i know you mean good - but this is a huge misconception. do you honestly think that when your parents bought in the "now" middle ring suburbs that they were middle ring.
of course not.
20-30-40 years ago they were considered "out in the sticks". taking an area i know as an example - newcastle - the bb generation can recall 40yrs ago when adamstown was down the end of a gravel road and you had to take a packed lunch if you were visiting - no public transport - no decent roads - but housing was affordable.
now it is considered a prime middle ring suburb.
the city grows, the rings grow - what was outer in now inner and a new affordable outer is created.
Not in Sydney its not. Different areas of Sydney have grown at different rates. There was a time when a lot of the wealthy people lived on the upper North Shore in big estates in areas like Pymble and Wahroonga (middle ring) while all the workers lived on the water in North Sydney
Manly used to be like a tiny little beach town where people went on Holiday! Suburbs like Surry Hills and Paddington were the real working class areas. How times have changed!
Even recently look at areas like Rhodes now, so close to wealthy Strathfield but was a workers area surrounded by industrial estates. Now look at what a unit there costs. Abbotsford, Chiswick, Drummoyne Mortlake and even Balmain 15 years ago? A fair bit less than you pay now
Lots of inner Sydney has been transformed over the last 10 to 15 years (granted many started before that of course!). People who lived in these sorts of "working class" to middle class suburbs want to go back but now find that its a wealthy area that they can no longer afford. Even in the last 5 years look at how close a lot of previously cheap areas have caught up with the more established suburbs.
As for transport, most of the Rail transport that our city is based on was built in the late 1800s to 1940s! Most of our major road network has existed for over 50 years. Other than the odd expensive tunnel most of the major road projects have been linking areas out of Sydney! Infrastructure growth and improvement is a sticky subject in Sydney!
As for my parents they bought in a nice North Shore suburb as soon as they were married
They had always lived in the inner ring and actually moved further out later on! The point is Sydney is a much bigger place than Newcastle. Outer ring is REALLY outer ring and in reality it cant go any further as there is not really any where to go. All looks very good for people in the market already
What I see in Gen Y is not the desire for a huge house with all the trimmings (very Gen X) but a desire to be close in. Even if it means living in a shoe box. I often hear them chatting away here at work and the big thing seems to be living close to where the action is. Ha! So they will have to rent I think because as I said its not getting any cheaper in "inner" Sydney and they are not making any more land there. So I cant see a new "outer ring in Sydney". Or is the Central Coast, Newcastle, Wollongong and Picton the new Sydney outer ring? I think our "rings" were set in place a long time ago! They are just filling out due to demand.
As I said, this is just gentrification and the signs that Sydney is not longer a little town. We have the same experiences that all major City's have as they grow. People just have to accept this. I say now it the time to be capitalising on this
