How to Design Sydney’s Third City?

Abstract

The development of a Draft Regional Plan for Greater Sydney (Greater Sydney Commission 2017) provides fertile ground for a reflection on current metropolitan planning practices and the relationship between metropolitan and local scales. The decision to establish the Western Sydney Airport (Australian Government 2017) has stimulated the idea of metropolitan Sydney being comprised of ‘three cities’ to improve equitable access to employment, education and cultural assets. The first city is characterised as the ‘Eastern harbour city’, the second is centred around Parramatta as the ‘Central river city’ and the future third city as a ‘Western parkland city’ (Fig. 3.1).