Density! And ever more density, is the only solution this developer-friendly recalcitrant ever considers? Ignores basic facts like city dwellers produce 2.5 times the carbon of their country cousins, grid-locked congestion and create impossible heat sinks that are so damaging to the climate in the process.

Paris may well be a good urban model for Beijing to emulate because they have the population pressures that make it a logical solution and because the state rather than money-grubbing conflicted developers are responsible for most urban renewal!?

We need to think outside, this particular and limiting sphere/square!

Thinking within a limited circle of ideas limits the (monosyllabic) questions and by implication most of the available answers.

We need (non-conflicted independent) thinkers able to envisage and plan to develop all of Australia rather than a permanently shrinking narrow band of coastline!

Absolutely needs to include, nuclear energy, deionization dialysis desalination, rapid rail, decentralization, cooperative capitalism and all Australians! As opposed to, self evidently, serving only the extremely narrow vested interests of the big end of town and profit-hungry developers!?
Alan B.

Paris or London as models for future Sydney? You mean massive unassimilable immigration and lots of no go zones?

Well, that's far more likely than the twee fantasies about "walkable cities", bike paths, public transport and no cars.

After all, we actually know what Paris and London have become with their rocking crime rates and diversity stabbings.

It is absolutely crazy for Sydney to copy Paris and import any more Muslims or Africans, unless we want a crime and terrorism problem that is as bad as Paris. Some parts of Paris (no prize for guessing who lives in those suburbs) are now so dangerous that the French flics patrol in armoured cars carrying Ruger Mini 14 semi automatic rifles.

I would love to submit links to some of the many YouTube videos that show that Paris today is in fact in a state of ongoing civil war, but they are so shocking that Youtuble censors keep taking them down. Inconvenient truths must be hidden from the proles.

One thing is certain, Paris is not Paris anymore. And unless we start thinking straight, Sydney won't be Sydney anymore, either.

'I would love to submit links to some of the many YouTube videos that show that Paris today is in fact in a state of ongoing civil war, but they are so shocking that Youtuble censors keep taking them down'

yeah Lego kind of like when there was no Lebanese rape problem before Cronulla riots or no African gang problem in Melbourne. No wonder Trump calls it fake news and people are voting more and more against the swamp.

Sydney was a lovely place to live in the early 6os. Less than a couple of million people, each with room to breath fresh air, & within comfortable driving distance of work & each other. Public transport was even OK if you lived & worked in favoured locations.

Then they ruined it by continuing to expand it, until when I was last there about 5 years ago, I would rather jump off the harbour bridge than live in any of my old haunts.

I suppose you could aim for something worse than Parris, but apart from Amsterdam, I can't imagine where or what. Six story apartment blocks where everyone can share their neighbours smell of boiling cabbage sounds like hell on earth to me.

I expect that Detroit is more likely to be both Sydney & Melbourne's future, which would at least relieve the population pressure on those left behind.

It is no ones fault, we could not have predicted the size our cities would grow to, but now we know, a new greenfield start is about the only way to make a huge conglomerate liveable. If we continue with immigration, planed for 6 or 8 million on the planes west of Bathurst would be about the only way.

Trying to turn the mess that is Sydney today into a city worth living in is a fools errand. Trying to patch anything way past it's use by date is bound to end in tears.