Who knew that Sydney – our boldest, brashest and brassiest city, the one with the housing prices and rental rates which all but dare residents to live within it – had such an insecurity problem?
The release of the wildly compromised census data has been the grist for several mills' worth of think pieces about the future of Australia generally and Sydney specifically, ranging from "no one will ever own a house again" to "… but if people of non-white ethnicities keep being born here, we snowy-white 'Straylians might end up a minority and be subjected to the same discriminatory treatment we're currently meting out!"
![Stupid gorgeous city looking amazing.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170713030512im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/e/e/z/r/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gx0ztp.png/1498724083081.jpg)
But the greatest shocker, reported with either horror or glee depending on which side of the Murray you're reading it, was the news that Melbourne is on track to overtake Sydney as Australia's biggest city.Â
…in 20 years.
And sure, there are a hell of a lot of unexamined premises in this statement, ranging from how cities are defined (once the entire space between Sydney and Newcastle is filled with houses, who becomes a suburb of whom?) to the genuinely silly idea that either Sydney or Melbourne could absorb a couple of million more people. Hell, if there's another six cars on Parramatta Road the entire west will lock up forever.Â
But let's assume that the predictions are correct, and that Sydney's sole selling point is that it has Australia's highest intrusion of personal space.
What do we need to do to keep Sydney remotely liveable and prevent a mass exodus, thereby hastening Melbourne's elevation to Boss Of Australia?
1. Public transport and lots of it
A few years ago Sydney adopted the slogan "City of Villages" as a way to pretend that the near impossibility of getting out of one's neighbourhood was an adorable choice rather than a reflection on the fact it's easier to get from Liverpool to Melbourne than to Narrabeen, and takes around the same amount of time.
Our current public transport is already at bursting point, which makes the decision to build dirty great motorways that force more vehicles onto the already-packed roads look downright reckless. Unless the plan is for everyone to skateboard to work over the top of immobile cars?
2. Government housing and lots of it
At the risk of suggesting that the official solution to housing affordability is a load of stinky horse byproduct, there's no way in hell the private sector is going to build affordable housing in Sydney at all, much less to the degree required.
That's because the private sector exists to make profits, not provide services, and very reasonably wants to maximise the return on its investment. They're going to sell their properties at the very limit of what the market is willing to pay, because that's what businesses do.Â
And if it sounds terribly unfair to accuse for-profit companies for profiteering, it's what's happening in Randwick where a boarding house development approved by council as a way of providing affordable housing in the area is being marketed as "designer studios" (despite being smaller than actual non-designer studios) and rented out at $500 a week – which you might notice is an excitingly broad definition of "affordable".Â
So instead of selling off public housing NSW needs to be upping it in vast amounts, and doing so in places that already have access to schools and hospitals and shopping centres and sports fields and so on – you know, the stuff people need in order to live? That stuff – rather than out on the suburban fringes in the hopes that necessary infrastructure will magically spring up like service-provision mushrooms in the dead of night.
3. Make Sydney Fun Again
Cost isn't the only reason that Sydney is losing people to the less expensive other metropoli and satellite cities: it's the fact that having a good time in Sydney is increasingly becoming a goddamn hassle for anyone who feels that entertainment means something other than gambling.Â
Getting to or from any of Sydney's remaining locations where entertainment hasn't been completely outlawed (Goodnight, sweet Kings Cross, and flights of speculative developers sing thee to thy rest…) is an increasingly difficult challenge as the hour grows later, while driving to Newtown is based on the optimistic premise that you'll find somewhere to park your car.
And then the lockout laws mean that every night out becomes a stressful exercise in clock watching: should we leave now to get to the next place? Will they refuse us entry by the time we get there? What drinks are no longer available? How come the band I came to see are packing up? Seriously? A 10pm noise complaint?
Public safety is important, but the current solution seems to be to get rid of the public rather than fuss too much about safety. Which is a bit like addressing a shoplifting problem by padlocking a shop's doors and then bulldozing the building for designer studio apartments.Â
And all these ideas will cost money, certainly – but fortunately NSW is enjoying a $4.5 billion budget surplus thanks to the state government selling off publicly-owned assets and the stamp duty bounty of the development boom.
So they'll be cool with putting some of the money they've accumulated from the Sydney public back into services for its residents, right?
After all, our metropolitan pride evidently rests upon it.
Andrew P Street is co-host of the Double Disillusionists podcast, who have a live show at Giant Dwarf on Tuesday 4 July!
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