability in some suburbs sinking close to zero.

This demand is also impacting heavily on affordability, in a city where property prices have risen by 14.8 per cent in the past year alone.

Brisbane City Council projects the Australian city’s population will grow from 1.26 million people (2021 figure) to around 1.55 million by 2041, a 23% increase in two decades. This follows the broad trend across the state of Queensland, which saw a 2.6 per cent spike in population growth in a single year to June 2023.

Property Council of Australia’s Queensland Executive Director, Jess Caire, told Australian Property Investor Magazine that over recent decades Queensland’s population growth has outpaced the delivery of infrastructure and has increased demand for new land and housing in South East Queensland.

“Housing availability is now at crisis point,” Jess Claire said, “With demand only set to increase as Queensland gears up for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.”

Olympic-Size Housing Challenge

Australian Federal Government projections suggest that Queensland’s population will grow by at least another 16 per cent by 2032 when the Brisbane Olympic torch is lit, a figure that raises further questions about how Brisbane will tackle its housing crisis.

To make matters worse, the emergence of homeless people living in ‘tent cities’ in the heart of Brisbane has highlighted the desperate reality of Australia’s rental and cost-of-living emergency.

“The rental crisis across Australia is growing to disaster levels,” Norm McGillivray, the Founder of Beddown, told Yahoo News Australia recently.

McGillivray said he has noticed an increase in the homeless population in Brisbane, noting that many of these people have jobs but simply can’t get into a rental property due to availability and price. He added that: “People are also sleeping in their cars.”

Vicki Howard, a Brisbane councillor, told Yahoo: “It’s heartbreaking people are being forced to sleep in tents, cars and in insecure accommodation as a result of the housing crisis and the State Government’s chronic under-investment in social housing”.

“Tents aren’t a solution to the housing crisis, houses are,” added Howard.

At the time of writing, the population of the Australia sits at approximately 27 million, a 40.4 per cent increase since 2000.

Submitted by Friends of Retha


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