Melbourne is growing — upwards in the middle, and outwards at the edges. How does family life in the booming centre compare to the sprawling fringes?

The McMurtrie family: Southbank

The Willy Wonka figurine on the shelf of the McMurtries' living room bobs its head ever so slightly.

Southbank Current population: 20,160

20,160 Projected population by 2036: 51,616 (Up 171 per cent on 2015)

51,616 (Up 171 per cent on 2015) Current number of private dwellings: 11,293

11,293 Projected number of private dwellings by 2036: 39,073

39,073 Current average household size: 1.87, expected to decrease to 1.55 in the long term

1.87, expected to decrease to 1.55 in the long term Of the 20 most densely populated postcodes in Australia, Southbank is ranked 19. All the others are in Sydney. Source: City of Melbourne

As five-year-old Chloe McMurtrie spoons cereal into her mouth, she points.

It's the vibration from the construction down the block. They're putting up another tower.

Rodney McMurtrie doesn't mind. He likes seeing the inner-city skyline morph outside his window. A living, breathing thing.

At 40, the commercial airline pilot is right where he wants to be.

"I always imagined I would have a little city apartment. I just thought [my wife] Mel wouldn't want to do it. And then when I spoke to her she said 'let's go'."

No backyard? No problem. The living room plays host to an impromptu ball game after breakfast. ( ABC News: Jane Cowan )

In the clouds

You have to take two lifts to reach the apartment.

Inside everything feels thick-walled and hushed. The hubbub of the street is irrelevant 41 floors up.

The $1-million-plus view draws you to a deep balcony. From the railing it's as if you could reach out and touch the glinting skyscrapers.

"The view from bed is unbelievable," smiles Rodney.

"Once you wake up in the morning and look down the Yarra River from 400 feet above the street you can't ever imagine living down low again."

Goodbye quarter acre block, hello entertainment

Rodney grew up on an acre in Eltham in Melbourne's bushy north-east.

His parents can't quite get their heads around his life choices.

"They just keep asking us when we're moving out," he chuckles.

Chloe's dad Rodney helps her get dressed, something her mum does most days. ( ABC News: Jane Cowan )

Rodney wipes his daughter's nose. ( ABC News: Jane Cowan )

Once upon a time the McMurtries actually lived in the outer suburbs. They still have a house there.

"I got sick of driving," Rodney says.

Here he can leave home and be in his seat at the footy 15 minutes later. No more sitting in traffic.

"We have one car and we don't really need it. Mel, more than everybody, walks everywhere. We get far more exercise and we go out a lot more."

Today a mid-morning movie is on the agenda after dropping Chloe at school.

In a high-rise, you have community, tempered by privacy.

"We don't see our neighbours, we don't hear them," says Rodney. "I've never felt hemmed in."

"A bit more space might be nice," concedes Melanie.

The pair met when she was working at the airport. But these days she's a full-time mum and spends most time at home.

For connection, there is the school community. There's a Facebook page for the building so you know what's going on.

"We know a few of the neighbours," Melanie says. "We don't pop over and grab things out of their fridge because the shop's only across the road anyway."

A good school

It was partly for the schools that the McMurtries moved to the city.

"School teachers advised us to move into the city. We didn't need to be told twice."

They've been delighted with their decision and love their school in Port Melbourne. To the point that when a new school in Ferrars Street opens next year, followed by South Melbourne Park Primary in 2019, they're not sure they'll move Chloe — even to get smaller class sizes.

The only downside of city living with a child, says Rodney, is that when you want the grandparents to babysit, someone has to do an hour round trip in the car.

Chloe holds her mother's hand on the way through Southbank to school. ( ABC News: Jane Cowan )

At the bus stop there is a moment of community as another family from Chloe's school waits for the bus. ( ABC News: Jane Cowan )

It's an eight minute bus trip from the casino to Port Melbourne for Chloe to get to school. The walk to the bus stop is longer than the ride itself. The bus sets down right outside the school gates.

Parks are further away though. The closest is near Federation Square - a half hour walk from home.

The couple didn't choose apartment living over a house, as such. It was location they were going for. A house in an inner suburb would have added another half a million to the price tag, Rodney estimates.

"We'd love to have our suburban house in Southbank but you just can't do it," says Rodney. "We bought the biggest place we could afford in the location we wanted to live in."

Catching the bus to take Chloe to school in Port Melbourne gives the family time together on days when Rodney is home from his job as a commercial airline pilot. ( ABC News: Jane Cowan )

Chloe goes to school in Port Melbourne. ( ABC News: Jane Cowan )

In the neighbourhood: Rodney and Melanie head home after dropping their daughter at school, planning to duck out and see a mid-morning movie. ( ABC News: Jane Cowan )

Would they ever contemplate moving back to the suburbs?

"We will never live in Mernda again," says Rodney, the answer rolling off his tongue. "We're pretty sure of that."

"I like this area. I like our lifestyle," agrees Melanie. "Maybe a fourth bedroom — a spare one for me."

The McMurtries will stay put at least until the kids finish school. That's right — kids. Plural.

They're working on expanding their family in the clouds.

The Ferraro family: Mernda

On Melbourne's north-eastern fringe, closer to Whittlesea than Epping, Mernda is an hour from the city in light traffic.

Mernda, City of Whittlesea Mernda is part of the City of Whittlesea which is the third fastest growing municipality in Victoria

Mernda is part of the which is the third fastest growing municipality in Victoria City of Whittlesea's current population: 209,000

209,000 Projected population by 2036: 348,000

348,000 Young families make up 55 per cent of residents moving to the area

Young families make up of residents moving to the area Sixty-six babies are born in the City of Whittlesea each week, on average Source: City of Whittlesea

This is deep suburbia.

Kristie Ferraro, 33, is here for one reason: it's affordable.

Rent is $355 per week for a four-bedroom house.

Still, money is tight. Can it be anything else for a single mother raising four boys between three and 12? They cut off the water last week because of a late bill. It happens.

"Financially it's difficult. I had to move my kids from school in South Morang because it was just costing too much in petrol to just go down to the next suburb."

Besides, with the congestion it was taking an hour.

Diesel Ferraro, followed by his older brother Dylan, cycles along dirt road each day between his housing estate and school. ( ABC News: Jane Cowan )

The middle of nowhere

On the ridge above the proliferating houses is a single line of trees, a vestige of the once bucolic setting. Here and there is a stray water tank, a barbed wire fence.

But when you're living in a brick box, no matter how nicely decorated, the remnant vegetation on the hill doesn't do much for your quality of life.

Kristie consults with her second oldest son Diesel as she makes lunches with practised efficiency. ( ABC News: Jane Cowan )

Kristie retrieves some clothes to finish dressing her youngest son. ( ABC News: Jane Cowan )

For Kristie, Mernda has been an isolating experience.

"We're very isolated. We're in the middle of nowhere, we're forgotten."

The Forgotten Estate, she calls her neighbourhood.

"It's a family estate yet we have nothing to tend to families. We've got a park with one swing and a new park that's gone up at the end of the same street with nothing but a set of soccer goals. [It's] meant to be two acres with walking paths and play equipment. Nothing's been delivered."

"We need things for the kids to do because most of them are hyperactive and at the age where they want to get out and do stuff, and they can't."

Kristie dresses her three-year-old while her other three sons hang out in the living room before school. ( ABC News: Jane Cowan )

Dirt road

Kristie's older boys ride their bikes to school. Often she trails along behind them in the car just to make sure they get there in one piece.

Getting out of the estate means navigating a section of corrugated dirt road.

"It's just so dangerous because there's always cars and dust. The roads in winter have to be resurfaced every week, the potholes are unbelievable there."

They could go a different way but it's longer and busier and still no footpaths.

"We were told there were going to be no houses along that street, it was all just going to be country. Now they've built two new estates at the end.

Kristie drives along one of the few remaining stretches of bushland she passes on her daily route. ( ABC News: Jane Cowan )

"They're building a childcare [and] a doctor's surgery, which you would have to travel down the dirt road to get to and it can't hold public traffic as it is. Yet they're making more to attract traffic."

Without a car, she'd be marooned.

"We don't have any public transport here. Once again, we've got to walk down the dirt road which is about a 20-minute walk, maybe half an hour to get to the bus stop. As much as we try to push for things, we're not getting anything."

And they don't even have the bush setting anymore.

One homeowner says she and her husband were promised nothing would be built across the road from them. They even had to pay $15,000 extra to build their house, for glazed windows and bushfire provisions, because of the proximity to bushland.

Five years later the bush is gone, replaced with yet more houses.

No space

If these are the suburbs you move to for a quarter-acre block and a realisation of the Australian dream, then something has been lost in translation.

At least there are magpies and cockatoos and patches of paddock.

It's better than the city, Kristie says. The city gives her the heebie jeebies, sets off her anxiety.

Kristie walks her second youngest son Tripp to school as Ryder tags along. ( ABC News: Jane Cowan )

But the backyards are postage stamps, more storage than space.

"We can't put swing sets in the backyard," says Kristie. "We have to come down to the park just to get some land at least, to kick the ball or for the kids to ride a scooter."

Children resort to playing in the street.

Some mothers drive to other estates to go to parks, and can recite them off: Doreen has the flying fox, there's the new one in Mernda Villages. There's Craigieburn, but you can't walk there.

No jobs

Don't misunderstand her: Kristie loves her neighbours, her community. Even with the hoons and their burnouts in the street. (Word at the playground is the tone of the neighbourhood began to change when developers put in smaller houses aimed at renters.)

Kristie loves the community in Mernda, and is happy with the school. She just wants better facilities in the estate for kids. ( ABC News: Jane Cowan )

"We all get along great. We're very communal. We all talk, we all promote each other in businesses. When we want to come down to the park we all get together and go together so the kids do have each other to play with — because there's nothing to play with down here."

They're all in the same boat.

To earn money Kristie makes candles from home.

Another mother sews wedding dresses.

A third cuts hair — though out here it's nothing like the salary she earned in the city.

No-one can think of anyone who has a job outside the home in the local area.

There are tradesmen who get up at 4:00am to be on the other side of Melbourne by dawn.

There are those who commute.

But as for jobs in the local community?

"There's nothing here unless you want to work in the supermarket, and those jobs all go to kids," one mum says.

Buyer beware

"Don't do it" is Kristie's flat advice to those contemplating moving to newly built estates in the far outer suburbs.

Or at least, be careful.

"Make sure on the contract it states that parks are going to be attended to. Make sure it's established already and you can see the goods because we've been waiting so long for our goods to be delivered, we're getting nothing."

She's frustrated to see the State Government opening up new areas.

Mums Angie Murray (left) and Natalie Darmanin on the edge of the park in their estate at Mernda, where they say there's nothing to do and kids end up playing on the road. ( ABC News: Jane Cowan )

Kristie chats with another mother at the local park, where there is only a few sedate pieces of play equipment. ( ABC News: Jane Cowan )

"How can you build more houses with nothing for the people buying these houses?

"We don't have the roads out of the area. We don't have the equipment for the kids to play, not enough places to shop."

The Government concedes there's an urgent need for more infrastructure, and promises it's coming in the form of fast-tracked road upgrades, a rail extension and extra services.

Kristie doesn't want to move. She likes her house. Four growing boys in a three-bedroom apartment in South Morang wasn't sustainable.

This is her life. It's here. She's making it work.

"Good vibes only," says the positive affirmation on the wall of the spacious rumpus room.

The Siamese fighting fish circles in its bowl on the kitchen bench.

This is the option.