Editorial: Just picture what Sydney’s future could hold

Look how far Sydney has come in such a very short time, and picture what its future will hold.

What comes next for our amazing city. Picture: John Grainger

Sydney is a city of eternal reinvention. In that sense, it is a never-ending project, with changes planned on top of changes yet to be made.

Many of those changes are driven by Sydney’s people rather than by governments and councils. That is as it should be in a naturally freewheeling city, where the will and ambition of our population will never be fully smothered by the grey cloak of bureaucracy. It is the job of governments and councils to encourage and support the peoples’ individual and collective initiatives instead of trying to push them in certain directions. That is why a central focus of The Daily Telegraph’s Project Sydney is directing support and funding to areas where they are most needed, and where they will provide the greatest value to the greatest number. But there is more to Project Sydney than a sensible setting of financial priorities, as much as that will benefit our city in coming decades.

Stunning Sydney can achieve so much. Picture: John Grainger

Project Sydney also aims to find new ways to overcome new challenges, and to value-add in areas where improvements are already scheduled or even underway. Take, for example, the potential for training and research opportunities at many of Sydney’s planned road and rail projects. Australia is presently at risk of losing much of our capacity for local design and manufacturing, so we must do as much as possible to train future engineers during non-theoretical and hugely significant infrastructure developments. Train travel isn’t much of a convenience for commuters if insufficient carparking is available at our train stations.

HOW DOES YOUR SUBURB COMPARE:

Much of Sydney is put together in a similar way. We put various elements perfectly in place, then neglect all of the crucial extras. In too many places, we’re a Christmas tree without decorations. Still on the subject of transport, Blacktown currently suffers up to 50 times the vehicle break-in rate of some other Sydney suburbs in the east and throughout the north shore.

The flow-on effects of these break-ins include reduced property values and increased insurance costs — in suburbs where people are trying to get ahead in their lives while maintaining tight budgets.

Project Sydney will highlight all of these issues, and many more. Grassroots grants for local sports — particularly uniforms and equipment — is a double play for the advancement of Sydney’s young people. Not only would such grants drive greater interest and participation in sports, but they would also go some way to reducing the attraction of life-wrecking drugs like ice and cocaine. Every enthusiastic young athlete is a living testament to the power of life without drugs.

Project Sydney: How does your suburb compare?

Project Sydney: What do we need to achieve?

Opening doors with a Go West Mentorship

Look back over that brief list of just a few Project Sydney focal points and you will notice how much they are to do directly with our city’s people.

Sydney’s coming massive infrastructure improvements, especially the much-awaited second Sydney airport, will in total probably generate an even greater transformation than the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932. The great challenge is to make certain those changes don’t force people into various modes and styles of behaviour, because that will never work. Sydney doesn’t follow orders. Instead, if managed properly, all of Sydney’s great shifts should complement the ambitions and desires of our population — and those of our future population. Western Sydney, in particular, wants more jobs and ready access to those jobs through improved transport options. Five years ago The Daily Telegraph ran a sustained and concentrated campaign for the betterment of Western Sydney, and evidence shows that since our campaign — and subsequent private and government investment — Sydney’s demographic centre has become alive with growth.

Yet so many doors still need to be opened and so many new opportunities wait to be explored. Project Sydney is about advancing those opportunities and launching a citywide push for ideas and concepts that will deliver practical pay-offs. Project Sydney is, like Sydney itself, big on reinvention and new outlooks. The key is to always concentrate on our greatest resource — Sydney’s always creative, endlessly hardworking people, who have since the first days of colonisation continually renewed the world’s greatest city. Look how far we have come in such a very short time, and picture what the future will hold.