The Australian city of Sydney may not stand as the country’s largest city in terms of population in the coming times. According to a recent study, another popular Australian city, Melbourne may replace Sydney. As reported by BIS Shrapnel, Sydney’s inability to provide affordable housing may cause the city to miss its state government’s forecast of 1.1 percent population growth for 2015 to 2020.

According to the head of the property development group, Urban Taskforce (which published the research) Melbourne will probably outcast Sydney as the country’s largest city in 2037 with its long-term population growth of 1.3 percent per year. The study stated that Sydney housed 660,000 more people than Melbourne in 2001. But, over eight years the figure decreased to 500,000 towards the mid of the 2009. This makes clear that the difference between the two cities in population aspect has been diminishing rapidly.

The study also found that as compared to Sydney, Melbourne has been able to accommodate extra population over the last few years. As a matter of fact, both the cities have been the most populated parts of Australia, where Sydney houses 4.4 million people and Melbourne is home to 3.9 million people. The city of Brisbane comes at the third slot with 1.9 million inhabitants.

Sydney’s house prices have started to rise towards the late 1990s and it still continues to soar. When the city is unable to provide adequate housing facility, the number of immigrants to the city would also decrease. Thus, a city should consider that alongside providing jobs, housing can also offer it the opportunity to attract and house immigrants who can contribute to its economy!