The Jobs Challenge of the South _ The underlying premise of 'A Metropolis of Three Cities' is that Greater Sydney has evolved into a metropolis with uneven access to jobs, facilities and services. Simply put, existing and new jobs are located in the east and most of the city’s population growth is in the west. Without intervention, residents in the west will be faced with ever increasing commute times to access higher value jobs in the east.
A Metropolis of Three Cities proposes intervention to grow 200,000 additional jobs in the WPCA. There is a significant agglomeration of jobs around the Harbour CBD located on the eastern edge of Greater Sydney. This agglomeration of 500,000 jobs is supported by the existing radial rail network, finer grain bus network and light rail routes that serves this CBD well. This concentration of economic activity, including office precincts, universities and biotech clusters, has spread over the past 30 years along the Eastern and Northern Economic Corridors, but not south. A Metropolis of Three Cities does not recognise or address the job opportunity, south of Sydney Airport, including the South District LGAs. In 2019 the GSC released its report card on the implementation of 'A Metropolis of Three Cities', The Pulse of Greater Sydney 2018-2019 (The Pulse). The Pulse acknowledges that job growth in Sydney has been uneven and patchy and that this is creating an unbalanced and inequitable city: Between 2006 and 2016, Greater Sydney’s total workforce increased from 1.6 million to 2.1 million. A further increase of 817,000 jobs is projected by 2036. However, this jobs growth has been uneven across the Region.⁴
Greater Sydney and district job distribution and type 2016⁵ 14
The Southern Aerotropolis – The Future of Sydney Rediscovered
