The Committee for Sydney conducted research to identify accessible suburbs. The research looked at which places could reach most jobs and services easily. Accessibility was measured against house prices to find ‘best value’ areas. Sydney’s inner west was found to be the place to live, with Ashfield topping list.
The Committee for Sydney and PwC conducted research to identify which parts of Sydney reach the most jobs, shops, schools and hospitals in the shortest time by car and public transport. The study, called ‘The Geography of Time’, measured accessibility against the cost of housing to determine which suburbs were the best value for money.
Six of the suburbs in the top 10 were in the inner west, including Ashfield which came out on top, followed by Sydenham-Tempe-St Peters, Burwood-Croydon, Roselands and Redfern-Chippendale.
- Ashfield
- Sydenham – Tempe – St Peters
- Burwood – Croydon
- Roselands
- Redfern – Chippendale
- Petersham – Stanmore
- Newtown – Camperdown – Darlington
- Surry Hills
- Northmead
- Arncliffe – Bardwell Valley
And some of the city’s most exclusive neighbourhoods in the eastern suburbs and northern beaches, such as Avalon-Palm Beach and Newport, were among the lowest ranked. Those in middle-ring suburbs, including Homebush, Concord, Strathfield and Punchbowl, were the most affected by rush hour congestion.
Sydney-siders living on the outer edges of the city had the worst access to employment, the report found. Only a tenth of jobs could be reached in under a 30-minute commute on weekday mornings. But people living closer to central Sydney could access almost half of the city’s jobs in less than half an hour by car.
Eamon Waterford, the Committee’s director of policy who co-wrote the study, said the results showed rail was ‘king’ in Sydney.
‘You just can’t beat being close to a good a train station,’ he told the Sydney Morning Herald.
‘The reality is that in peak hour on a weekday morning you can’t get very far in 30 minutes in a car but you can get a very long way on a train.’
Source: Dailymail
