Cooloola - Gympie vs Murgon

Cooloola - Gympie and Murgon are two Queensland areas with very different layouts. Murgon is much more walkable for daily needs, with 57.8% of homes within a 15-minute walk of a school and 41.9% near groceries, compared to 31.5% and 28.0% in Cooloola - Gympie. However, Cooloola - Gympie has far more access to public transport, with 49.0% of homes within a 10-minute walk, while Murgon has none. Cooloola - Gympie also has a far larger Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, with 2,121 people compared to 398 in Murgon.

These two areas have tracked closely since 2011 in several key ways. Both are mostly car-dependent and share almost identical figures for First Nations people, including a typical age of 23 and an unemployment rate of 12.4%. While Murgon has more homes within a short walk of health services and shops, the gap in the number of people who speak a First Nations language is small, with Murgon slightly higher at 5.5% compared to 3.0% in Cooloola - Gympie.