Sydney is full of pessimists and this could impact its futureSeptember 10, 2015
IT IS one of the most liveable cities in the world and an economic powerhouse in Australia but it seems residents of the country’s premier city may not appreciate what they have.
A new survey from McCrindle Research has found that Sydneysiders are a pretty pessimistic bunch.
Half of the 1007 residents surveyed in August were categorised as “concerned pessimists” and said they thought life in Sydney was worse than five years ago, and would be even worse in five years time.
The Future of Sydney survey is the first in a series of reports on life in Australia’s capital cities.
More than half those surveyed nominated the cost of living (73 per cent) and housing costs (59 per cent) as the two biggest challenges. This was followed by traffic and commute times (52 per cent), job/employment (29 per cent) and pace and stress of life (29 per cent).
McCrindle founder Mark McCrindle has warned that the negative attitude could actually impact on Sydney’s future prosperity as “sentiment can become reality”.
Sydney is already losing residents to other states, with Melbourne set to overtake it as Australia’s largest city. Mr McCrindle said residents needed to get behind the NSW capital or it may lose its status as Australia’s premier city.
Mr McCrindle said he thought one of the biggest surprises was that most of those surveyed said they would consider moving out of Sydney.
In fact 23 per cent had “seriously considered it”, 21 per cent “somewhat considered it” and 22 per cent “slightly considered it”. Only 34 per cent said they had not.
This is despite the fact that NSW was recently found to be the country’s best performing economy by a large margin, according to analysis from the ANZ Bank.
Sydney is adding 1400 people every six days, which is more than what the entire state of Tasmania adds in a year. The city has grown from 2 million people in 1959 to almost five million people now.
“It’s massive growth and ... Sydneysiders are seeing that or experiencing that, and this is having an impact on their lifestyle.”
And while Sydneysiders have higher wages than the Australian average, this had not kept pace with house price growth.
The average Sydney house price is now more than 13 times the average annual full time earnings of $77,000. In 1975 it was five times average earnings.
“Even on two incomes that makes it almost unaffordable for the next generation, who have to either live way out of the city or commute to the city,” Mr McCrindle said.
“House price growth has outstripped wages, and people are just on top of their mortgage, just on top of their rental and dealing with commute times, causing them to consider a sea change or a tree change.
Another telling figure is that more than half of those surveyed were considering moving to another city in NSW or another state.
“So it’s not that Sydneysiders are thinking about moving because they are sick of living in the city, they are just worn out by living in Sydney,” Mr McCrindle said.
Mr McCrindle said this could already been seen in the numbers of people who were moving to other cities in Australia.
Last year 9336 people moved to Victoria from other states, Queensland had 5598 while NSW actually lost 5572 people.
“It shows that people are voting with their feet, again for cost of living or lifestyle change reasons. They are looking at their future viability and which city works best for them,” Mr McCrindle said.
While Sydney remains an attractive city with outstanding opportunities for employment, the results of the survey were an early indicator of future challenges, Mr McCrindle said.
“If you do get people moving out, and a brain drain, because of that cost, then that can have an impact on the future.”
Melbourne is already growing faster than Sydney and doesn’t have the same geographical limitations of Sydney, which is bound by the Blue Mountains, the Hawkesbury River and other landforms.
It is expected to surpass Sydney in 2053 to become Australia’s largest city and is exceeding Sydney’s growth by more than 10,000 people per year.
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