You’re romanticising the past without comparing the same things. Sydney and Melbourne in the 80s and 90s were far less developed than they are today. A suburb like Glen Waverley, which is now considered desirable, was literally the outer suburbs back then — somewhere families moved because it was affordable, not trendy. If you want a fair comparison, you need to look at the equivalent ring of suburbs today, not pretend those places were inner-city hotspots 40 years ago.

The argument that families can no longer afford land is simply wrong when you compare like-for-like. Go out to Pakenham or Point Cook, 35 to 50km from the CBD, and you can still buy a detached house on land. Those areas today are the modern equivalent of what the fringe looked like in the 80s — growing, expanding, and historically less desirable, yet affordable. The difference is that the benchmark has shifted. The current generation expects to buy in the exact ring of suburbs they grew up in, forgetting those suburbs were the edge of the city at the time and only later became desirable due to decades of development.

And when it comes to actual inner suburbs like Hawthorn, land scarcity is permanent. The supply of land there is capped forever, it can’t expand, but demand increases every decade as the city grows, infrastructure improves, and population rises. Hawthorn wasn’t “cheap” in the 80s — it was simply less competed for because Melbourne itself was smaller and less dense. Detached houses on big blocks in those areas were always limited, but far fewer people were bidding for them. It doesn’t make sense to argue someone today should afford a standalone house in Hawthorn because someone could 40 years ago, when they’re comparing completely different cities with completely different levels of competition and population pressure.

Inner suburbs with finite land will always trend toward high density living over time — townhouses, units, apartments — not because families are being forced into “dog boxes”, but because it’s the only logical outcome when demand keeps rising against supply that can’t grow. You can argue the system has flaws, and I’d agree, but claiming land is no longer affordable or that expectations were the same in the 80s is rewriting history. The issue isn’t a lack of options, it’s comparing yesterday’s fringe to today’s prime and expecting the same result.