"To accommodate and maximise the talents of all seven million people, governments will need to connect people to employment, health care, schools, universities and good social, cultural and recreational needs," Parramatta City Council’s economic development strategy noted.
"This will require urban planning and infrastructure provisioning across the whole metropolitan area, and the economic development of cities and centres outside the Sydney CBD and "Global Arc" to place quality jobs and other necessities close to the homes of the population."
(The Global Arc stretches from Ryde through the Sydney CBD to Sydney Airport and Port Botany.)
The strategy said Sydney was a long way from achieving the vision advanced by the State Plan and the Metropolitan Plan for Sydney 2036.
"Chronic under investment in infrastructure and the slow pace of change in the decentralisation of knowledge industries and employment has made it difficult to Western Sydney to fully participate in the 21st economy."
The strategy said the constraints of established Sydney and the inadqequacy of existing transport networks to link Western Sydney’s regionalcities to hinterland suburbs are negatively affecting Sydney as a whole.
"Declining productivity, congestion, social dislocation, poor liveability and environmental costs associated with car dependency are diminishing Sydney’s reputation and status as the global gateway, and the way Sydney people feel about their city," the strategy said.
"To address these issues, Sydney needs to undertake social, economic and structural change over the next 25 years to re-engineer the spatial distribution of jobs into strategic centres across Sydney and to improve the operation of labour markets."
"Parramatta – the most developed of the regional cities (Parramatta, Penrith and Liverpool) and the second largest employer outside the Sydney CBD – will be at the forefront of this change."
