In the early 60s, I used to drive out through the paddocks from my home in Caringbah, to pick up my girlfriend from Engadine.

We would drive into Sydney CBD, park in Pitt or George street to go for a meal or a movie. Sydney was a really great town then. Big enough to have everything anyone could want, but small enough to get around & enjoy.

Last time I was there, in 2003 it was really horrible. heavy traffic 24/7, no parking anywhere, & it took 5 attempts to find anyone with enough English to give me directions in Hurstville.

I bought my first house, an old small cottage, in an outer suburb in 62 for just 2 1/2 years salary. A couple of years later I bought a nice house in a mid range suburb for just under 4 times the average wage.

Sydney was a dream city, today the dream is a nightmare, & best avoided.

All this is down to migration & population pressures.

Hasbeen,

I've been to Sydney only once, and very briefly. I've been to London several times and, although it is much bigger than Sydney, I was happier there. Sydney is a s..thole that attracts immigrants like blowies because they are used to s..tholes. I'll stick with Adelaide, which has a little of everything, but not enough to be a problem. No African gangs, no Muslim maniacs and, for the time being, no Red government. The immigrants we get here don't do anything to make them stand out, and housing and cost of living are reasonable.

I think you've got it around the wrong way ttbn, it's deliberate not accidental.
I think a nations wealth is tied to house prices and housing growth and so immigration is a deliberate method to create artificial demand for housing; so that house prices, jobs, businesses in this industry don't dry up.
There's too much follow on effect if housing growth stagnates, so they do it on purpose.

Immigrants and home prices.
The problem is two fold.
Firstly Chinese Investor immigrants are using Australia as a safe haven for their wealth.
They buy inner city properties As well as outer suburban rural acres as long term investments.
Inner suburban apartments which were originally designed for retiring Australians are being snapped up by Chinese millionaires buy them and use them once a year for a few weeks.Others are rented to students and backpackers packing 8 people in each room.

Secondly, there are genuine migrants who come to settle and purchase a home.Some Europeans arrive with enough to purchase a "cheap" home in Australia.
An average London home being worth in excess of $3 million.

High speed rail links to regional Australia would help slow down City property prices.

Armchair Critic- I agree with your comment mostly but I don't think the Nations Wealth has to be tied to increases in housing prices- but is just the strategy of the current crop of inadaquate leaders- led by the Economic Liberals. In fact it's not just the current crop it's been going on since the Liberal "revolution" under Henry VIII. Where the responsibility to the people on the land (the Traditional Owners) was separated from the land itself. Economic Liberals cause periodic upheavals in the Economy such as the GFC- due to their greed. It's well past time to put the Economy in more traditional and stable hands- perhaps we could leave them a pool to play in.

The concept of cultural ownership of the nation seemingly provided a balance between the flexibility inherent in a property market while ensuring the culture wasn't vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the markets- even if the individuals were- a balance between flexibility and safety.

People are subject to the same supply and demand concepts as other items- with the growth in populations worldwide people are less valued. To value people more- we need to reduce the number of people in certain parts of the world. Communism believes the opposite- believing that the burgeoning population "mono-culture" / anti-culture will sweep away capitalism (Economic Liberalism)- a cure at least as bad as the disease.

We are losing cultures and languages every few days- the days of the Communist Anti-Culture are here because of Social Liberalism.

The Social Liberals label Traditionalists and Conservatives as extreme because they cannot accept a different viewpoint- that freedom on it's own is not good- neither can we accept their viewpoint.

Loss of land by the people is probably the fundamental way in which poverty is entrenched in the community- but this is the basis of Liberalism and Communism.

ttbn,
Who in the hell is this John Macaulay? I never heard of him, not that I disagree with what he says in general, but where did you get his name from? Whats he done to be quoted on immigration or anything. I googled his name and got a few, but no Aussies. I'll put him down as a big fish in a little pond.

The problem with immigration here is that both major parties are in the pockets of big business. Business likes big immigration because the extra population means the sale of more consumer goods, not just houses, and business can increase sales without having to compete with each other. So business readily donate to major political parties to ensure the trend keeps going and to hell with any consideration of what the community requires. He who pays the piper, calls the tune.

There is a lot of negatives that go with high immigration. Not only in increasing house prices, but as Hasbeen pointed out , more traffic, more accidents and less parking. Travel time to and from work is increased so ordinary people are burden ed with those costs and children now have to be taken to school and picked up by parents. Last November I attended a concert in Melbourne and it took 3 hours just to get out of the parking station after. Won't go to football.

Then we have lots of good agriculture land being covered with bitumen and concrete and we are loossing farm land at an alarming rate. Farmers are being pushed further and further out onto marginal land.

Our standard of living falls each year.

Then we should consider the social problems of multiculturalism which are obvious every where you look.

I have been opposing high immigration for years and years but never had the name Macaulay come up.