Melton

Melton, a vast satellite suburb 36 km north-west of Melbourne, quadrupled its population from 4491 in 1971 to 18,055 in 1981, and has continued to grow rapidly since, spawning suburbs of its own. Founded as a tiny settlement on the road to the Ballarat gold fields, it gained some prominence when the railway line to Ballarat was finally built in the 1880s, and trains still use the spectacular steel girder railway bridge over the Werribee River. Melton’s landscape is dominated by new brick housing, some of which could be characterised as McMansions.