Anyone who has driven on Melbourne's freeways during the morning peak, walked a CBD street at 5pm on a weekday, or caught a rush-hour train to the city's south-east knows it. Melbourne is a city on steroids, often without the infrastructure to cope with the population boom.

But Melbourne's growth has come sharply into focus with the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showing just how fast the city's population is growing.

The figures followed a pledge from Opposition Leader Matthew Guy on Thursday to create a Population Commission to set “localised population limits”.

For the past two years, Melbourne has attracted 125,000 new migrants from overseas and interstate – with our population hitting 5 million people this month. The city has boomed from 4 million in just eight years, unprecedented in Melbourne's history.

But as detailed in fresh data also released on Thursday by Deloitte Access Economics, over the past two decades a majority of new residents have moved to sprawling new suburbs on the city's fringe.