Calls for fresh leadership for Sydney as it loses its global edge

Sydney is now lagging behind global city rivals like London, Paris and New York in key areas like affordability, safety and night-life, with business and community leaders calling for an urgent shakeup.

SYDNEY is falling behind international cities for affordability, safety and night-life, forcing business and community leaders to call for a global vision for the city.

Business and planning chiefs blame Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore for a string of parochial policies including bike lanes, night-life curfews and opposition to development that fail to measure Sydney against global cities such as London, Paris or New York.

Urban Taskforce chief executive Tom Forrest said the city needed leadership that took in the needs of all 5.1 million Sydneysiders rather than concentrating just on the 220,000 residents in the City of Sydney.

“We need a leader in the heart of Sydney who thinks of it as a global city with more than five million people rather than a group of privileged bohemians from Erskineville, Paddington and Pyrmont who want to ride their bicycles to work,” Mr Forrest said.

The call for a global view for Sydney comes as Ms Moore faces the prospect of losing the balance of power on the City Council following the shock resignation of her deputy and anointed successor Jess Scully one week after she was elected.

Cityscape of Sydney Downtown in a beautiful day. CBD and Sydney Harbor.

Data crunched by The Daily Telegraph shows Sydney is lagging behind global cities on a string of benchmarks, including affordability, safety and fun.

Melbourne last week overtook it as the nation’s most populous city.

Last month, the 2023 Demographia report ranked Sydney the second least affordable city behind Hong Kong.

The Committee for Sydney Benchmarking report found Sydney was ranked 179th out of 209 cities for cost of living.

The same survey ranked Sydney 90th out of 92 cities in the English speaking world for housing affordability.

Housing prices in Sydney have increased at six times the rate of inflation with rental vacancies at one per cent.

House prices across the Sydney area have soared in recent years. Picture: Gaye Gerard

In London, Lord Mayor Sadiq Khan has put in a $9 billion program to build 116,000 affordable homes.

Meanwhile in Sydney, Ms Moore’s Housing for All Committee plans to build 57,000 homes but has met just once.

Sydney is also not as safe as other cities. In 2019, Oslo and Helsinki’s vow to increase pedestrian and cyclist safety resultedin zero deaths. At the same time, Sydney had 14 pedestrian fatalities.

Ms Moore has championed bike lanes that have reduced vehicle access around the city and infuriated businesses cut off from customers and deliveries by concrete bollards.

Paul Nicolaou, executive director of Business Sydney, said it was time for Sydney to have a government appointed Minister who could take a greater view of the whole metropolitan area.

“Unfortunately, access to Sydney is becoming increasingly expensive to live or play with high rents, high real estate prices, high motorway tolls and high parking charges,” he said.

“For many people this erodes the feeling that Sydney is ‘their’ city.”

City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore. Picture; Darren Leigh Roberts

Mr Nicolaou said the city and its harbour needed to be easily accessible to everyone.

“We don’t want Sydney to become a ‘ghetto for the rich’ who can afford to pay for the Harbour City lifestyle while everyday families can’t,” he said.

Ms Moore has also presided over the death of Sydney’s night time economy with 176 live music venues closing since 2014.

The proportion of spending in Sydney between 7pm and 4am is just 14 per cent, compared with almost a third in London and New York.

Ms Moore has also consistently opposed development.

In 2011 her opposition to Barangaroo, which has turned a former container wharf into an area that pumps $17.8 million into the NSW economy, earned the ire of former Prime Minister Paul Keating.

Ms Moore opposed the development of Barangaroo into a dining and leisure hub. Picture: Toby Zerna

“She is an inappropriate person to be lord mayor,” he said at the time. ”She thinks it is a city of villages, she is for low-rise,sandal-wearing, muesli-chewing, bike-riding pedestrians without any idea of the metropolitan quality of the city or what Sydney would lose if Barangaroo were to fail.”

That opposition has flowed through to the council planners who approve development applications at half the rate of other councils.

Full time staff at the City of Sydney determined 26 development applications each in 2021, compared with 60 by those at Hills Shire Council.

Labor councillor Linda Scott said the City of Sydney needed a fresh start.

“Sydney needs a Lord Mayor who is a champion, not a caretaker,” she said.

A spokeswoman for the City of Sydney said the 26 square kilometres under council control had created 250,000 new jobs since 2004 and seen its economy increase by 175 per cent.

“Benchmarking surveys indicate Sydney compares favourably with other global cities in all areas except housing affordability, public transport connectivity and greenhouse gas emissions – addressing these areas is chiefly the work of federal and state governments,” she said.

The spokeswoman said the bike lanes were designed to connect to the Sydney Regional Bike Network to allow people to travel from greater Sydney into the city safely.