Cardinia atlas shows the way

EVER wondered where the shire’s most affluent or highly educated live?
Or where people born abroad are more likely to live?
The answers can now be found on a new and improved Community Atlas on the Cardinia Shire Council website.
The atlas provides statistical maps of Cardinia Shire, illustrating a range of demographics including socio-economic disadvantage, age, ethnicity, internet access, income, one-parent families and population density – statistics about people living in shire and they way they live.
The council’s strategic planning manager, John Holland, said the resource was an important tool used in planning for the needs of a growing community.
“The atlas has been developed to assist the council with its planning processes and simplifies the process of tracking the changing needs in our different shire communities,” he said.
“We hope that by making the atlas available to the community, online, they will be able to use it for their own planning.”
The atlas illustrates some interesting information about the people living in Cardinia Shire including that the median age in the Pakenham, Officer, Beaconsfield growth corridor is 25 to 29 and 40 in rural areas.
One-parent families are sparse in rural areas, while people born overseas are more likely to be living in the hills.
There are 59 maps in the online Community Atlas, which were created using information from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and 2006 census when the shire’s population was more than 56,000.
It is estimated that at least four families move into the shire each day.
The Community Atlas as been developed by id (informed decisions) Consulting, the council’s consultant demographers.
“This is a great resource for people who may be doing research on Cardinia Shire, whether for business, grant applications or even school and university assignments,” Mr Holland said.
The Cardinia Shire Community Atlas can be found by clicking on Statistics on the left menu of the council’s home page www.cardinia.vic.gov.au and then clicking Community Atlas.