Take a quick drive through the city or across some of the surrounding suburbs, and you will see first-hand how much development is taking place in Melbourne.
Moreover, it’s not just in the city.
There is significant development of the outer-residential areas as well, to the tune of thousands that didn’t even make the list below.
As for the list, however, we look at the most prominent regions of development in Melbourne, some of which may surprise you.
The suburb of Melbourne takes top spot as the CBD (and St Kilda Road which is included in this statistic) undergoes some substantial changes to infrastructure.
So much so that the spillover encompasses spots two and three with Southbank and South Melbourne.
The rise in popularity of vertical living has led to plenty of sky rise planning, some of which has already begun with plenty more to come.
The outer suburbs are also rising in popularity from both a commercial and residential development point of view.
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This is representative of the opposing trend to vertical living — more space.
As the suburbs begin to offer more in the way of entertainment and facilities, more residents are taking a hit of distance from the city in exchange for a backyard.
If there were a “most improved” award, it would go to Footscray.
Taking out the fourth spot we can expect this to be the next inner-city boom area.
The shift in Footscray culture, which is moving away from its working-class roots and heading down a more creative and upmarket path, means that investors and potential residents will be snapping up space.
Dockland clings onto the top five thanks to being named a “priority precinct” to differ some of the heavy traffic heading to the CBD.
This area has been tipped as a future hub that will receive significant upgrades in the car future to attract some of the CBD traffic.
Urban.com.au uses projects marked as Planning Assessment, Approved, Registration & Sales and Under Construction in the following statistics.
| Rank | Suburb | Number of Dwellings |
| 1 | Melbourne | 20,035 |
| 2 | Southbank | 16,015 |
| 3 | South Melbourne | 6573 |
| 4 | Footscray | 6526 |
| 5 | Docklands | 6276 |
| 6 | Box Hill | 5645 |
| 7 | West Melbourne | 4980 |
| 8 | Richmond | 4402 |
| 9 | South Yarra | 4124 |
| 10 | Doncaster | 3808 |
| 11 | Preston | 3369 |
| 12 | Brunswick | 3044 |
| 13 | Brunswick East | 2828 |
| 14 | North Melbourne | 2793 |
| 15 | Moonee Ponds | 2749 |
| 16 | Collingwood | 2668 |
| 17 | St Kilda | 2618 |
| 18 | Port Melbourne | 2493 |
| 19 | Coburg | 1792 |
| 20 | Hawthorn East | 1757 |
Guest author: Chris Tomlinson works in operations at Urban.com.au, Australia’s largest development database.
