New Breed

As I wander around the city I like to check out new buildings .. or at least those I'd never noticed before. With the rash of new construction it is all a bit bewildering. 

This nearly completed effort seems to be a residential tower stylised a little bit art deco. As I see it, there is a trend toward inner city living as opposed to strictly inner city working. Along with the COVID initiated trend toward "working from home" there's a great deal of decentralisation going on with new development at centres like North Sydney, Chatswood and Parramatta.

Ironically the motorway system and metro still seem fixated on the idea of getting huge numbers of people in and out of the original CBD, at a time when the actual daily commute has become much more diversified. Will the flash new stations and trains ever be fully utilised? Already the interurban trains that I catch are a lot less crowded than they were only a few years ago. Certainly the major city shopping malls don't look busy at all. 

While Sydney CBD office vacancy rates stand at 14.3 %, that figure has been steadily increasing by 1% every quarter for the last several years. There are already moves to (at least partly) remodel existing office blocks into residential apartments. I can see new town planning approvals (for strictly commercial purposes) drastically falling off from here on in. Interesting.