As 5 million Sydneysiders become 10 million, how will we live?

Sydney is growing rapidly. 5 million people will become 10 million next 15 years. Housing, climate change, livability, traffic congestion, healthcare and social cohesion will represent a range of challenges for our city.

But Sydneysiders have a way of seeing problems as opportunities. The annual Sydney Summit, hosted next month by the Sydney Committee with the support of this imprint, allows Sydneysiders to submit big ideas to tackle these challenges.

Green, liveable roads with climate-resilient drainage systems. High-rise residential development, excluding parking lots. Games and puzzles on every street corner. Small primary care clinics in every community, supported by rent-free space for general practitioners. These are four big ideas for Sydney’s neighbourhoods.

living roads

How can we protect Sydney’s climate, increase housing affordability and ensure our neighborhoods remain liveable in high-density living?

Landscape architect and UNSW urbanism researcher Melissa Cate Christ suggests “living trails” as one answer.

For Cate Christ, this means implementing improved drainage through expansion of roadside housing (granny flats), supporting community-led greening initiatives, improving road surfaces, and revitalization through water-sensitive urban design and art.

Cate Christ said bringing vibrant streets to Sydney was not without its challenges. “We have more than one council and [each] They have different rules. “And there are a lot of companies building granny flats,” he said, adding the NSW Government’s legislation on secondary housing.

A collaborative effort involving local and state governments, developers, architects, urban planners, and communities themselves will bring these ways of life to life.

Cate Christ said studying foreign examples, such as Chicago’s road project, “where they have a city-funded strategy where they do one lane per ward, per year,” is crucial to learning how to implement living roads. Melbourne also offers lessons. Lane activation here will focus on festivals and nightlife, while Melbourne’s “major study on road greening” will be useful.

Residential high-rise buildings without cars

Sydney could reach 10.1 million people in next 15 years, according to NSW Government predictions. Without reducing car dependency, we are heading towards overburdened infrastructure and massive amounts of CO₂.

Landcom CEO Alex Wendler suggests developing high-rise housing without parking as the only solution. “When we remove the parking requirement, this also reduces construction costs. [and] “It speeds up delivery,” he said, “but it also breaks the cycle of forced parking, which leads to more cars, which leads to more congestion.”

With billions of dollars invested in expanding public transportation in recent years, Wendler believes now is the time to act.

“It needs to be a well-located area… well-served by public transportation, active transportation and amenities,” he said.

“It’s really for certain people,” he said, “people who prioritize location affordability over car ownership…people who embrace that idea and want to live in a less car-dependent way.” When cars are needed, carpooling arrangements can fill the gap.

Wendler cited Europe as an example of functional instrumental-free development. Amsterdam, Berlin and Paris are good examples, he said. “In Paris, they even turned major roads into active transportation corridors where people walk and cycle.”

The most fun city in the world

Architect and gaming consultant Natalia Krysiak thinks Sydney has to be the “most fun city in the world”.

This would include “shared public gaming opportunities.” Consider municipal libraries building “a mini theater to create opportunities for books to come to life” and play-based gardening programs. It can even mean “games” [and] puzzles implemented in our public spaces such as bus stops and pedestrianized streets.

“Play is often viewed as a pretty pointless type of behavior, and it’s something we only observe in children,” Krysiak said. But the game “really encourages physical activity in both children and adults…we know it’s also very good for our mental health.”

The game also combines “people of different ages, from different socioeconomic backgrounds, from different cultural backgrounds” to “come together to create social connections.” This fosters social cohesion and innovation, Krysiak said.

Krysiak has a three-point plan. Firstly, designing a “game strategy” involving Sydney, local governments and community groups. Second, “several pilot areas within the city” to create community-specific examples. Third, “creating a fun urban toolkit, a kind of pre-approved toolkit of things that communities can do to improve their streets and public spaces.”

Krysiak cited Barcelona as an example of a fun city. There, he said, intergenerational playgrounds on street corners include chess sets, comfortable seating, umbrellas, community gardens and playgrounds.

Free rent for general practitioners

An aging population, increasing incidence of complex health problems and rising healthcare costs are straining Sydney’s primary care system.

Alison Huynh, an architect specializing in wellness and urban design, has a solution: free rent for GPs to set up clinics in urban development areas. “When you actually look at the reasons why GPs can’t provide services, a lot of it has to do with their underlying costs,” Huynh said.

Encouraging developers to give small spaces to GPs for free would reduce this burden, he said.

These areas “will increase access to primary care in areas with growing populations,” Huynh said. Additionally, “extended hours or part-time models that better reflect how today’s workforce works” would make these free clinics more accessible.

Rent-free clinics would also support car-free neighborhoods and provide primary care within walking distance, taking sick people away from public transportation, Huynh said.

These clinics will be located “in places where you wouldn’t be able to put apartments anyway,” Huynh said. “They don’t have good orientation… they could be on the ground floor, they could be in deeper parts of a building,” he said. “So this is already a low-value area for developers.”

Developers also stand to gain, Huynh said: just as the addition of pools and gyms adds value to an apartment, a GP clinic on site can be a key selling point for an apartment.

The Sydney Summit will be held at the ICC on Friday, February 6.