Population questions for Australian cities: refraining our narratives

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Abstract
Long‐standing debates about population in Australian environments have used narratives in which population numbers and characteristics are viewed as having effects on, and implications for, those environments. In such accounts, population is the cause, and affected environments are the outcomes. I focus on urban environments and on immigration as that segment of population growth often viewed as having certain effects on cities. The paper argues for a reframing of narratives linking population and urban environments, so that both immigrant‐led population growth and the condition of urban environments in Australia can be understood as the product of the political and economic interpretations being made of the nation's intemationalisation, which in turn has consequences for diversity amongst places and peoples.