Transforming and changing urban centres: the experience of Sydney from 1981 to 2006

The key objective of this paper is to understand the space–time dynamics of metrics of changes to major employment centres in Sydney over the period 1981–2006. The following research questions are addressed: (1) what influence do the key centres exert on employment distribution over the metropolitan area? (2) are the key centres part of polycentric urban structure? (3) how accessible are these centres for the workforce and what are their respective labour catchment areas? These questions, in turn, allow an assessment of the official centres policy in Sydney which has been a feature of spatial plans since 1948. Eleven centres have been selected for this investigation: Sydney CBD, North Sydney, Parramatta, Liverpool, Penrith, Inner-city, Chatswood, Macquarie Park, Bankstown, Blacktown and Hornsby. The first five centres are at the top of the centres hierarchy as identified in the Metro Strategy 2005 and in previous metropolitan planning strategies, and the other six centres are in the next level of emphasis but all have the characteristics of important centres. The analysis included the maps of journey to work trips to the centres, influence circles of centres, employment preference functions and tabular data on levels of employment. The results of the analysis indicate that apart from the CBD, North Sydney, Parramatta and Inner city the remaining centres appear to exert little influence on employment distribution over the metropolitan area. The evidence also for a strong polycentric structure in the metropolitan Sydney does not appear to be present.