What makes up Southbank?

By Sunny Liu

The recently released 2016 census shows Southbank’s population has soared from 11,235 in 2011 to 18,808.

The population boom is matched with an explosion in the number of apartments, which has nearly doubled from 4983 units in 2011 to 8137 in 2016.

The number of families is up from 2519 in 2011 to 3965, making up 47.4 per cent of all Southbank households.

Single-person dwellings constitute 34.7 per cent and group dwellings constitute 17.9 per cent of all households in Southbank.

With a median age of 30 and with 57.5 per cent of the population aged between 20 and 34, Southbank residents are a very young age group in Victoria, where the state median age is 37.

Some 42.8 per cent of Southbankers are tertiary-educated, dwarfing the average 17.8 per cent across Victoria.

Apart from the young and educated characteristics, the Southbank population is also largely single. Some 60.7 per cent of the residents have never been married.

The young, smart and single Southbank residents are more likely to rent than to own. Most people (63.6 per cent) are renting their home, compared with 33.9 per cent who own their property.

Southbank’s location of envy means the median rent here is much higher than Victoria’s median and people do not feel the need to drive.

The median weekly rent in Southbank is a whopping $511, while across Victoria it is $325. Only 7.9 per cent of Victorians do not own a motor vehicle, but 34.4 per cent of Southbankers do not have a vehicle.

Southbank residents’ high income also makes the high rental costs seem relatively affordable. The median personal weekly income is $980 and median household weekly income is $1852 in Southbank.

In comparison, the median personal weekly income in Victoria is $644 and $1419 for a household.

Southbank is a multicultural hub. Some 20.9 per cent of Southbankers identify their ancestry as Chinese, 14.1 per cent as English, 8.6 per cent as Australian, 5.5 per cent as Irish and 4.9 per cent as Indian.

Some 46.2 per cent of residents speak a non-English language at home.

The top non-English languages spoken at home are Mandarin (15.4 per cent), Cantonese (3.4 per cent), Spanish (2.8 per cent) and Indonesian (2.7 per cent).

Southbank is a popular place of residence among immigrants, with only 29.5 per cent of Southbank residents born in Australia.

Some 13.2 per cent of residents were born in mainland China, 4.6 per cent were born in India and 4.1 per cent were born in Malaysia.

Second-generation immigrants, with both parents born overseas, constitute 63.2 per cent of the Southbank population.

Many (41.8 per cent) of Southbank residents say they are not religious and 15.3 per cent are Catholic.

The numbers of men and women in Southbank are quite balanced, with 50.3 per cent men and 49.7 per cent women.