SYDNEY IN 90 YEARS

Hokitika Guardian, 28 May 1931, Page 2

SYDNEY IN 90 YEARS

7',.500,000 POPULATION. MORE LIKE 1 LONDON EVERY DAY. SYDNEY, May 14. Shrewd' observers" say that Sydney is getting more like London, every day, but at the present-rate of increase in the population it will be 90 years before Sydney has a population equal to that of the heart of . the Empire today. Just now, in the midst of the depression, Sydney is to a large extent standing still. Countless schemes for the improvement of the general layout are held' in abeyance. Only the great bridge and the city railway are rushing to completion. Perhaps it is this period of comparative quiet that gives architects and others an opportunity to dream about the beautiful city, with taller buildings, overhead bridge s everywhere, tube trams/buses, and trains, more bridges over the bar hour to carry the millions to the North Shore; more aeroplane travel, with the possibility of windmill aeroplanes that will land on the roofs. All this and more in 90 years!

Metropolitan Sydney now boasts a population of 1,253,.560, and it is ‘‘still going strong.’! The following is the rqte of increase between 1851 and 1921:—1851-18.61, 2.95 per cent., 18611871, 3.67; 1871-1881, 5.02; 18811891, 5.48; 1891-1901, 2.33; . 19011911, 2.09; 1911-1921, • 3.60. A\ though the present rate-of .increase is very small —1930 it was.only 1.2 per'oeqt.-l-theve is normally a steady jn<Tease, and statisticians say that a 2 per c-ent. increase should make a fairly accurate reckoning as to tl»e future million?. In 35 years, therefore, the population of; Sydney,should have doylffed itself, ini % . years- 'or so it should be up to the 5.000,000 mark, ahfl in 90 years it should .reach London’s present figure of 7,.500,000. Dr. Hradfield, designer of the Harbour Bridge, and the city railway, is among- the dreamers. He has always tried to visualise a much greater city, and he has planned accordingly. He says that Sydney is lopsided, became there are four times as many people living on the southern side of the harbour qs are. °n the > northern. That is'clearly due to the lack of facilities for transporting the people across the harbour, which/dominates, the layout of the city.- Within a four miles’ radius of the; Central Railway Station about 600,000 people have their homes Op an area of 26,300 acres —about 23 persons to the acre—while the remaining acres—about one and three-quar-ters persons to each; acre. That, says Djr. Bradfield/'clearly indicates' whpre the population will go. The bridge will make it possible for 1,000,000 to live orp the North Shore. The city proper would become a New York m minla-turer--and the Nortlv Shore a second Brooklyn.