Urban Renewal
My inner-west suburb appears due for literally big changes. While I’m not likely to be directly affected for some time, the prospect of increased population density along the Parramatta Road corridor isn’t terribly appealing, at least not when it’s meant to increase the demand and thereby provide the impetus for improved mass-transit. As with so many new developments in the outer-west, the support seems to wait for the need. What this will mean is more traffic, more crowding on the busses, and more people packing into an already limited set of grocery, shopping and entertainment centers and precincts. More stress all around, as such increases are likely to require more call-outs to cops and firemen and EMT’s, et al.

When I was living in Surry Hills, part of Sydney’s south, but pretty much contiguous with the CDB’s borders, essentially, the Council conducted a survey to address zoning changes. The area was a thorough mix of building types, with many warehouse-conversions and commercial buildings scattered throughout the otherwise mostly terrace houses and low-rise blocks. What was proposed, and, I expect, enacted, albeit after I relocated, would allow considerable change, so that low-rise blocks, houses, and open areas abutting high-rises (anything more than three stories, essentially) would be permitted to be (re)developed proportionately to their neighbors. Living in a seven-story warehouse-conversion (on the 1st floor, the one above Ground level), we were next door to a four-story block with a large courtyard area. That four-story block, including the undeveloped courtyard, was to be permitted to climb another three stories, which would have had the effect of blocking the morning sun (the good sun, that is, afternoon sun being so very much longer and hotter) for many units, whose owners, no doubt, had based at least some part of their selection on light and view.

Looking at the neighborhood dispassionately, however, the plan made sense. Nobody was jumping in on the development options right away, tearing anything down or building anything up. It would bring a measure of coherence to a largely chaotic jumble of building styles and would likely also gentrify an area that suffered from its fringe status. There were at least three homeless shelters within a block or two of our unit, as well as numerous backpacker hostels, but little in the way of services. All that would probably improve.

But that close to the CBD, we had good bus service to pretty much anywhere in Sydney, Central Station a five-minute walk away, and good shopping and entertainment options. That’s not quite so true for the inner-west, as much a development jumble as anywhere else among the older suburbs. For example, the development of the Broadway shops, sitting between the CDB and Glebe, was the death knell for movie theatres, supermarkets, and many other shops from Newtown to Strathfield. Yes, a few IGA’s and shops survived, but many didn’t, or they had to alter their offerings to refine their specialisation. And it’s not as if big-box shopping centres don’t suffer attrition in what they offer. Even Broadway recently lost even it’s HMV, most likely as a result of increased internal competition, with the addition of Target to a complex already including Kmart, both of whom sell popular CD’s and DVD’s

Yes, stacking some thousands of new homes in among the existing is going to increase demand, but nothing’s going to serve that demand until it’s present. Parramatta Road is a desolate strip of car dealerships and failed enterprises. There’s hardly even a fast-food chain all the way out to the Olympic Park. The furniture store that burned down a few years ago remains burned-down. More people probably come in from the outer-west, only as far as Parramatta, than come out from the inner-west, but they’ve got highways, for one thing, allowing Parramatta to serve as an alternative city-centre, much as Chatswood does for the northern suburbs.

I’m all for development, but it needs planning, it needs to be done along with the integration of services to support it, and that’s not easy to achieve. This plan seems a little too free-market for me.