Berkeley is a suburb of Wollongong, New South Wales. Berkeley is located in Wollongong's southern suburbs, on the northern shore of Lake Illawarra, and is one of the city's most populous suburbs. At the 2011 census, it had a population of 7,427. Historically a farming community situated between the hills and Lake Illawarra, Berkeley became one of the Illawarra's solutions to a public housing shortage in the early years. Subsequently several public housing developments were established and most of these are still in existence today in certain parts of the suburb. To date approximately close to one in four dwellings consist of public housing owned by Housing NSW. Berkeley has however enjoyed significant growth in the last two decades, with younger working families moving into the district in search of new homes. Berkeley's distance from Wollongong and vast space at the time identified it as an attractive option to new families and today much of the farmland are occupied by housing estates marketed as Regency Heights.