Sydney and Melbourne, the latter in particular, are jobs and people magnets where nearly 1 in every 2 Australians live. That number is still rising.
Sydney is undergoing a once in several generations retro fit where massive, planned, targeted transport infrastructure spending is catching up and imo future proofing the city for decades to come.
The Greater Sydney Commission’s Three Cities vision links the Eastern Harbourside City (existing CBD & surrounds), the Central Riverside City (Parramatta / Westmead) and a Western Parkland City (the yet to be built Aerotropolis around the new Western Sydney Airport).
Each city has distinct and different employment themes and a new network of metro rail lines with local area light rail loops is aimed at creating 30 minute travel times from home to work and essential services and increased liveability.
This vision is about planned density increases within walking distances to the coming transport corridors. A game changer will be a north-south metro rail link through Western Sydney where by 2031 2 out of every 3 Sydney residents will live and work. Much of the existing suburban character away from these transport links will remain in tact.
Success begets success with jobs and liveability imo. This is one major factor driving Sydney (and Melbourne) housing prices and the other is insufficient new housing completions, leading to tight supply. Over the next 40 years there has to be 30,000 new housing completions every year to keep pace with expected population increases, an increase on the historical rate of housing completions.
Morphing to a higher proportion of high density living will deliver affordable but different housing. Living within planned precincts 30 minutes public transport travel from good jobs and open spaces will improve liveability.
One of the three planned Metro Rail Lines is due for completion in 2019. A second is due to start construction within about a year. The third and arguably most important, the Sydney Metro West Line, will connect the new Western Sydney Airport and Aerotropolis with Western Sydney and the Central Riverside City by the time the Airport opens in 2026. There are stage 1 light rail projects nearing completion out of the Eastern Harbourside City and to start construction in the Central Riverside City. Logistics and technology themed employment is already taking shape within and around what will become the Aerotropolis.
The point is, the roll out is already well underway. Conventional wisdoms may not be wisdoms with hindsight in the masterplanned Sydney of the not too distant future. Against this backdrop and within this emerging context, I suspect there will be no “bust” of Sydney (and probably Melbourne) property prices.
This kind of future for Sydney and Melbourne is all very well and imo essential for Australia’s future. However, to bring more of the country along there will need to be intercity transport revolutions like Very Fast Trains and innovations like Hyperloop linking and unlocking regional cities and towns with 30-60 minute travel times, jobs and liveability improvements.
It’s exciting, do-able and within our national grasp. There needs to be a new, forward facing word for halcyon ... our best times are in front of us imo ... I hanker for them ... transition is uncertainty ... there is an emerging clarity imo and some debt of gratitude is owed to the vision of the O’Farrell, Baird and Berejiklian Liberal Governments ... history will treat them kindly imo, despite perhaps the conventional wisdoms of voters.
