Sunshine Coast
Named for real estate marketing (1967), like Gold Coast. Noosa banned high-rises and de-amalgamated in 2014 to stay different. Now 388,000 people, A$23B economy. Adding 6,000 residents/year; direct Brisbane rail by 2032. The anti-Gold Coast.
The Sunshine Coast got its name the same way the Gold Coast did—real estate marketing. In 1967, six years after developers branded the 'South Coast' as the 'Gold Coast,' the region north of Brisbane was named 'Sunshine Coast' to sell tourism and property. The branding worked. What had been timber country and scattered coastal resorts became one of Australia's fastest-growing regions, attracting lifestyle migrants from Sydney and Melbourne who wanted beaches without the high-rise chaos of the Gold Coast.
The Gubbi Gubbi (Kabi Kabi) and Wakka Wakka peoples inhabited this coast for at least 40,000 years. The word 'Noosa' means 'shadows' or 'shade'—the relief tall forests offered from the sun. 'Maroochydore' comes from 'murukutchi-dha,' meaning 'place of the red bills' (black swans). European settlers arrived in the 1840s; timber getters harvested the forests; the 1867 Gympie gold rush built roads and railways. By the 1920s, developers were creating planned villages at Sunshine Beach and building a coastal highway. The Salvation Army ran holiday camps at Cotton Tree from 1888.
Noosa tried to resist what happened to the Gold Coast. In the late 1990s, the shire council imposed a 50,000 population cap and banned high-rise development—no structures over six storeys even today. When forced amalgamation merged Noosa, Maroochy, and Caloundra into the Sunshine Coast Region in 2008, 95% of Noosa voters had rejected it. By 2014, Noosa had successfully de-amalgamated—a rare reversal that preserved its character while the rest of the coast grew. The contrast with the Gold Coast is deliberate and maintained.
Today the Sunshine Coast is home to over 388,000 people—Australia's ninth-largest city and Queensland's third. The economy topped A$23 billion in output in 2024, driven by health, education, and construction. The Sunshine Coast University Hospital and University of the Sunshine Coast anchor white-collar employment. Since 2020, thousands of Australians have migrated from southern capitals seeking work-from-home flexibility and coastal lifestyle—the region added 6,000 new residents in 2024 alone. Projections suggest 450,000 residents within five years and 500,000 by 2041.
By 2026, the Sunshine Coast is building toward a transformation: a direct rail link to Brisbane (projected 2032) will cut commute time by 45 minutes; the A$2.5 billion Maroochydore City Centre will create a new CBD; Aura and Banya estates will add 20,000 dwellings. The airport expansion completed in 2024 added interstate and New Zealand routes. The question is whether growth can be managed without becoming the next Gold Coast—the outcome Noosa explicitly rejected.