The new face of vulnerability: The breakneck growth of Melbourne has led to fears of two Melbournes – the inner well-resourced, the outer disadvantaged and disenfranchised. Credit:Eddie Jim "If you scratch underneath that, there's a lot of things that are not being said or heard," she says. Isolation, lack of schools, lack of transport and local jobs combine with financial stress make for a hard life for many that is not obvious to the outsider. First, an important observation: most people are quite positive about living here. "In the main, it provides an opportunity for people to own their own home for the first time and raise their family in a safe, newly built environment," says Antonetti.. But those positives are often weighed down by the lack of supporting infrastructure, both social and physical.

Despite the new houses with modern cars in the driveways, residents of Melbourne's fringe suburbs often face significant challenges that aren't always obvious at first glance. Credit:Eddie Jim The new housing developments of Mernda are typical of wider problems that have beset the increasing numbers who are making the fringe of Melbourne their homes. The same problems of isolation – this outer suburban tyranny of distance – is repeated in the new estates that have sprouted to house our booming population. Our growth has been breathtaking. Melbourne's population has grown faster than any other capital city. In the past decade, we have added an extra three quarters of a million people, to become a city of 4.4 million. Migration accounts for about 70 per cent of the growth. Urban planner Professor Roz Hansen is deeply concerned by the growing disparities in choices available to Melburnians according to where they live. And it is the fringe of Melbourne – the designated growth areas – that has been biggest destination for these increased numbers. Mernda is in the City of Whittlesea, with a growth rate of just more than 4 per cent over the past five years. Wyndham leads the table at 7 per cent. (Each week, the area has 70 births.) Next comes Melton at more than 6 per cent, and Cardinia slightly above 5 per cent.

The appeal is obvious, and in large part, a matter of economics. In the Mernda estates, a house and land package can start below $300,000 – a far cry from the stratospheric prices of the inner and middle suburbs, an attainable dream. There is a ready and eager demand for the houses that developers are producing. Long time advocates for better public transport in Mernda and surrounding suburbs include people like Darren Peters of the Mernda Rail Alliance. Credit:Teagan Glenane This demand is unlikely to abate. The new Victoria in Future report forecasts a population for Greater Melbourne of 7.8 million, and 10.1 million for Victoria by 2051. And no government is about to put up a "full" sign – as a former NSW Labor premier declared of Sydney in 2000. Population growth has bipartisan support. Yet a growing population – and the economic benefits it generates – are only part of the picture. Successive governments have failed to provide the necessary physical and social infrastructure upon which communities depend: schools, jobs, community and sporting facilities and transport. This has led to fears of two Melbournes – the inner well-resourced, the outer disadvantaged and disenfranchised. In 2012, respected urban planner Roz Hansen delivered the Brotherhood of St Laurence's Sambell Oration around this very theme. As an urban planner of more than 30 years, Hansen said she was deeply troubled by the growing disparities in choices available to Melburnians by the fact of where they live.

Hansen chaired the committee that advised on the former Coalition's Plan Melbourne, the blueprint for the city. Importantly, the team included Tony Nicholson, head of the Brotherhood of St Laurence. There was the famous falling out with then Planning Minister Matthew Guy over the final shape of the plan, and new Labor Planning Minister Richard Wynne has got the band back together to update aspects of Plan Melbourne. One of the plan's big ideas goes to the heart of making life more liveable for those of the fringe – the 20-minute city. Jobs, education and facilities a 20-minute journey from your home. It makes compelling sense. But aspirations are one thing. A critical public policy failure in dealing with Melbourne's population growth has been translating good intentions and aspirations into reality – the lack of strategic, co-ordinated planning for the new growth areas. Two years ago, the Auditor-General delivered a scathing assessment. "Over many years, the state has failed to deliver the transport infrastructure and services needed to support rapidly growing communities," the report declared. "This is adversely impacting accessibility, and risks the future liveability of metropolitan Melbourne."

There are signs that in recent times, at the very least, Spring Street is recognising and acting upon the problems of growth without support. In its first state budget, the Andrews government set up a $50 million growth fund for the so-called interface councils for community facilities. The bids are in, and the projects that have won funding will be revealed by the end of the year. The government also this week released a new Managing Growth document, which directly addresses the failures of the past. The language is important – "managing" rather than "coping with" growth. Encouragingly, it also tackles the lag in providing infrastructure that has eroded the quality of life on the fringe. There are plans for local infrastructure, so that communities get what they need as they develop. There will be a pilot program in Melton this year. It is a good place to start, given what lies ahead for the area. Melton had an estimated population of 127,350 in 2014. That is expected to increase by more than 60 per cent in the next decade, the paper says. About 100,000 housing lots will be created.

This aim of the local plan, then, is to co-ordinate the economic and social infrastructure that will be needed, including public transport, local roads and investment to provide jobs. This is the kind of strategic planning the growth areas have been desperate for – a vision that extends beyond simply houses. Planning Minister Richard Wynne says government must invest early, so that everybody benefits from the services "that a civil society ought to expect." Wynne has recently been making the case that people who live on the fringe should not have lesser opportunities, and cites the example of education. "A child who might be living on the urban fringe ought to have the same opportunities as a child living in a more established suburb." "This is really what government has to be about," he continues. "We just can't be in a place where you've got some sections of the community who suffer from a lack of the most basic but important infrastructure that makes a community function." The document also trumpets the almost $1 billion the state is spending in the growth areas. But that has to been seen in the context of built up demand, and what is needed.

Work by Essential Economics for the councils on the fringe estimates that over the next four years, another $920 million is required for critical infrastructure, such as early childhood and kindergarten facilities, schools, further education, health and public transport. Putting dollar amounts to what is needed has been part of an aggressive on-the-ground campaign by the councils to get more for their areas, trying to push their needs up the political agenda, often working with local interest groups. The last state election provided a perfect opportunity. In the City of Whittlesea, the reinstatement of the rail line – closed more than 50 years ago – has been a big issue, and local campaigning has seen the extension to South Morang completed. But demand is continuing to build, and the extension to Mernda is critical. In the lead up to the last election, the council coordinated the Access Denied campaign. Whittlesea mayor Ricky Kirkham says the campaign empowered the community to take action. "It gave voice to the local community to demand more of the state government," he says. "It helped bring forward the Mernda rail extension by 20 years which in turn means that residents will have improved access to services, jobs and recreational activities."

And it also reinforced that that the community has the right to set its own agenda and local priorities. What was once Mernda station is now an overgrown old platform. Hardeep Breha would have loved it to be working the day he had to get to the city for work – provided there was somewhere to park. The healthcare assistant gave himself two hours for the journey. But the 450-space carpark at South Morang was full. So were the carparks down the line at Epping and Lalor. He ended up parking at a friend's house in Thomastown, and remarkably, was only five minutes late. Then there is the lack of schools. He drives his eldest daughter across to secondary school at Lalor, daily runs totalling 35 kilometres. A high school is the most pressing issue, he says. Despite the frustrations, he and his family like Mernda, where they have bought after living in older suburbs around northern Melbourne since arriving from India eight years ago. "This is a really good area – newly-developed, nearby parks," he says. "Everywhere is green."

"When I came to Mernda," he adds, "then I realised, Now, I am in Australia." Patrick O'Neill, who initially trained as a town planner, has a brief with the Brotherhood covering new communities. We initially meet in inner Fitzroy, near the organisation's head office and the area where it began its work in Melbourne 80 years ago. Back then, disadvantage was obvious: picture the poor kids standing in the stoops of shops in Gertrude Street. But disadvantage has changed in both its nature and location. A few years ago, the Brotherhood started to try to understand what life was like on the fringe of Melbourne, focussing largely to the west and north, areas historically under-resourced. "There are a lot of people seemingly doing OK on the surface," says O'Neill. "They might even have employment, they might have even home ownership. But you scratch the surface and there are huge problems and huge challenges that those people are facing."

The next time we meet it is the heart of Mernda's new estates, at the Jindi Family and Community Centre, where the Brotherhood provides services. Opened at the start of the year, the council centre offers maternal and child healthcare, community rooms, a kindergarten and long-hours childcare. The latter is particularly important given the distances that some parents have to drive to get to work. Some children are in care from when the centre opens at 6.30am until it closes 12 hours later. Part of the Brotherhood's work has been listening to the community, trying to understand what it is like to live in Mernda. Antonetti has spoken to about 80 people. A common scenario is a family under significant financial stress travelling long distances to get to work. A lot of women Antonetti talks to are isolated, lonely and depressed. Add to that the stress of not being able to put food on the table. She has referred people for food relief. "It's really hard to explain unless you talk to people and experience it yourself," she says. "If you just drove through here, you really wouldn't understand what people are going through."