Melbourne already has a defined urban growth boundary, but it still leaves the opportunity for a lot of low density fringe suburbs, which makes the provision of infrastructure and services cost prohibitive.
Hopefully the push towards 70% established/30% new areas will help address urban sprawl and get people living closer to services.
The inner Melbourne couple with a toddler just sounded disorganised rather than inconvenienced. Not having staples like pasta and tinned tomatoes and tissues on hand tells me they run out of stuff all the time, rather than planning ahead.