This
has continued under the government of
current Premier Steve Bracks (Labor).
Since 1997, Melbourne has maintained significant
population and employment growth. Furthermore,
there has been substantial international
investment in the city's industries and
property market. 2006 figures from the
Australian Bureau of Statistics show that
since 2000 Melbourne has sustained the
highest population and economic growth
rate of any Australian city. Melbourne
is located in the south-eastern corner
of mainland Australia, and is the southernmost
mainland capital city. Geologically it
is built on the confluence of Quaternary
lava flows to the west, Silurian mudstones
to the east and Holocene sand accumulation
to the southeast along Port Phillip, its
suburbs sprawling to the east, following
the Yarra River out to the Yarra and Dandenong
Ranges, south-east to the mouth of the
bay, and following the Maribyrnong River
and its tributaries west and north to
flat farming country.
The
central business district (the original
city) is laid out in the famous mile-by-half-a-mile
Hoddle Grid, its southern edge fronting
on to the Yarra. Melbourne is typical
of Australian Capital Cities in that it
was built with the underlying notion of
a "quarter acre home and garden".
As such, much of Metropolitan Melbourne
is characterised by low density sprawl.
Furthermore, the provision of an extensive
railway and tram service in the earlier
years of development encouraged this low
density development to occur in radial
lines following the transport corridors.
The result is today's Melbourne - one
of the world's largest cities in terms
of physical size or urban footprint. Melbourne
is often referred to as Australia's garden
city, and the state of Victoria is officially
known as "the garden state".
There is an abundance of parks and gardens
close to the CBD with a variety of common
and rare plant species amid landscaped
vistas, pedestrian pathways, and tree
lined avenues.
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