City of Sydney updates strategy to become more liveable, sustainable and diverse

The City of Sydney has updated its long-term strategic plan - Sustainable Sydney 2030-2050 Continuing the Vision - to guide the City’s pathway beyond the COVID pandemic, helping the city recover and thrive with more space for people, improved transport, better access to the harbour and cultural identity, increased greenery and climate action.

Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the vision builds on Sustainable Sydney 2030, which has underpinned the City’s work to create a greener, more connected, affordable and equitable city for over a decade.  

“All successful cities have long-term plans to ensure their economies and communities prosper, business invests with confidence and all governments work together providing essential infrastructure and services,” the Lord Mayor said.

“Sustainable Sydney 2030, developed after extensive consultation and research, and working with many of the world’s best urban thinkers and strategists, has guided our work to create a green, global and connected city for over a decade.

“In building on the plan and extending our vision to 2050, we are reinforcing the community’s priorities, extending targets and pushing ourselves harder to ensure Sydney’s liveability, sustainability and diversity now and into the future.  

“Underpinned by sound data and analysis and the most up to date science, Sustainable Sydney 2030–2050 Continuing the Vision outlines our ambitious environmental, economic, social and cultural aspirations.”

The City began the process to extend its long-term strategic plan in 2019, with a comprehensive program of engagement with residents, businesses, workers and visitors – including people from across broader metropolitan Sydney – a First Nations dialogue forum and a stakeholder summit.  

The innovative approach culminated in a citizens’ jury where 43 randomly selected people from across Sydney considered all the ideas and recommended eight transformative concepts by 2050.

City staff have spent the past two years re-engaging the community and incorporating Covid-19 relevant research to ensure the document reflects the needs of the community post-pandemic.  

“The cities that will recover and thrive most effectively are the ones that provide affordable housing, working and cultural space, a myriad of cultural offerings, walking, cycling and excellent late-night public transport, green, cool calm streets, laneways, small bars and late-night activity,” the Lord Mayor said.

“The City of Sydney has, for over a decade, understood these to be the attributes of great and competitive cities and has made them a priority. What we are hearing from the community is that the reform appetite for this agenda has only accelerated post-Covid and we need to match that with accelerating our pace of reform.

“The pandemic brought into even sharper focus the importance of access to parks and open space, support for our most vulnerable communities and creative industries, and the need to foster social cohesion. It reinforced the need for the city centre to operate as a place of entertainment, culture and innovation. And it showed us economic success and liveability have never been more intertwined.

“The vision we outlined for 2030 and are now extending to 2050 capitalises on this and aims for a sustainable future where our city is a leader in sustainable growth, creativity and innovation, with a 24-hour economy and opportunities for all.”

Supporting the key strategic and operational direction of the plan are 10 transformative project ideas, which reflect the community’s values and aspirations and bring the strategy’s directions to life.  

The 10 project ideas have been developed in collaboration with Sydney architects, landscape architects and urban designers and are shown below as extracted from the 'Sustainable Sydney 2030-2050 Continuing the Vision' plan

The project ideas above, which are expanded upon in the full plan, have been developed in collaboration with Sydney architects, landscape architects and urban designers.

Lord Mayor Moore added “these project ideas propose both immediate creative opportunities and long-term solutions to the challenges facing our city.

“Long-term infrastructure and development to shape a sustainable city requires commitment from all levels of government, businesses and our wider communities.”  

Among those who collaborated with the City of Sydney in response to the community’s aspirations and developed the project ideas for Sydney’s future domain was Chief Executive of the Committee for Sydney, Gabriel Metcalf.

“I think people are going to be inspired when they see this plan. As good as Sydney is today, it’s actually going to get better,” Metcalf said.

“The key to a long plan like this is to set the right ambitions, so that all of us can pull together to make them happen. The 2050 plan is visionary and ambitious in just the right way.”

In preparing its vision for 2050, the City also took stock of its progress over the last decade and looked to the challenges and opportunities that Sydney and its communities will face in the coming decades.

As part of its Sustainable Sydney 2030 strategy, the City of Sydney advised that it has:  

• Completed more than 250 major projects in the last 10 years including the creation of many new parks and playgrounds;

• Opened new libraries, childcare centres, theatres and cultural spaces;

• Reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 26% across the local area based on 2006 levels;

• Planted more than 15,000 street trees in the past 15 years;

• Built a 20km network of separated cycleways;

• Welcomed more than 64,000 new residents and 115,000 more jobs;

• Led the development and delivery of a transformed George Street, including the extension under construction to Central;

• Injected millions of dollars every year into some of Sydney’s most beloved events;

• Invested in hundreds of artists to deliver both permanent and temporary public artworks; and

• Subsidised more than 10,000 square metres of cultural floor space.

Gabriel Metcalf notes “these achievements are testament to the City of Sydney’s ability to develop a strategic vision that lasts.”

Sustainable Sydney 2030-2050 Continuing the Vision will be presented to Council on 11th April 2022.  

The vision has been translated into the City of Sydney’s next community strategic plan, delivery program, operational plan and resourcing strategy.  

These documents will set out the priorities and resources for Sustainable Sydney 2030-2050 Continuing the Vision over the short, medium, and longer term. The plans will be exhibited for community feedback before being presented to Council for adoption in June. View the full Sustainable Sydney 2030-2050 Continuing the Vision