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6 million population expected

SYDNEY will be home to five million people by 2022 and could hit six million by mid-century as its population swells at a faster pace than in similar cities overseas, latest projections show.
Sydney currently has a population of 4.1 million people and State Premier, Bob Carr is fighting to keep newly-arrived migrants from settling in the city.
The figures were produced by the New South Wales Department of infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources and based on the 2001 census.
They reveal a city growing much more rapidly than similar cities in Europe and the US, but with some of the same trends, notably an ageing population.
Between 1997 and 2002, Sydney had its strongest population growth since the 1960s, mainly due to newly arrived migrants choosing Sydney as their home. But it was also the beneficiary of internal migration to the nation's most vigorous economy.
An average of 47,700 people arrived each year, equivalent to nearly 1000 people a week. In the next 30 years Sydney can expect growth to moderate a little, to 40,600 people a year, but this still makes it one of the fastest growing cities outside Asia.
In the 1990s it grew 1.2 per cent a year, compared to 0.3 per cent for London or New York.
Housing this population will require an extra 25,500 dwellings a year for the next 10 years.
Even without the population growth, it faces a challenge as household sizes continue to shrink. This will be the main thrust of the planning conference.
But there are other policy implications in the figures.
New South Wales's population will age over the next 30 years. The most extreme example of this will be on the mid-North Coat, where 35 per cent of the population will be over 65 by 2031.
Sydney will have the youngest age structure in the State - but the proportion of people over 65 will increase from 11.9 per cent in 2001 to over 20 per cent by 2031.
Moreover, the growth will not be evenly spread. Councils in western Sydney have already raised concerns that their services and infrastructure will be put under enormous strain by rapid population-growth.
Outer south-western Sydney, which includes Campbelltown and Camden, will swell by 41 per cent, to nearly 330,000 people by 2021, largely due to the proposed massive Bringelly land release.
In the north-west, Blacktown is expected to have 29 per cent more people by 2021 and 47 per cent more in 2031, while Central Northern Sydney, including Baulkham Hills and Hornsby, should add 100,000 people to be up a quarter by 2021 and 35 per cent a decade later.
Those increases contrast with places like the eastern suburbs and the lower North Shore, projected to be up by only 7 and 11 per cent respectively by 2021.
Despite the current policy of urban consolidation, Sydney will keep sprawling. The Central Coast faces a resident population one-fifth higher than it was in 2001 by 2021 and a third higher in 2031, nudging 400,000 people, while Illawarra faces similar proportionate rises, to be well over half a million people by 2031.
Compounding those numbers is the changing way Sydneysiders live, with household sizes expected to shrink from 2.7 people per dwelling to 2.45 in the next 20 years.