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Comment by optimusrex | Hacker News Reader

Sydney has had a huge influx of population and the lack of infrastructure to accommodate this growth is a major issue.

I just don't see how splitting into three cities solves any of these problems. Now they are three separate governments with different amounts of funds/budget.

The Easter Harbour District with the CBD should garner the highest budget and thus have more runway to build infrastructure, but what about the other two cities?

Will they still be able to benefit from the tourism revenue from the CBD and Harbour?

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I recall listening to an LSE presentation by the mayor of Lagos, where they split the city into several CBDs so people could commute and work around one of those rather than having to come into the single centre. I think this is the general idea where a city would have several central areas so that each of them becomes a functioning city in its own right and it would lessen the peak hour intensity of travel for each of them.

Parramatta already is a functioning CBD with infrastructure issues that have been present for the last few years as its become more and more popular for realtor companies to develop. This is the one area that I could see benefiting from this plan.

I'm most skeptical of the Western District becoming its own thriving and independent CBD.

Something more west than Parramatta?! I would have guessed the next main CBD would be North.

Granted I was lucky when I lived in Sydney, I was able to afford to live close enough to walk everywhere. I hated driving though, the traffic mainly but always fearful of accidentally turning onto a toll road. I'm still dismayed about the governments insistence on big toll highway projects.

The NSW Government is so crazy that they’re adding new tolls to a previously free highway to pay for a ridiculously expensive new toll road.

Sydney and Melbourne’s populations are both growing way too fast for the Governments to keep up with infrastructure, schools, hospitals, etc. even if they were competent... (The Federal Government sets the skilled migration rate, which is unusually high compared to other OECD countries, but the states have to pay for the infrastructure. At the same time, there’s huge slack in the employment market with up to 20% unemployed or under-employed).

I’m so glad my family moved away from Sydney when I was a baby... If you can find a good tech job, life is much better (and cheaper) in Brisbane.

> If you can find a good tech job

Finding one job is easy. However what's the contingency if that job goes (bust, relocate, get fed up with the politics, etc)

People seem to flock to major tech hubs because they are more likely to be able to find a replacement job. There's less competition for jobs in Brisbane, but there's fewer jobs available, and it's harder to leave one job on Friday and start a new one on Monday.

"part of the plan is to transform Western Sydney into an aerotropolis -- a metropolitan sub-region where the layout, infrastructure, and economy are centered on an airport"

The plans to create a CBD in the west are centered around the new airport to be built in 2026. Seems pretty ambitious as this will likely serve smaller domestic flights.

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