Melbourne undergoes a renaissance

Washington

ITS weather can be depressing, the beaches uninviting and it lacks a mining industry to generate wealth. Yet Melbourne is growing at the fastest pace in Australia as employers vacuum up workers to meet the city's booming demand.

Melbourne, which served as Australia's political capital and financial centre from federation through to the mid-1920s, is undergoing a renaissance. Its population is forecast to overtake Sydney's in the decades ahead now that the former rust-belt region has reinvented itself as a hub for education and high tech - attracting firms such as Geli, a software maker that chose the city for its first office outside the United States.