Whilst one normally thinks of East Melbourne as a leafy green suburb with an interesting range of houses from every era since Victorian, the reality is that almost exactly two thirds of us live in apartment accommodation. That said, unlike other neighbouring suburbs whose characters are changing due to the increased development of medium and large apartment complexes, the character of East Melbourne appears stable where the ratio between the number of apartments and houses has remained fairly constant at 2.8 apartments for every house.
Eighty per cent of the growth in our population has been achieved through an increase in the number of both houses and apartments. The increase in the number of houses has been entirely due to an increase in the number of semidetached or townhouse accommodation, where presumably existing single houses, or empty land, have been subdivided and redeveloped. The remaining twenty per cent of our population growth has been achieved through an increase in household size. This has occurred in both apartments and houses. Increasing household size bucks the national trend for smaller household sizes and is likely a reflection of the desirable nature of our suburb.
The age profile of the East Melbourne population is very different from the national population profile in two areas: children and across the 25 to the 34 year old age group.
The suburb has very few children and teenagers compared to the national average: only seven percent of local residents are less than 19 years old, whereas in the national population the comparable figure is 26 per cent. Whilst the low number of children may reflect a range of factors such as apartment living not being seen as consistent to raising families, it is also apparent that the availability of schooling options has an impact. Between one and four years old there are on average 27 children at each year of age, at five years of age approximately 60 per cent of these children disappear.
In the 25 to 34 year old age group the reverse is true. Nationally 14 per cent of Australians are in this age band, in East Melbourne the comparable figure is 31 per cent. The majority of this group live in apartments, and over three quarters of them are single and/or never been married.
Other tit bits about our local population:
- 65 percent of our residents were born in Australia, five per cent less than the national average. The most common other countries of birth are, in order: United Kingdom, New Zealand, Malaysia, United States, India and China.
- We’re considerably more godless than the national population! 39 percent of residents stated they have no religious belief, compared to 22 per cent of the Australian population. The Catholics appear to be the sole large religious group that bucks this trend, perhaps as a result of some flocking urge to be near the cathedral.
- We have three centenarians living in the suburb, we may have up to seven more at the next census in 2016.
- There are approximately 2,400 cars reported as being in the suburb.
- 92 percent of residences have some form of internet connection reflecting income and location. The national average is 79 percent.
For a more detailed profile of the 3002 community go to the Australian Bureau of Statistics data drawn form the 2011 census.