GROWTH OF SYDNEY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20891, 5 June 1931, Page 11

GROWTH OF SYDNEY.

INCREASE OF POPULATION. MILLION AND QUARTER PEOPLE. [from our own correspondent.] SYDNEY, May 28. Shrewd observers say that Sydney is getting moro like London every day, but at the present rate of increase in the population it will be 90 yeais before Sydney has a- population equal to that of the heart of the Empire to-day. Just now, in the midst of the depression, Sydney is to a large extent standing still. Countless schemes for the improvement of the general lay-out are held in abeyance. Only the great bridge and the city railway are rushing to completion. Perhaps it is this period of comparative quiet that gives architects and others an opportunity to dream as to the future. They picture a more beautiful city, with taller buildings, overhead bridges everywhere, tube trams, buses and trains, more bridges over the harbour to carry the millions to the North Shore; more aeroplane travel with the possibility of windmill planes that will land on the roofs. All this and more in 90 years! Metropolitan Sydney now boasts a population of 1,253,560, and it is "still going strong." The following is the rate of increase between 1851 and 1921: — 1851-1861, 2.95 per cent.; 18611871, 3.67; 1871-1881, 5.02; 1881-1891, 5.48; 1891-1901, 2.33; 1901-1911, 2.69; 1911-1921, 3.60. Although the present rate of increase is very small—for 1930 it was only 1.2 per cent. —there is normally a steady increase, and statisticians say that a 2 per cent, increase should make a fairly accurate reckoning as to the future millions. In 35 years, therefore, the population of Sydney should have doubled itself, in 69 years or so it should be up to the 5,000,000 mark, and in 90 years it should reach London's present figuro of 7,500,000. Dr. Bradfield, designer of the Harbour Bridge and the city railway, is among the dreamers. He has always tried to visualise a much greater city and he has planned accordingly. He says that Sydney is lop-sided, because there are four times as many people living on the southern side of the harbour as there are on the northern. That is clearly due to the lack of facilities for transporting the people across the harbour,, which dominates the lay-out of the city.

Within a four-miles radius of the Central Railway Station about 500,000 people have their homes on an area of 26,300 acres—about 23 persons to the acre—while the remaining 700,000 reside on an area of 400,000 acres—about one and three-quarter persons to each acre. That, says Dr. Bradfield, clearly indicates where the population will go. The bridge will mako it possible for 1,000,000 to live on the North Shore. The city proper would become a New York in miniature, and the North Shore a second Brooklyn. The steel work of the bridge has been completed and the flooring, or decking, is being put down. It is expected that the bridge will bo ready for opening at the end of the year. The approaches, which are being constructed by the Government, are being pushed ahead as rapidly as the limited funds available will allow. They have altered beyond recognition vast areas on either side of the harbour.