OVERCROWDED SYDNEY

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 121, 22 May 1920, Page 6

OVERCROWDED SYDNEY

WHAT 750,000 PEOPLE PUT UP WITH. (PROB OCR Own CORRESPONDENT.) SYDNEY, 11th May. ■ One sees paragraphs occasionally in New Zealand newspapers which suggest that the citizens of some of the big New Zealand towns find grievous fault ■with their municipal government. If they want to realise how well off they are, they should live in Sydney for three months. If life in the gay harbour city has ita attractions, its frightfully overcrowded condition is attended by grave disadvantages. The population was rushing ahead of public services in 1914. Since then, there has been no money for even urgent public works, but the population has gone on increasing. The lack of housing is notorious,' and need not be enlarged upon. There is a- wild stampede when even the meanest shack ' becomes vacant. The rentals of good houses range from 35s per week upwards, and one gives anything up to £5 "for the key"—which is practically a bribe to the • agent or some interested party. Tho city reeks with questionable commissions of that character. The city is being ringed in with great blocks of selfcontained flats. An average flat—din-ing-room., two bedrooms, kitchen, and* bathroom, unfurnished, two or three storeys up—carrot be had for less than £2 10s per week, plus, gas and electric power, and they range up to £4 4s. If the flat is furnished, the rental is highei by £1 or 30s. -

An elaborate system of underground railways was being constructed, but the work ceased in 1916 owing to lack of money. Result, the transport facilities are_ terribly congested. The trams, trains, and ferries, perform marvels — those who see the dense masses of people they, shift declare that .they are as efficient as any in the world—yet travel in the "rush" hours is a horror. The city is surrounded with holiday resorts, yet thousands stay in the city, month after month, rather than endure the frightful crowding on the trams and ferries.

The telephone and post office facilities have not been kept up with' the growing population, with the result that the 'phone service cannot cope with the demands upon it, and is in a deplorable condition : and' the post office is not much better. It is practically impossible now to get a new 'phone in; many people in the suburbs who lodged applications eight months ago are still waiting. It is the same with the main arterial roads in and out of the city. The strain of their maintenance years ago bseame too great for the local bodies, and they abandoned them. They and the State authorities have been fighting afcout.the matter ever since, and the roads,—well, they are simply incredible. There is nothing like them in New Zealand—even in Auckland, which enjoys some, notoriety in that resnect. Traffic avoids thsm as far as possible, dodging along the side streets.