Sydney’s growth from the air: Picture special of city’s transformation

Sydney has gone from colonial outpost to a world city in just a couple of centuries – and we’re not done yet. These staggering aerial images reveal how our city has been transformed.

Sydney looks set to hit a population of 10 million within most of our lifetimes, experts have predicted.

The city is currently home to around 5.4 million but is expected to hit the 10 million mark as early as the 2060s.

In doing so it would surpass the current populations of the likes of London and New York, both of which have between 8 and 9 million.

The forecasting comes amid the release of stunning aerial photography from Australian location intelligence company Nearmap.

The company provides government organisations, architectural, construction and engineering firms, and other companies, with easy, instant access to high resolution aerial imagery, city-scale 3D content, artificial intelligence data sets, and geospatial tools to assist with urban planning, monitoring and development projects in Australia, New Zealand, and North America.

The Nearmap images show the transformation across Sydney in the last decade including with our housing, major infrastructure projects and entertainment precincts.

Once rural areas of western and southwestern Sydney are unrecognisable from a decade ago.

The likes of Marsden Park, Oran Park and Leppington have been turned from fields to dense suburbia.

Badgerys Creek is also unrecognisable and within the next couple of decades will become one of Sydney’s major urban hubs.

The Nearmap images also show the impact of some of the major infrastructure projects such as the Northern Beaches Hospital, the metro at Rouse Hill and light rail stabling yard at Randwick.

Perhaps one of the most striking images is that of Barangaroo, which was transformed from an empty shipping yard to the trendy urban and commercial centre it is today.

Compared to fellow world cities Sydney is incredibly young, founded as a penal colony just 233 years ago.

At the outbreak of the First World War there were a little over 600,000 who called Sydney home.

By the 1950s that had more than doubled to 1.8 million. By 2001, 4.1 million people called the city home with that figure now around 5.4 million.

But that figure could almost double again in a little over 40 years if forecasting is correct.

Geoff Brailey, social researcher at McCrindle Research, said Greater Sydney will become more of a “city of cities” rather than just “one big metropolis” in the years to come.

“Greater Sydney will be a sprawled city of cities with vertical communities that are based around the epicentre of the Sydney CBD which will house the largest population,” he said.

“The largest mass population will still be in the east but the central and western cities will be growing as the population is rebalanced with the incoming infrastructure.”

He said infrastructure was key for predicting where the next big suburbs would be built, pointing to the likes of Rouse Hill and areas of northwest Sydney.

Badgerys Creek, which is being transformed with the Western Sydney Airport, and surrounds are also expect to be become major urban centres.

He said the increased population would likely to be housed in vertical dwellings and units.

Sydney already leads the way with 28 per cent of Sydneysiders calling a “vertical dwelling” home, compared to seven per cent in Perth and 15 per cent in Melbourne.

“We are expecting those trends to accelerate in the years to come,” he said, “There will be more apartments as there are constrictions of perimeters as it is surrounded by oceans and national parks.

“The vision for Sydney is that people within 30 minutes will have access to work, health and jobs and retail. The idea of 30 minute Sydney will require metro, light rail, adapting to electronic vehicles and e bikes.

“Certainly in the future Sydney is going to be a city of cities and Greater Sydney will be a sprawled city of cities.”

Bernard Salt, executive director of The Demographics Group, said it was likely to be the 2060s when Sydney hits the 10 million population mark.

“There’s not many western car-based cities that are projected to grow at the rate of Sydney over the next three decades,” he said.

“We Australians should be really good at city planning, at infrastructure delivery, at conceptualising and facilitating city growth and development.

“We should be good at developing the kind of engineering expertise required to largely reconfigure a city from five million to eight million in just over a quarter of a century.”

The Greater Sydney Commission has been set up to focus on the long-term planning and strategy as Sydney continues to grow.

Its general plan for Sydney has been the idea of a metropolis of three cities: the Eastern Harbour City based around the established CBD, the Central River City around Parramatta and the Western Parkland City, largely based around the Western Sydney Airport.

In recent days the Commission has announced it will expand its vision for Sydney to be a “city region of six cities” also taking in Newcastle, Wollongong and the Central Coast.

“The east-west axis of the metropolis of three cities – the Eastern Harbour City, the Central River City and the Western Parkland City – links two airports and will enable liveable communities where more people work within 30 minutes of where they live,” Chief Commissioner Geoff Roberts AM said.

“The city region’s north-south axis connects the seaports of Newcastle and the Illawarra, journeying through the Central Coast and through Parramatta. It too will build important foundations, generating more jobs for our citizens in future-facing industries, again close to where people choose to live.”

He said Sydney could not do all the heavy lifting in the years to come.

“We need to look beyond the traditional boundaries of Greater Sydney and explicitly recognise our region – the Hunter, the Central Coast and the Illawarra,” he said.

“We need to think not just about where housing will be, but also where jobs and transport will be.”

However, he was quick to dispel the idea that density would result in a reduction in the standard of living.

“Density done well can be wonderful – there are examples across the world of this – and it does not mean sacrificing liveability.

“We can make much better use of the space we have, as well as ensuring public access to public space.”

One of the Commission’s key focuses is to create a city in which residents live within 30 minutes of their jobs, school, health services and leisure facilities.

If that is going to be achieved, he said it is vital we change the way we think about a city centre.

“Our city centres need to change from focusing on consumers, commuters and corporates to becoming great places to live, each with their own identity and assets that investment and talent.”

For more details about Nearmap click here.