Unfinished Sydney

The New South Wales State government has been promising Tomorrow’s Sydney for years now, but strangely enough tomorrow never seems to come. The State government even has a website called, ‘My Sydney,’ spruiking its visions of major transport projects, although it’s difficult to know who the possessive pronoun ‘my’ belongs to.

Every time I go into the city, I can’t help noticing that there’s a construction site on nearly every corner. The city is in a constant state of flux and never seems to be finished or even improved. The Sydney Symphony of pounding jackhammers has become its permanent soundtrack. Scaffolding, hoardings and trucks transform the city into a place to hurry through rather than linger in.

I knew about the Circular Quay Masterplan, promising new retail opportunities, sustainability, offices, hotels, and refurbished wharves, but I hadn’t known that the reconstruction had spread to Young Street. I was surprised to see that buildings younger than me had been knocked down. Not that I had any nostalgic connection to them. They weren’t necessarily attractive to begin with. In fact, when I saw the cranes and the missing tooth-gaps of demolition, I could barely remember what structures had even been there before. It took me a while to remember the original AMP Centre Plaza food court that I barely ever went to when I worked in in the area, preferring to spend my lunchbreaks at the Botanic Gardens. It was as if the food court had already become a chimera that had never existed.

Apparently, new and improved buildings will soon sprout up on Young St, including a revamped AMP Centre Plaza to replace the old, promising ‘village greens’ consisting of cantilevered glass expanses on asymmetric levels, a market hall, roof gardens and apartments with corridors of exclusive Harbour views.

I hope the new buildings will be an improvement on the old. In spite of these promises and the constant quest for improvement, I can’t help suspecting that when one building’s completed, another one will be knocked down and the cycle of construction, deconstruction and reconstruction will continue on indefinitely.

That’s my Sydney, the city that’s never finished.