Sydneysiders flee for the bush, led by students and workers
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Sydneysiders have been fleeing for regional parts of NSW, Queensland and even Canberra, using the coronavirus pandemic to look for work and affordable housing outside the nation’s most expensive city.
During the September quarter a net 7782 people left the Greater Sydney region, three in five of them moving to a regional part of NSW, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows.
Sydney CBD was relatively empty during lockdowns.
Credit:James Brickwood
Melbourne lost a net 7445 residents, which along with Sydney’s figures resulted in capital cities nationally losing 11,200 people to regional areas, the biggest quarterly movement out of metropolitan Australia on record.
I find it horrific : Tenants in limbo over public housing revamp plan
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More than 100 public housing tenants in inner-city Glebe have been plunged into uncertainty as the Berejiklian government pushes to demolish their homes for a new development with hundreds of private apartments.
The government wants to force residents from the Franklyn Street estate, near Broadway shopping centre, and rebuild it with 425 dwellings, 70 per cent of which would be private residences and the remainder social housing.
Artist Emily Bullock has decorated her apartment in Glebe over three decades.
Credit:Peter Rae
But the proposed development will add only an estimated 22 properties for vulnerable residents by 2025, as the waiting list for social housing in NSW passes 51,000, including more than 4000 people on a priority list.