Queen Lucy’s plan for a Sydney dystopia cops more flack from urban planner Chris Brown today:
Nauseatingly, the plan boasts of “new thinking” that simply rehashes ideas borrowed from elsewhere. Concepts like the “30-minute city”, “green grid” or “liveability” are not new…The approach is supported by the highly questionable claim that the plan will “align land use, transport and infrastructure outcomes …Clearly, the person who wrote this has not read the government’s long-term transport or infrastructure plans…
…Elsewhere, there are mumblings about Affordable Rental Housing Targets, but no real substance is offered. In the context of what is by now a full-blown social crisis, the approach is crushingly timid.. ironing out disparities in jobs, income, services and transport across the city…is mainly to be achieved by dumping the federal government’s underwhelming Western Sydney City Deal onto a chronically undervalued “Western Parkland City”.
This is yet another idea borrowed (in fact, virtually plagiarised) from elsewhere and given the “fibre-to-the-node” treatment – it’s policy on the cheap. The city deal mimics the UK City Deal policy that was introduced in 2011.
“The Plan” is much more simple. Queen Lucy is aiming to turn Western Sydney into a low wage special economic zone staffed by coolies which her developer and banking mates can press into handsome profits.
It’s all a part of “the plan”:
