Populate or perish?

Above: The greater Los Angeles area and below, the same area superimposed in south east Queensland. 

Put into a visual context, the contrast is even more apparent. If we took the footprint of the greater Los Angeles area, representing its 15 million ‘sprawling’ inhabitants, and overlaid this at the same scale over south east Queensland (just by way of example) it’s immediately apparent that it can be done with room to spare. So two thirds of the entire Australian population, hypothetically (and that’s all this is) could fit within SEQ leaving one third or around 7 plus million to inhabit the entire rest of the continent.

In short, at LA levels of population density, roughly the area we know of as south east Queensland could accommodate some 15 million people comfortably. Not just the 3 million people it currently has, which apparently means (if you listen to some) that it’s bursting at the seams and can’t possibly take any more. Absolutely chockers. No more room. Full up. Go away.

A more extreme example, just to stretch the imagination further, is worth thinking about. Jakarta, Indonesia (our nearest large foreign neighbour) has a population of 26 million people. That’s more than the entire population of Australia, living in one (very crowded) city – at the rate of 9,400 people per square kilometre.

Now, I’m not wishing that sort of urban density (and in large part, misery) on anyone in Australia, but the hypothetical comparison still applies, for the sake of discussion only. The footprint of greater urban Jakarta, home to 26 million people, easily fits within the boundary of south east Queensland.  In fact, it doesn’t even require the Gold or Sunshine Coasts to do it. Imagine this: the entire population of Australia, crammed as it would be into this super-compact urban footprint, and not a single soul living anywhere else on the entire continent?