In March, the Committee for Sydney published the 2024 Benchmarking Sydney Report, the first report of its kind since the COVID-19 Pandemic. The report uses several categories by which a city’s activities and activation can be defined (e.g., economic activity, culture, mobility, future-proofing) to position Sydney amongst a ‘peer group’ of ten global cities, including Amsterdam, Miami, Hong Kong and Toronto. The report paints a holistic picture of where Sydney is at, and how we should be positioning ourselves globally to attract innovation, grow local culture and enhance perceptions of all the wonderful things Sydney offers to residents and visitors alike.
Rationale
To understand the report’s findings, it’s helpful to consider the rationale of the Benchmarking approach.
Sydney is not a city operating at the scale of London, Shanghai or New York. We are a city renowned for our symbiosis of nature and urban landscapes, harbour attractions and sunlight. There is burgeoning international recognition of our dualistic culture that combines a laid-back, stereotypical ‘Aussie’ ethos with fast-paced, increasingly globalised urban and economic activity. The group of peer cities to which we are compared in the report share with Sydney attributes that facilitate nuanced analysis of what is working in our city and what can be improved. The peer cities are mid-sized (5 million median population), experiencing substantial and fast-paced development, grappling with intense climate-based urban challenges (e.g. urban heat inequality, flooding danger) and have substantial waterfront areas. This creates a unique set of challenges and opportunities for urban design, housing, art and business.
Culture: cause for celebration or concern?
Insofar as Art Pharmacy concerns itself with the fostering of an advanced, thriving public art scene in Sydney, the report’s findings on our city’s cultural activation are instructive as to what we can celebrate and what we have to work on.
In 2024, Sydney is in the top third of our peer cities for culture overall, rising for cultural visitation and variety, and night-time reputation. We were third for the number of highly rated attractions in the inner city and how easy it is to visit them. We had the highest visitor return rate among measured peers and were one of only four peers to be publicly rated a top 30 destination for music lovers. Such statistics are no doubt bolstered by government programs like Creative Communities, a suite of policies outlining the NSW government’s purported commitment to growing creative spaces and involvement across the state, investing in the growth of Western Sydney creative projects and engaging “the grassroots for the next generation of great artists, makers, creative thinkers and doers” (Destination NSW, 2023).
Our galleries are doing the right things too, with Sydney ranking 1st out of 6 for a bounceback in visitors to the top-rated art museum in the city (the Art Gallery of NSW). This means we retain loyal gallery-goers, and it reflects well on the continuing breadth and variety of exhibitions across art venues. These positive outcomes rebuke consistent and tired refrains about Sydney’s lack of frequent or high-quality cultural events. It offers compelling evidence to rebut Sydney’s persistent perception problem – that our residents and international observers all think there is less going on here than the reality of the situation. Fixing our perception problem and celebrating the report’s positives are crucial takeaways.
However, Sydney has some work to do once the bright lights fade. The report shows that short-term visitors are happier with their experience of the city than those who stay here longer, and the city remains divided in terms of how different groups experience nightlife in particular. We ranked 23rd out of 49 for how happy longer-term expats are with the city’s cultural offerings and, worryingly, 7th out of 7 for a safe night-time environment for women.
To address this first concern, governments and institutions must focus on building up cultural and artistic offerings in our city all year round. Events like Vivid, the Sydney Festival, and the Biennale draw large crowds yearly with public art, theatre, dance, and performance offerings. Still, outside those festival seasons, it is harder for the average punter to easily attend cultural events To the second concern, engaging recreationally with your city is impossible if you do not feel safe in it. Improving lighting across the city, bolstering public transport routes to and from events and engaging organisations concerned with urban safety all year round will further existing intiatives to make our city a better place for everyone.
Costs of creativity: too much to handle?
The report also shows that a forward-thinking strategy for Sydney’s artistic and cultural development must confront the extraordinary cost of being a Sydneysider. A lack of rental controls, ballooning prices of essential goods, and the stagflation of wages compared to living expenses create perfect conditions for an exodus of people in the creative industries. Freelancing, piece-rate work and project-based employment tenures (commonly the working conditions of creatives) are unstable by default but should not be so unsustainable as to be unliveable in a city that says it is committed to investing in cultural and artistic projects. Calls for more funding to the arts too often go unanswered by governments, which means the onus falls on local councils, NGOs, philanthropists and investors to support and fund initiatives.
Funding choices should be made considerately to engage the diversity of creative professionals in Sydney. While governments may prefer to fund stadium development or sports grounds, other well-resourced organisations, individuals and companies must look to build up independent and small-scale events, commissions and projects alongside those proposed by larger venues, institutions, galleries and festivals.
An example can be found in Phoenix Central Park, a theatre and music venue that forms part of the Central Park activation supported by Judith Neilson. Phoenix holds music and live performance events in its unique space, with tickets usually available only by random ballot. Some nights, Aussie acts like Beryl present new indie rock music produced a stone’s throw away. Other nights feature international artists like Satch Hoyt, a stalwart of experimental ambient sound, his performances accompanied by spoken word poetry and innovative lighting design. The best part – these performances are absolutely free.
Intimate venues like Phoenix can be found if you know where to look, but they are overwhelmingly concentrated in the CBD and inner west of Sydney. It is also ultimately unsustainable for the multifaceted cultural scene we want in Sydney to be primarily supported by private investors. There must be a greater commitment by the public service to nurture local talent and alleviate the crushing cost pressures of living in this city. We can only create when given the space and time to do so.
Therein lies a key issue flagged in the Benchmarking Report’s findings: Sydney’s cultural development is not experienced equally across the city by socioeconomic and geographic standards.
Looking forward
A concerted effort to spread the fruits of Sydney’s cultural offerings around many city areas is crucial to bolstering our international reputation. While it is unhelpful to perpetuate the myth that artistic experimentation and activation are not occurring everywhere in Sydney at the hands of many diverse creators, we still have a way to go. The funding has not yet flowed beyond the so-called “latte line” to the degree it should if we hope to nurture diverse creative projects around Sydney. Investment in Western and Southern Sydney to build up large-capacity art and music venues is a promising step in the right direction, and attention should also be paid to creative projects in the Southern and Northwestern areas so that all of Sydney can benefit from the vibrancy our city is capable of fostering. A genuinely inclusive and diverse future plan for Sydney’s continuing urban activation and development is not a choice but a mandate.
Article summary by Lauren Lancaster.
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