Victoria
Separated from NSW July 1, 1851. Three weeks later: gold discovered. Population 7x in 10 years (76k→540k). Produced 20M oz gold (1/3 world output). "Marvellous Melbourne" built on resource pulse. Today: 7M people, 75% in Melbourne—extreme centralization. Gold depleted 1870s but infrastructure persists. Secondary succession: new growth on boom-era foundation. Regional Victoria supplies Melbourne. Winner-take-all dynamics: when you win the lottery, you don't spread the winnings.
Victoria won the lottery and hasn't stopped spending the winnings. In 1851, the Port Phillip District separated from New South Wales on July 1st. Three weeks later, gold was discovered near Ballarat. Timing couldn't be scripted better. Over the next 10 years, Victoria's population exploded sevenfold—from 76,000 to 540,000. The colony produced 20 million ounces of gold between 1851 and 1860, one-third of the world's total output. Ships arrived from Europe and Asia carrying fortune-seekers. They didn't disperse evenly—they swarmed to the goldfields, then to Melbourne, the port where the gold got weighed, banked, and shipped. By the 1870s, Melbourne had become "Marvellous Melbourne," Australia's wealthiest city, building railways, universities, grand buildings, and manufacturing capacity funded by geological luck.
The gold ran out. The infrastructure didn't. When Australia federated in 1901, Melbourne became the temporary capital while Canberra was being built—the compromise lasted until 1927. Melbourne kept the universities, the financial networks, the manufacturing base, and the cultural institutions that gold money had purchased. By 2025, Victoria has 7 million people. Seventy-five percent live in Greater Melbourne—5.25 million concentrated in one metropolitan area while regional Victoria slowly empties. During the 2020-21 pandemic, Melbourne lost 61,000 people to regional areas and interstate flight. But by 2023-24, Melbourne rebounded with 142,600 new arrivals while regional Victoria gained only 19,800. The gravity well reasserted itself.
Victoria's economy accounts for 23.24% of Australia's GDP—second only to New South Wales. But where NSW distributes across Sydney, Newcastle, and Wollongong, Victoria concentrates in Melbourne. The state is a hub-and-spoke network where all roads, rail, and economic activity route through one city. Melbourne markets itself as "Australia's cultural capital"—the festivals, the laneways, the coffee, the Australian Rules football—differentiation from Sydney's financial dominance. But the cultural branding masks demographic reality: regional Victoria exists to supply Melbourne with agricultural products, weekend tourism, and the occasional talented person who can't afford Melbourne housing.
The pattern is secondary succession. The gold rush was the disturbance—a massive resource pulse that cleared existing patterns and allowed explosive colonization. Melbourne won the winner-take-all race during that boom by controlling the port. The resource depleted by 1870, but the infrastructure persisted—railways, universities, buildings, banks, networks. New growth happens on top of old infrastructure, following paths laid down 150 years ago. Regional cities like Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong remain because they were goldfield supply towns. They're fossils of the boom, kept viable by proximity to Melbourne but never independent.
By 2026, Victoria continues the project it started in 1851: centralizing everything into Melbourne and calling it success. The 75% concentration isn't a problem—it's the strategy. When you win the lottery, you don't spread the winnings evenly. You build a mansion and let everyone else visit.