SYDNEY’S GREAT GROWTH.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 193, 20 July 1925, Page 8

SYDNEY’S GREAT GROWTH.

A REMARKABLE ADVANCE.* SYDNEY, July 9. The Valuer-General’s figures are striking witness to Sydney’s amazing growth since the day, about 136 years ago, when Governor Phillip, making amends for the error of judgment of Captain Cook, sought a more favourable site for the first settlement than Botany Bay, and entered Port Jackson. The little hamlet that lie established when he dropped anchor in Sydney Cove, after looking in vain for the glowing picture which Cook had so graphically given of Botany Bay, is to-clav a citv with improved land worth £107,239,980, or nearly £4,000.000 more than it was last year.

The fact that the total value of improved land in Svdnev has increased by £22,659,580 since 1920-21, is evidence of the extraordinary rate at which improvements are being carried out in tb.o city. And it is safe to say that if more regard had been paid to Governor Phillip’s ideas, Sydney today would not only have been the immensely rich city that it is, but its lay-out would have been more in keeping with its wealth and importance* The problem in traffic congestion, for instance, which confronts the authorities would have been largely avoided if Governor Phillip’s design of the principal streets, with a width of 200 ft. had been observed.

Governor Phillip perhaps took no account of grades, but his successors were indifferent not only to that aspect of planning, but also to the, width of the streets, which came to be about 60ft. wide, on the average, instead of 200 ft. Sydney to-day might easily have been not only one of the wealthiest cities in the world, but also, on account of its natural advantages, one of the most beautiful, even without its harbour, if it had been planned on better lines.