Can the Gold Coast cope with a dramatic rise in population? This excerpt from the Film Australia documentary Populate or Perish shows the rapid development of the city.

Located south of Brisbane, this 70 km holiday strip was originally called the 'South Coast'. In the 1950s, however, inflated real-estate prices inspired its new name, the Gold Coast. The influx of people to the area swelled the population and led to development on a grand scale.

Already the eighth largest Australian city when this documentary was made, by 2007 the Gold Coast had become the largest non-capital city in Australia and Australia's sixth largest city overall.