RE-MAKING SYDNEY

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 73, 26 March 1926, Page 8

RE-MAKING SYDNEY

CORRECTING EARLY MISTAKES '

A HUGH BILL

(From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, 19th March. Every Sydncy-sider is justifiably proud 'of his city, but even the most fanaCtic Sydneyite will admit that it has its faults. It is small consolation to him that these are mostly the work of his own kind. It is becoming almost hackneyed to say that God made Sydney beautiful, and man spoilt it. Almost every visitor has something to remark about our narrow streets, or streets that lead to nowhere, or ugly buildings that cluster the foreshore of the beautiful harbour. The ■ cables informed us this week, for instance, of Miss Irene Vanbrugh, the eminent English actress, telling a gathering of London journalists that Sydney had been spoilt by the handiwork of man. It takes a morally-courageous Sydney-sider to believe it, but nevertheless there is much truth in it. • To a great extent, our municipal bodies are attempting to remedy the mistakes of great-grandfathers with the right hand, as it were, and are doing the same things as they did, with their left hand. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of ratepayers' money are being spent in straightening crooked streets, or prolonging them, or widening them, while no attempt is being made to'prevent the haphazard erection of ugly buildings, such as fiats, especially on the harbourside. The remark is often herd, especially in these' days of the universal motor-car, that the early builders of Sydney made a great mistake in not reserving a wid"th of territory right round the harbour foreshore for a marine drive. It would be a great attraction now, but the chances of having it are gone forever, because it would take untold millions to uproot the private ownership of the greater part of the foreshores. It is only a few years', since the Sydney City Council began a definite scheme of correcting the mistakes of the early planners of Sydney, but up till the end of 1924 approximately £3,400,000 had been spent in the resumption of properties alone. Only a fringe of the necessary work has been touched, and a half-century hence, not only will the whole face of the city have been altered, but an enormous sum of money will have been spent, when, with earlier foresight, much of it could have been saved. The charm of narrow, winding streets is not fashionable among present-day. civic legislators, whose cry is "More elbow room." Sydney certainly needs more elbow room in her streets, and though the pace might be a little fast for the liking of ratepayers, the eventual gain will be the "city's.