It’s a global plague. Rich, dull, lifeless deserts spring up in all major cities. New York is famously full of rats, garbage, and empty penthouses. The modernized parts of London’s Mayfair look like an underachieving and overdressed car park.
In Sydney, opportunism is replacing residential realities, let alone needs. The current headlines are a snapshot of decades of typical spruiking, constantly selling to the unwary and starry-eyed. Just check out any major Australian real estate site, and the prices babble for themselves.
Sydney is a physically huge place. There’s lots of space and lots of variety. The coast, Sydney Harbour, the big rivers, and beautiful bush areas are all relatively close. Apparently, that’s not good enough. Some of the world’s most uninteresting people are obsessively redesigning it.
The often antiquated but functional areas are being devoured by showy but unoriginal palatial developments. The “new” architecture will be familiar to anyone who’s taken a mild interest in architecture anytime in the last century. The only thing to be said for these things is that they’re modern. Not good, just modern.
Bondi is a major focus and a typical example. The famous beach, which is actually a very good beach and a generally nice place, creaks under the weight of dollars. Bondi is a poster place for Australia. Sun, surf, and incredible prices abound. You can get lost in the clichés.
The loss of residential numbers is a legitimate issue and sore point. Unaffordability is the only working principle. Like New York and London, the idea that people. aka sometimes-human-like mammalian bipeds, have to live in the place isn’t an issue.
OK, the rich need somewhere to live, too. Nice of them to condescend to inhabit the same planet. It’s the amount of dislocation and disruption that’s the problem.
There may well be a secret cabal of servile lunatics determined to make the world uninhabitable for anyone but billionaires. Sydney can take it or leave it, preferably leave it out entirely. It is, above all, a nice place, despite being a big city. People like to live on the water, and you can waste many a good crowbar trying to get them off it. The bush is authentic and fascinating.
So who needs LEGO mansions? Developers, politicians, planners, and revenue-hungry local governments. Nobody else. The numbers look good. Big places, big property taxes, etc., it’s a real shop window of cosmetic fixes. Loss of trade, loss of rentals, loss of space, desertification of human spaces, and other minutiae don’t get a look in.
Australia, in general, is another “Monopoly country” in many ways. Property is huge. What sounds good must therefore be good. Not really. This is a wish list of numbers, not proven economics on any level. If the bottom falls out of this Dance of the Overpriced Wedding Cakes, things could get ugly. The assumption is that such massive excess is sustainable. It never is.
Of all places on Earth to have a “housing crisis” Australia must have the least number of excuses. A small population, lots of space, and modern facilities are all normal. Like everywhere else on Earth, the young are getting frostbite from these prices. Even the theory of affordability is laughable.
Future palaeontologists, please note that this is all happening pre-AI introduction. The asteroid strikes of future employment and incomes have yet to hit. No thought, let alone planning, has gone into managing the future on any level. Absurd rent rises, cost of living increases, and grasping, greedy house prices have been swallowing capital at incredible rates.
So, where does this leave Sydney? Teetering on the cusp of an absolutely useless, non-viable, and extremely vulnerable price structure.
You can’t say you weren’t warned by just about everybody.
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
