Drive north along Clyde Five Ways Road and the igloos on your left are followed by neatly manicured rows of horticulture crops, horse paddocks and lush green fields. It is a gently undulating rural landscape where the farm dams are full, tractors are working, sprinklers water crops and cypress hedges act as farm windbreaks.

But drive across the old railway track, which once ferried passengers to South Gippsland, and up over another gentle rise in the road and then something very different emerges in the next paddock. The horticulture crops and livestock have been replaced by huge concrete pipes lying in a row, a large excavator and a powerful bulldozer.

The former farm paddock has become a major work site, where earlier in the day workers in hard hats were busy, putting in the next phase of the rapidly expanding Pasadena estate in Clyde, just a few kilometres to the east of the centre of Cranbourne.

From here onwards as you drive north the rural views to the west are mostly replaced by new houses, which stand in vast numbers in the estates that have sprung up in recent years alongside Clyde Five Ways Road. "Big Blocks, Your Choice," declares a large billboard promoting "Pasadena" estate. "This Feels Like Me. Land Sale. Pasadena Clyde," says another.

Curiously enough, the signs are far bigger and more prominent than some other promotional signs elsewhere along the road. These signs, on fences and farm gates, feature a smiling man with nice teeth. That man is Geoff Ablett, the Liberal candidate for the seat of Cranbourne at November's state election, who also happens to be the local mayor.

This is the landscape on the eastern edge of the Cranbourne electorate, where today Clyde - once a quiet farming area with plenty of dirt roads - is now a rapidly growing part of suburbia on the very south eastern fringe of urban Melbourne.

How this fast-growing flank of the electorate will vote in the November poll is not easy to predict, but its influence will be crucial to the outcome in this seat. Figures produced for The Age by the local municipality, City of Casey, show just how fast the electorate is growing. In the five years to July 2014, more than 8000 dwellings have been built inside the electorate's new boundaries, an estimated 6830 of them over the past four years.

The rapid growth means many people who will vote in the seat at this year's poll did not vote here or even live here at the time of the 2010 poll, an election that returned Labor MP Jude Perera to Parliament as the MP for Cranbourne, but which turfed his party out of office.

It is a fundamental transformation that raises many questions, like: Will some people be unhappy about the level of services in their growing suburbs, blame the government and vote against the Coalition; Will they back the long-standing local MP, Mr Perera, who has held the seat for the past 12 years; Will they reward the party that promises to deliver the most relief in the hip-pocket, as they battle with the cost-of-living pressures faced by many new home-buyers like stamp duty; Will they blame the Denis Napthine-led State Coalition for the tough federal budget announced by the Federal Coalition; Will they simply reward the party that promises the most money to improve roads and transport services in the area; And, are they mostly Labor voters moving from nearby Labor-held electorates?

An electoral redivision since the last election also makes the outcome difficult to predict, because thousands of the "new" Cranbourne's voters were inside neighbouring electorates at the time of the 2010 poll.

Perera has the advantage of incumbency and has had years to build his brand. He recorded his third consecutive victory in 2010, but his margin slumped to a skinny 1.8 per cent after preferences and he suffered a massive 12.6 per cent drop in his primary vote.

Even a modest drop in his primary vote this time around would almost certainly spell curtains for Perera's chances. But has the Napthine Government performed well enough to inflict significant damage on a Labor MP's vote in an outer suburban seat?

THE residents of the Pasadena estate include young couples like Ally McSwan and her partner Ricky Float, who moved into their brand new home in December 2012. The houses in their street are neat and tidy, the gardens established and pretty - especially so given their age - and the houses have an elevated view of a spacious park across the street.

Ms McSwan says it's a pleasant place to live. "It's a nice, new, quiet estate," the young dental nurse says.

But the first home-buyer's peaceful slice of urban life is not without its pressures. And one of the key pressures is the impact of steadily rising living costs, which always seem to rise faster than the young couple's wages. Cost of living pressures could "definitely" affect the way she votes on polling day. "It becomes impossible to live if everything else is increasing, and things like your wages aren't. How can you keep up," she says.

"Even milk, bread, fuel - all that's gone up. But our wages don't go up as much or as often as everything else is increasing," she says.

"I just feel strongly about the cost of living and making it fair, and not so stressful and overwhelming for people to just live life and manage each week. We're going okay now but I couldn't imagine having kids and dealing with all the kids' fees and things like that, that is a bit daunting to think about," she says.

Asked what kinds of services need to be improved or introduced to her neighbourhood, she immediately mentions bus services. "We've lived here nearly two years, and I know there are buses down there," she says, pointing into the distance, "but I don't think they've extended them up to this part of the estate yet and this part of the building area. And when my partner's car isn't running it would be nice to have another form of transportation."

Like many new home residents here Ms McSwan did not live in this electorate at the time of the 2010 poll, rather she lived in the suburb of Narre Warren South. She hasn't yet decided who to vote for.

JUST a kilometre or so away from Ms McSwan's home, on the other side of busy Berwick-Cranbourne Road, Andrew Summers and his partner Sarah Kofler live in the Selandra Rise estate in Clyde North. "When I moved in here a year to a year-and-a-half ago, there were probably only three houses along this street," he says.

But today the landscape is very different from when the young couple unpacked moving boxes. There is a tidy line of new houses on each side of their street and there are plenty of signs of life. There are cars in driveways, shoes and pot plants near front doors and garbage bins ready for collection. It is late afternoon but, at the beginning of the street, tradesmen work diligently on a row of new townhouses.

Mr Summers, 26, is a team leader at the Jayco caravans plant in Dandenong South. He grew up in Cranbourne and remembers that just a few years ago the estates where he and many other young couples now live were "all farmland" where cattle roamed.

He is comfortable with the area's rapid growth. "I don't really have any issue with it," he says. The neighbourhood is a good one, and "people come here because it's affordable." Affordable is a crucial word in this "mortgage belt" electorate, and many people who speak to The Age say the rising "cost of living" is a concern.

Mr Summers says that if a political party can "reach out to the audience and say we're going to save you money", they are likely to be rewarded by voters. He also highlights another economic factor concerning people - jobs. "One thing everybody wants to have at their job is security. A lot of big companies at the moment are letting people go," he says.

Asked what other issues will affect the way he votes on polling day, he responds: "Something that this area here does not have is any public transport. We don't have any buses or anything that runs through here to get to the station. I think that would be a big key point in pulling votes, especially for people who don't drive."

Others agree about the area's need for bus services, and Mr Summers says people have placed flyers in letterboxes calling for regular bus services.

He is yet to decide who to vote for, but has an inkling that the Coalition will hang on to power. But in a warning to politicians from all sides, he takes what they say with a healthy grain of salt. "A lot of the things they say on TV are empty promises. So to be completely honest I don't listen to what they're promising, because a lot of the time it just falls through anyway," he says.

IF the promises announced by the major parties affecting the booming electorate are any guide, the parties are not deaf to the area's growth pressures. Labor has pledged $175 million for the duplication of busy Thompsons Road, says it would remove 13 level crossings on the Cranbourne line and promised $10 million to rebuild Cranbourne Secondary College.

The Coalition surprised many when it announced its multi-billion-dollar Cranbourne-Pakenham Rail Corridor Project, saying it would deliver 25 "next generation" trains for the corridor, "more than 3000 jobs", new signalling and a 30 per cent capacity boost for the corridor.

On the surface all of these projects sound substantial, but perhaps they are not cutting through with voters. The Age spoke to many retailers, shoppers and residents across the electorate over the past fortnight, and not one of them mentioned any of the projects promised by the major parties.

The suburbs inside the Cranbourne electorate are covered by the municipality of Casey, Victoria's most populous municipality, with a current population of about 280,000. Its population is projected to grow to a massive 450,000 by 2036. By way of comparison the ACT is home to 384,100 people, according to the latest estimates from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The council is running a campaign ahead of the election, "Make Your Voice Count", which calls on the political parties to make major commitments to its suburbs. Some of the projects fall entirely within the seat of Cranbourne.

The council says bus services "within the municipality are indirect and infrequent" and has called for better services for residents of Cranbourne, Cranbourne East and Clyde North, as well as more regular services across all the city's major traffic routes.

It is calling for a $220 million duplication of Thompsons Road between South Gippsland Highway and Western Port Highway, as well as an upgrade of the intersection with Western Port Highway. And it is calling for up to $115 million for the duplication of a lengthy stretch of Narre Warren-Cranbourne Road, a key north-south artery carrying surging traffic volumes.

"The number one priority we have is improving transport. And we have certainly made representations to both parties in that regard," says local councillor Sam Aziz. "So additional bus lines, more frequent train services. We are one of the more rapidly growing population centres in Victoria, and so we feel that both parties need to have a stronger focus in this area, because that's where all the growth is occurring. In addition to that we have got very strong aspirations for the roads network."

Cr Aziz says Cranbourne's surging urban growth area is "a mortgage belt community." The typical residents of the new houses are young families, he says. "Some of them have come from interstate, some have moved from other areas within the City of Casey to newer developments...Some would have come from older areas of Narre Warren, but some have moved from places like Clayton and Springvale and Noble Park."

PAUL Strangio, associate professor of politics at Monash University, says Cranbourne will be a seat to watch. "Of all the seats that are on small margins in this forthcoming state election, of outer suburban seats, Cranbourne is almost that quintessential outer suburban growth corridor electorate. And the fact that it's on such a small margin makes it even more interesting. Because when you look the other side of Melbourne, around Wyndham, most of those are reasonably safe Labor electorates. I suppose the only one that might be comparable in that sense is Yan Yean, to the north of Melbourne," he says.

"If Labor is going to form government, it won't be wanting to lose seats. It will be wanting to hold its seats and make gains. It will be a seat certainly to watch," Strangio says.

The two key candidates standing in this electorate, Perera (Labor) and Ablett (Liberal), have lower profiles than many others running for parliament this year, yet both can rightfully tell voters they have notched up significant achievements in their lifetime. Perera's website says he "was the first and so far the only Sri Lankan-born Australian to be elected to serve in any Lower House Parliament in all of Australia".

And Ablett was a star footballer back when the AFL was called the VFL, playing more than 200 games for Hawthorn, including in two premierships. He is the brother of Gary Ablett, considered by many to be the best Australian Rules footballer ever, and uncle of Gary Ablett Junior.

But in Australia in 2014, in an electorate where a much greater proportion of people are under 35 than across the general community, will voters be aware of the historic achievements of candidates?