Geography of Sydney - Urban Structure

Urban Structure

The extensive area covered by urban Sydney is formally divided into more than 300 suburbs for addressing and postal purposes, and administered as 38 local government areas. There is no city-wide government, but the Government of New South Wales and its agencies have extensive responsibilities in providing metropolitan services. The City of Sydney itself covers a fairly small area comprising the central business district and its neighbouring inner-city suburbs. In addition, there are a number of informal regional names describing large sections of the urban area. Not all suburbs are necessarily covered by any of the following informal regional categories. The regions are Eastern Suburbs, Hills District, Inner West, Lower North Shore, Northern Beaches, North Shore, Southern Sydney, South-eastern Sydney, South-western Sydney, Sutherland Shire and Western Sydney.

Sydney's central business district (CBD) extends southwards for about 2 kilometres (1.25 mi) from Sydney Cove, the point of the first European settlement. Densely concentrated skyscrapers and other buildings including historic sandstone buildings such as the Sydney Town Hall and Queen Victoria Building are interspersed by several parks such as Wynyard and Hyde Park. The Sydney CBD is bounded on the east side by a chain of parkland that extends from Hyde Park through the Domain and Royal Botanic Gardens to Farm Cove on the harbour. The west side is bounded by Darling Harbour, a popular tourist and nightlife precinct while Central station marks the southern end of the CBD. George Street serves as the Sydney CBD's main north-south thoroughfare.

The oldest, inner suburbs are dominated by terrace housing. The original suburbs lay within walking distance of the CBD, and later urban development in the Inner West and Eastern Suburbs was served by trams. With a boom in passenger railway construction came rapid extension of the suburbs along the railway corridors to the west and south, and eventually to the North Shore, after the completion of the Harbour Bridge allowed trains to continue from North Sydney into the CBD. This radial-spoke pattern of development changed after World War II, when increasing car ownership encouraged infill development where the railways didn't run, and then further expansion around the perimeter of the city. These outer areas have mostly missed out on further rail expansion and are primarily car dependent to this day.

Although the CBD dominated the city's business and cultural life in the early days, other business/cultural districts have developed in a radial pattern since World War II. In 1945, two-thirds of all jobs in Sydney were located in the City of Sydney and surrounding inner city municipalities, but postwar suburbanisation meant that only a quarter of the workforce were located in the City, South Sydney, Leichhardt and Marrickville municipalities. Together with the commercial district of North Sydney, joined to the CBD by the Harbour Bridge, the most significant outer business districts are Parramatta in the central-west, Blacktown in the west, Bondi Junction in the east, Liverpool in the southwest, Chatswood to the north, and Hurstville to the south.