Economist.com Cities Guide: Sydney Briefing - August 2005

News this month

Run out of town

Though they have cooled a little recently, Sydney's house prices remain stratospheric by Australian standards. They are over-valued by 37%, compared with 22% for Australia as a whole, according to J.P. Morgan, an investment bank. Consequently, on August 12th, Ian Macfarlane, governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, the country's central bank, told a federal parliamentary committee that young Sydneysiders should consider moving out of the city.

It seems his advice is being heeded: Brisbane, capital of Queensland, where house prices are more reasonable, is attracting a higher population growth than Sydney. The prices are widely considered to be the reason for New South Wales, of which Sydney is capital, having the slowest job growth in 2004-2005 of any Australian state, as companies seek cheaper locations elsewhere.

The light at the end

After two years under construction, Sydney’s latest bid to improve its clogged roads, a traffic tunnel 50 metres below the city centre, will open on August 28th. The Cross City Tunnel runs from Darling Harbour, at the western edge of central Sydney, to Rushcutters Bay, at the east. It will eliminate 16 sets of traffic lights and cut the average journey time from 20 minutes to two. The A$680m ($525m) cost of the project will be met by a toll of A$3.50, paid via an electronic tag attached to cars.

The tunnel should shorten journey times to Sydney's airport from the west and provide a seamless crossing of Sydney Harbour from the east. Its capacity to relocate 90,000 cars a day from the central business district will be a relief for central residents and workers—but not for those in the inner west. They, and the area's many tourists, will be forced to inhale the tunnel's fumes through ventilation stacks in the middle of Darling Harbour.

Chauvel trouble

A campaign is under way to save one of Sydney's few remaining arthouse cinemas. Housed in the old Paddington Town Hall, the Chauvel Cinema, named after Charles and Elsa Chauvel, two pioneering Australian film-makers, has shown quality films and documentaries that would never find a commercial release, as well as Sydney’s only regular programme of classic world cinema. But a feasibility study commissioned by the Australian Film Institute (AFI), which runs the Chauvel, found that the cinema was likely to lose around A$30,000 a month in the current climate, so the AFI decided to close the cinema by the end of September. The Valhalla, a similar venue, closed in early August.

Resistance from film buffs is strong: a meeting of almost 300 people on August 11th called on the New South Wales state government and the Sydney City Council, the cinema's landlord, to step in until a survival strategy can be devised. Early signs are optimistic: Morris Iemma, the new state premier, not previously known to have artistic inclinations, says he is considering the proposal.

Turned off

The fallout from the London bombings in July has reached Sydney, with the cancellation of a lecture visit by Abdur Raheem Green, a British-born Muslim preacher. Mr Green had been due to speak during the week of August 15th. But he changed his plans after the Australian authorities said it would take “some time” for him to gain permission to land in Sydney.

Mr Green is on the Australian immigration department’s “alert list” of people considered to pose a risk to national security. Though he has visited the country before, the department says his visa application is under “thorough review”. Mr Green wrote a pamphlet on jihad in 1994 in response, he said, to an article in The Economist, but now claims to condemn terrorism. Meanwhile, John Howard, Australia's prime minister, is planning to hold a meeting with local Muslim leaders to discuss tightening counter-terrorism measures.

Island life

Reflecting the growing dependence of the Pacific's island nations on aid and investment from their richer neighbours, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) opened an office in Sydney on August 3rd. The office will oversee the bank’s work in the island nations of Vanuatu, Nauru, Kiribati and the Solomon Islands. It is the fourth office the bank has established in the Pacific region in the past year.

Sydney was chosen because of the city’s role as a business hub and its access to private-sector investment, which the ADB says is as vital as aid for attacking poverty in the Pacific. The Manila-based ADB provided $5.3 billion in loans for the region in 2004. Haruhiko Kuroda, the ADB’s president, told Economist.com that further economic integration between Australia and East Asia, such as free-trade agreements, should be encouraged, to stimulate growth and reduce income disparities in the region.

Catch if you can

September 2005

Sydney Symphony Orchestra: August-September season

Until September 12th 2005

Australia’s leading symphony orchestra has chosen two impressive programmes for its August-September season on its home stage at the Sydney Opera House concert hall. The first features Stephen Kovacevich (pictured), a renowned concert pianist, performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in a programme that also includes Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8. Yannick Nezet-Seguin, a French-Canadian, will conduct. This will be followed by Marin Alsop, a leading American conductor, in a separate programme of music by the American composers Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copeland and Erich Korngold. Both programmes promise to be highlights in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s busy year.

Mozart and Bruckner: August 24th-27th; “American Visions”: September 8th, 10th and 12th. Sydney Opera House, Bennelong Point, Sydney. Tel: +61 (02) 9250 7777. See the orchestra's website.

More from the Sydney cultural calendar