Talk:Sydney/Archive 2003-2012

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Sydney Districts

The current consensus on what suburbs and areas belong in which districts, and what suburbs or areas have sufficient content to warrant their own articles can be found at

Talk:Sydney/Districts

If you wish to discuss any districts, please start a discussion below, and update the index once a consensus has been reached. If you are adding information on new areas or suburbs, please just insert them into the index.

The discussions that led to the current consensus are archived here:

I didn't think the disambiguating NSW was necessary -- this is by far the most famous Sydney in the world. -- (WT-en) Evan 18:56, 29 Oct 2003 (PST)


NSW South-Eastern?

I think that Sydney should be labelled as the capital of the eastern state, not South-Eastern state (victoria).

A quick look at a map of Australia reveals that there are three south-eastern states on the continent.... The usage in this article is merely generalised in order to give a location. It doesn;t necessarily imply that there is only ONE SE state! (WT-en) Pjamescowie 00:52, 25 Apr 2005 (EDT)


Walking tour

That walking tour is enormous -- it looks like an itinerary to me, not part of the main page. I will make it so soonish if there are no good reasons not too. (WT-en) Hypatia 22:29, 7 Feb 2006 (EST)

Now at Walking tour of Sydney. Some of the attraction listings should move into district articles from there. (WT-en) Hypatia 06:19, 10 Feb 2006 (EST)

Accessibility

If anyone's interested in marking venues as being wheelchair accessible, there's a good guide at http://www.accessibility.com.au/sydney/sydney.htm (WT-en) Hypatia 21:01, 12 April 2006 (EDT)


Gay and Lesbian

I've moved the following here for a couple of reasons:
  1. Bars belong under Drink (see Project:Where you can stick it)
  2. Specific bars belong in their district page, though it might be OK to mention one or two 'landmark' establishments in the main city guide
  3. See also Project:Information for gay and lesbian travellers
  4. We also dont need to cite Wikipedia or make links of the bar names (see Project:Cooperating with Wikipedia and Project:Welcome, Wikipedians).
Thanks (WT-en) Maj 10:00, 28 July 2006 (EDT)

Sydney is famous for its gay community, centred on Oxford Street, and the annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, which is mentioned in under "festivals". Gay and lesbian bars according to Wikipedia in Sydney include:

Harbour Circle Walk

The Harbour Circle Walk described at http://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/harbour/walking.asp might be worth a mention somewhere. There's probably other useful source material at that URL too... (WT-en) Spiv 02:59, 31 August 2006 (EDT)


Large Boat Charter

I just want to make sure there is consensus that listings to Charter Boats on Sydney Harbour are not relevant here. I'm not talking about a water taxi, or small boat, or group tours, but I just don't think we need entries for boats that need to be char need 20+ people in a group to charter them. They aren't of interest to an average traveller, and I think charter boat companies should find somewhere else to place their ads. Any contrary thoughts? --(WT-en) Inas 21:19, 11 September 2008 (EDT)

Climate

Sydney's climate is actually sub-tropical, and not temperate - according to climate definitions. London is temperate! However, I can see it is probably a little confusing to the traveller, that may not want to bother with climatic definitions, and may (mistakenly) expect that sub-tropical means that you can comfortably hit the beach in June. Climate is an important travel topic for Sydney. If people are coming to Sydney for the beaches and a suntan, then its no use coming in the clear and warm spring days of September. The latest version with temps to the first decimal place, and referenced also seems too wikipedia-ish. --(WT-en) Inas 18:03, 4 November 2008 (EST)


District map

I've also had a go at a rough map of districts. There's a draft here on picasaweb and I'd be interested in comments before having a go at a polished district map for the main article. --(WT-en) Ronaldo123 02:05, 27 January 2009 (EST)

In general, I think we need to just have one final go of saying where the districts are, before we draw the map. Especially Inner/Outer West boundary. Hills District can't really include everything North of the Harbour and west of the North Shore. Ryde and Macquarie Park can't be grouped into either region. Is Parramatta dot, or a region? It can probably take in most of the area between Olympic Park and Westmead, making inner west everything west of Olympic Park, and Outer West everything west of Westmead. As far as the map goes, I think whatever we develop has to be in SVG, because it is going to need to be changed. I dno't think a bitmap background is going to work. --(WT-en) Inas 17:06, 27 January 2009 (EST)
Thanks for the quick feedback. Agreed that SVG is the preferred format .. I uploaded a JPG just to kick off discussion. This first map had its boundaries drawn along the lines of the district descriptions in the main article, finessed by descriptions in wikipedia and the NSW Govt Metro Strategy . The Inner West's western boundary approximates MR3 (King Georges Rd, etc), although I did consider MR5 (Fairford Rd, etc) as an alternate. Anything west of this would be difficult to defend in reality. The Hills/North Shore boundary is going to be difficult, if not impossible. Perhaps a softer alternative to hard lines would be better suited to avoid constant arguments? I'm inclined to fancy a centre-based instead of district-based map, although this is probably a backward step given the need to somehow get Sydney's districts into a useful grouping for travellers. The NSW Govt concept along this line is clever . Overall, we've got ten districts on this map which I personally think is too many, but consider this gives the best chance for a consensus. There probably are some important centres which are missing and can be added later. Here's an idea of how to soften the boundaries

--(WT-en) Ronaldo123 20:56, 27 January 2009 (EST)

I have to say, I like the look of it. But, I think it is probably just wimping out. We are just making it fuzzy so we don't have to make an absolute decision. People are always going to be wondering where to put that attraction or listing, because we haven't decided absolutely on what district is where. You have missed Sydney/Northern Districts from your map. It just can never be right to put North Ryde/Macquarie Park/Macquarie uni in the Sydney/Hills District, and this is a destination for many travelers. (Although maybe we get rid of Hills District altogether as a district, and merge into Sydney/North Western which includes Ryde/Macquarie/Hills? I also think we need another Sydney/Hawkesbury district. I also think Richmond (New South Wales) and Windsor (New South Wales) don't deserve their own articles, they can be merged. What to call that district? Could they be in a Hawkesbury district as well, or does that make it too long a skinny east/west? I don't think it is right to put Wisemans Ferry in Western. --(WT-en) Inas 21:49, 27 January 2009 (EST)
The fuzzy one is probably what most Sydneysiders carry around in their head as their concept of Sydney's districts, but as you say it doesn't really work for Wikivoyage, so we have to make functional boundaries for our districts. Regarding Sydney/Northern Districts, that wasn't one I was familiar with, but I suppose it could be incorporated by chopping off a bit of the North Shore. It doesn't really get much of an entry though - are we sure it needs to stay as a separate district or as you say merged into a more general Sydney/North Western, which is probably more logical for our purposes. Richmond/Windsor should be merged as you say - but this isn't so much a district of Sydney as "satellite" towns which should probably also include Camden. (WT-en) Ronaldo123 08:41, 29 January 2009 (EST)
afterthought ... Hawkesbury (New South Wales) would make a good fit as a region, not district of Sydney (WT-en) Ronaldo123 08:46, 29 January 2009 (EST)
Okay, lets say we merge Hills and Northern into North Western. As you say, if in the future the articles are overflowing with attractions, nothing is unchangeable. Although I agree Camden/Richmond have things in common - once we try and fit it into the wikivoyage template, we will have two articles within an article. Two Get In sections, two Get Around sections, two Sleep sections. We may as well have two separate and smaller articles. Its not as if people are going to visit Camden and Richmond in one "trip". What do you think of my idea of Parra being a region between Inner West and Outer West, i.e between Olympic Park and Westmead. Strathfield essentially being the last western suburb in the inner west, and including Auburn/Lidcobe,Granville, Harris Park, Flemington etc in the Parramatta district? Also, what do you think of the Forest area? Have a look at the Sydney/Northern Beaches article, to see how the division between the beachside suburbs and the "Forest" suburbs is really ugly. --(WT-en) Inas 17:42, 29 January 2009 (EST)
I meant to say that Camden and Richmond/Windsor just fit as "satellite towns" as the main Sydney article already does. They wouldn't fit on the map anyway, so they can fit there or through other regional articles pointing to their own separate (albeit small) articles. I agree with your Parra suggestion above, making that a district between Inner and Outer west. I tend to think Forest can just be a grouping either with Northern Beaches or the North Shore (where the defining line has Beacon Hill as the most inland part of Northern Beaches, along the lines in my original map ; it isn't particularly worthy of its own region). I should have some time next week to redo the Parra boundary, then if it looks OK will have a go at a SVG version. Would you also think it good to have a mini-map for each district? (WT-en) Ronaldo123 03:50, 30 January 2009 (EST)
Here's a version of the map with revised boundaries. It's a link to the png version but it's all ready for SVG. I'd appreciate as much feedback as possible to get a big load of fixes for the first release version for the article. (WT-en) Ronaldo123 00:48, 12 February 2009 (EST)
I'm happy with that for a first pass at districts and areas. It includes places like Newtown and Stanmore in Inner West, rather than Southern, which I think is the right place for them. I think the map still needs a little work to tidy it up. I think we may need an outer limit, rather than the outer districts disappearing to infinity. Still, the sooner we get a first draft up in svg, the sooner we can start improving it. --(WT-en) Inas 21:14, 15 February 2009 (EST)
Trying to make sure everything has a home, and started on Talk:Sydney/Districts. Let me know what you think. I still have difficulty with finding a home for Canada Bay area, and also for Wisemans Ferry to Windsor, and Brooklyn to to Berowra. I can't seem to think of Canada Bay as either Parra or the Inner West. Can't think of Wisemans Ferry as Outer West, and can't think of Brooklyn or Berowra as the North Shore. Don't think we are completely there yet. --(WT-en) Inas 19:17, 23 February 2009 (EST)
I've put back the Northern Districts and Hills pages. They are separate areas and the North West page was completely dominated by the Hills area - with nothing in there except the new rail line and Macquarie Centre. We may as well call the Hills District that because that's its official name, not the "North West". The Northern Districts area has plenty of restaurants, accommodation, the Lane Cove National Park, parks, etc. - there's plenty there for a separate page. I don't appreciate not being consulted and the changes just merged. (WT-en) JRG 07:46, 27 February 2009 (EST)
Inas - Canada Bay is definitely inner west; Wiseman's Ferry can go under Hills or Hawkesbury. (WT-en) JRG 07:47, 27 February 2009 (EST)
I only had a day or two before you reverted it, in which time, I added all the information you mention above. Give me a break please! During that time I also produced a region map for New South Wales, merged Sydney/East Sydney and produced a suburb district listing for at Talk:Sydney/Districts, work which now needs to be redone. Talk about not consulting, who did you consult before reverting the changes? I discussed it here for a momth. Did you discuss it before reverting? It is just as valid to call Ryde, Epping, Carlingford, and Baulkham Hills the same district, as it is to call Bankstown, Liverpool and Campbelltown part of the same district, as it is to call Blacktown, Fairfield and Penrith part of the same district. You say that the official name is Hills, and then proceed say we should include areas that aren't part of the Hills. Anyway, I don't really care what the districts are. I just want to agree on some districts, that don't miss areas and suburbs, so we can start building on it with maps, and articles, and not have the districts stagnate like they have for the past couple of years. --(WT-en) Inas 22:16, 27 February 2009 (EST)
It is not "Hills" - it is "The Hills District". Please give it the right name. For your information, I was working on the NOrthern Districts area to improve coverage and expand it. I haven't had much time at the moment to work on this, I was hoping that people would let me increase the changes. The area is far too big to keep on one page. At least give me the chance to expand on it - it's a natural progression that as the pages get bigger you will split them off and create new ones. Sydney is one of the biggest cities in the world in terms of geographical areas, so it's only right that we increase the number of areas. (WT-en) JRG 21:12, 17 April 2009 (EDT)
Again, it is no bigger the other Sydney districts. Can you please define the district accurately? It is more than just the Baulkham Hills LGA? I agree that starting with larger districts to get content and direction, and the split smaller ones as required by the content. Neither of these articles have the content to justify a split currently. At the moment Northern Districts has no content. Hills has very little real content, mostly fruit shops in Dural and so on. Not really useful to the traveller. --(WT-en) Inas 21:20, 17 April 2009 (EDT)
It is probably worth reading back through the prior discussion, and also reading Project:Geographical hierarchy#Districts. The idea is that in making districts for Sydney, we make sure we leave no gaps (including all suburbs), make an understandable division, and ensure each article has content. We don't want to be constrained by political and local government boundaries.
I am coming around to the opinion that where we use the names of political areas, that we should avoid using them differently to their actual administrative definitions. --(WT-en) Inas 23:58, 17 May 2009 (EDT)

Technically, Richmond is a part of Sydney metro area as is Penrith. They are the boundaries though. Having lived in Sydney my whole life I'd say Campbelltown is the boundary in the south, while its Berowra in the north, Waterfall on the south coast and Palm Beach in the Northern Beaches. —The preceding comment was added by 138.130.108.86 (talk • contribs)

The boundaries of the Sydney LGAs are fairly easily defined, and probably aren't at issue. Hawkesbury LGA is probably the only problematic one, and whether it is a subdistrict of Sydney or not probably doesn't matter. Penrith LGA certainly is. I find your comments highlight a few issues though. Firstly, even as a lifelong Sydney resident you still don't actually know where the boundaries of Sydney are. For example you define it as Berowra in the north, when it actually stretches 15-20km north of there. You use the names Campbelltown and Penrith which are both suburbs and LGAs (cities), but you don't say which you mean when you use them. If you say Campbelltown is the outermost city or LGA, then you are right, it is. However, there are several suburbs further out. Same deal with Penrith.
My point here isn't to be a pedant, because I'm not. I'm just highlighting these issues which reflect Sydney's geography and the local knowledge of it, which cause us difficulty. --(WT-en) Inas 17:55, 18 December 2011 (EST)

East Sydney / Northwestern Sydney

Commencing redistricting as per discussions above. Any issues with the changes, or further discussion, please raise them here. I'll be implementing over the next week or so from now. --(WT-en) Inas 01:53, 23 February 2009 (EST)

The changes I made have been largely reverted by User:(WT-en) JRG. Any futher comments on the preferred districts are welcome. I'm certainly hoping after 2 years of waiting to get Sydney districts right, that it can be implemented with discussion, and not editing and reverting edits. --(WT-en) Inas 21:56, 27 February 2009 (EST)
The hard work put in over the long term to build a solid consensus and a careful districts hierarchy for Sydney has been a model of proper wiki practice and an impressive amount of work. JRG's reverting of this work without even so much as acknowledging the work done on building consensus, and without discussing his own changes is baffling to me, and a clear violation of the core principle of how Wikivoyage works. Accordingly, I have rolled back his edits. If he would like to see things changed, discuss, do not edit war. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 23:31, 27 February 2009 (EST)

Using LGA's as district boundaries

I'm considering again whether we want to choose political boundaries or Wikivoyage boundaries for districts. Although using Local Government Areas as the basis for boundaries would provide us with some oddly organised districts, not necessarily in the best interest of the traveller at least we won't have an issue with any ongoing debates as to which suburbs are part of which districts, even if we end up merging several LGA's into one Wikivoyage district. Again, if you have just been a lurking on the Sydney districts discussion, now is a good time to jump in and give your opinion. For those not familiar with Sydney Local Government areas, you can see a map here and see Penrith and Campbelltown here

Three reasons why using LGA's is good:

  1. No arguments about what goes where - every suburb and area has its place. Mapping the districts is easy. If you use terms like the Northern Beaches, Eastern Suburbs, Inner West, it is never going to be 100% certain what goes where.
  2. Each LGA has its own website, do it is easy enough to link to the official site for parks, swimming pools, cycle facilities etc.
  3. LGA's tend to be smaller around the city centre, and larger further out, reflecting in some way the amount of attractions and traveller facilities there

Three reasons why using LGA's is bad:

  1. They often carry the name of a suburb or a feature that can confuse. Botany Bay LGA doesn't include Brighton (in Rockdale) or La Perouse (in Randwick). Manly is a region, and a suburb, so requires disamiguation. Hornsby again, is a suburb and a very large LGA, with places nowhere near Hornsby.
  2. Many people don't know where they are or what they are called. Most Sydneysiders not in the local area wouldn't even know where the line was between Willoughby, vs North Sydney vs Mosman LGA's. Again, with Kogarah, Hurstville and Rockdale LGA's. All locals will know the Western Suburbs, South West, Northern Beaches, etc Not many would didn't live in the area could tell you whether Narrabeen was in Warringah, Manly or Pittwater. Everyone could tell you it was on the Northern Beaches. Most are familiar with the major suburbs, but not the corresponding LGA's. As it to reinforce this point, the current districts on Wikivoyage don't correspond to LGA names, except for possibly Sydney/Sutherland Shire and Sydney/Parramatta.
  3. LGA's split suburbs, areas, and other features into different districts. Gladesville is half in Hunters Hill and half in Ryde. Forest Lodge best grouped with Sydney Uni, rather than Leichhardt etc.

Again, what do you think? --(WT-en) Inas 22:51, 2 March 2009 (EST)

From my purely ignorant viewpoint (I haven't even so much as visited Australia), it would seem that the biggest benefit of using the LGAs would be to have ready-made and exact borders for the districts. Personally, since the administrative boundaries are not widely known nor used by Sydneysiders, I would prefer to see ad hoc districts, provided it's possible to define precise street/geographic boundaries for each district. (Of course, this preference might have something to do with the fact that I won't be a part of the defining effort!) --(WT-en) Peter Talk 23:16, 2 March 2009 (EST)

Yellow Pages (Central Centre Refactoring)

The Sydney Yellow Pages local directories are..

  • Manly, Warringah, Pittwater Districts
  • St George, Cronulla, Sutherland
  • Liverpool, Fairfield
  • Blacktown, Parramatta
  • Central & Inner Eastern Suburbs
  • North Shore, Pymble
  • Inner West
  • Hills District
  • Western Region

If we wanted to use those, then we would obviously separate City and East. Southern goes into either Inner East or West as far south as St George. City gets split into more or less current regions, and we have 9 remaining regions, already split for us courtesy of Sensis.

Again, we could always further split if content is overflowing..

Comments? --(WT-en) Inas 00:08, 18 May 2009 (EDT)

  • I'd use the categories that we have now but divide into a number of "zones" (with the coloured labels I have used elsewhere) and in some cases don't use a page for the particular zone but have a number of sub-zones each with their own page. My suggestions are for zones (with sub-zones in brackets) which I think reflect each zone's importance for travellers:
    • Central Sydney (CBD, The Rocks, Darling Harbour, Haymarket & Chinatown, East Sydney)
    • Eastern Suburbs
    • Inner West
    • Northern & North-Western Suburbs (North Shore, Northern Beaches, Hills District)
    • Southern Suburbs (Southern Sydney (this needs a better name, but St George is too narrow), Sutherland Shire)
    • Outer Sydney (Hawkesbury (ie. North West, incorporate Richmond & Windsor into this), Outer West, South West)
I'd leave SOP, Parramatta, Bondi and Manly as "Other Destinations". They're too important as tourist destinations not to be. Maybe under each zone put where they are. How about a "Sydney Harbour" page too? Sydney has enough attractions on its harbour to warrant a completely separate page.
The names would be up for changing of course, but my understanding from doing a bit of reading is that this is how Wikivoyage works. Only a few big zones with lots of smaller pages underneath. This is markedly different to how I have approached things in the past but I'm convinced this is a better way to go than make big zones of cities for each little part. That way when pages get too big they can just expand.
What do you think? (WT-en) JRG 09:29, 2 June 2009 (EDT)
I see your concept, and it appeals to me. I started down this path when I divided the regions into "suburban", and "central". I'd like to have a go at seeing how it would end up, so I apologise if I get down to the grit before accepting the big picture.. I also apologise because I'm now leaning towards a more precise geographical classification - in that when we use a name, we should try and use it correctly, otherwise we will be forever fixing up changes made by Wikipedians who have got lost, and it is always hard to argue with someone who is right.
So, where would Strathfield to Parra end up?
Fairfield, Liverpool, Bankstown, are they outer, South West? Flemington? Inner?
Are we still going to put Mosman and the Zoo in the same article as Hornsby, North Shore? Hornsby is further out than Bankstown, are we going to call Hornsby North Shore, Palm Beach Northern Beaches, and Bankstown Outer? I can see some people possibly taking issue with this.
Where does Lakemba,
I would say Chatswood north is a very distinct from Chatswood south, north having natural attractions, walks, bush, and south having commercial, and much more tourist interest, especially along military road, north Sydney, Milsons Point, etc?
What about Ryde, North Parra River, Putney, Gladesville? I assume Northern, but sub-zone?
What about Davidson, Belrose, Garigal National Park? Northern Beaches? Doesn't really fit..
Lane Cove National Park? North Shore? Northern?
I agree Windsor and Richmond should be merged - is Hawkesbury the Best name? Wisemans Ferry? Hawkesbury too? Brooklyn? Berowra? Not North Shore surely?
Ku-ring-gai?
I agree attractions like SOP, Bondi Beach, Parra need their own articles, but they could be listed as sub-zones too, couldn't they rather than other destinations? That way people might look at Bondi, and see they can visit Bronte, and Watsons Bay in a trip.
I agree Sydney Harbour Islands could one day be an article, but at the moment, it is essentially living in a section of the Sydney article, and it seems happy for now, so I'd suggest leaving it be until we get the rest of the stuff sorted..
Overall, I think we have East sort of under control - we need to decide the boundary between East and Central, and East and South.
South looks good, Zetland, Airport to the Georges, Sutherland Shire forms south. Excludes the La Perouse Peninsular which is East. Includes Kurnell, etc. Boundary on the west? Hurstville north to the cooks river, after than it is west or central?
Hills? What are the boundarys..
Sydney central is still a mess..
If we define Central Sydney as the LGA (city of Sydney) it roughly corresponds to what we have now..
The City of Sydney defines the zones as
  • CBD - currently Sydney/City - This sounds right..
  • Chinatown - currently Sydney/Haymarket - This sounds right too..
  • Darling Harbour - currently Sydney/Darling Harbour Matches.
  • East Sydney and Darlinghurst - currently Sydney/East Sydney - a little confusing that we use East Sydney in a different way
  • Glebe, Forest Lodge and Broadway - current Sydney/Inner West, - but grouping this area walking distance form the City, with Strathfield and Canada Bay does travellers a disservice, IMO.
  • Kings Cross and Surrounds - currently East Sydney, this sort of fits to me, maybe Inner East is better, if uncommon..
  • Newtown and Erskineville - East Sydney - even though this is south,
  • Oxford Street and Paddington - we include Paddington in the Eastern Suburbs currently..
  • Pyrmont - this is in Darling Harbour - probably okay from a traveller perspective, but will distress the geographically minded..
  • Redfern, Cleveland Street and Waterloo - currently East Sydney - this could really be grouped with Surry Hills?
  • Surry Hills - East Sydney?
  • The Rocks and Circular Quay - We have the Rocks, Circular Quay is part of the Sydney/City.
We also need to find a home for Moore Park, and Centennial Park, which are really inside this boundary too. I can see all these areas as being of interest to travellers. Ultimo is with Broadway. Rushcutters Bay is currently pushed into Eastern Suburbs. The city of Sydney group Wooloolooo with Kings Cross, when they have very different personalities to the traveller. --(WT-en) inas 20:39, 2 June 2009 (EDT)
  • I agree about geographic accuracy. The Wikipedians will have a field day otherwise, and I know how frustrating they can be with nitpicking details and obsession with doing things in a certain way - that's precisely why I stopped editing there. Anyway, can I ask what you think of my big broad zones (forgetting the subzones for a minute)? This would at least be helpful on a map of Sydney.
  • Re subzones, I know there are some gaps. The two I might suggest adding are "Lower North Shore" which would add in areas like Mosman and Neutral Bay and separate them from areas between Waitara and Chatswood, and possibly Berowra (which I would put in "Upper North Shore". There's really no other place to put it. The other one would be "Canterbury-Bankstown" which would do all those suburbs which aren't south west or greater west, but are a bit closer. Greater West can include anything west of Strathfield - it's a big area but there really isn't anything to distinguish it.
  • Re the city zone and subzones, let's start on this:
    • CBD - self explanatory - Central to Circular Quay (except for Chinatown & DH)
    • Chinatown/Haymarket (use either name) - self-explanatory
    • Darling Harbour - self explanatory.
    • East Sydney - as you say. This area would be Wooloomooloo, Elizabeth Bay, Potts Point, Kings X, Darlinghurst, Taylor Square, Paddington and Moore Park, and Cleveland Street. Centennial Park is definitely eastern suburbs.
    • South Sydney - Redfern, Waterloo, Surry Hills, Chippendale. Not much here for tourists.
    • Pyrmont - I agree with you and would add a new subzone (including Pyrmont, Ultimo, Broadway, Chippendale etc. but not Glebe or Sydney Uni or Annandale).
    • The Rocks - self explanatory. I would put Circular Quay under the CBD.

Thoughts, comments? (WT-en) JRG 10:45, 5 June 2009 (EDT)

Okay, Inner City..

* I think Central, down to Railway Square, Capitol Square, fits with Haymarket, Chinatown better than CBD. Anything south of Goulburn (Liverpool?) St and west of Elizabeth is more aligned with Haymarket than it is with the CBD, I think.
* Star City, Powerhouse Museum, Harris St are really more closely aligned with Darling Harbour then they are with Ultimo. I know that Darling Harbour turns its back on Harris St, but Chippendale to Pyrmont Bay and Star City is a very thin zone stretching north south.
* East Sydney - We are saying that anything further along Oxford St than the end of Paddington shops and the start of Cententenial is eastern suburbs, anything closer is central. I don't like the name, though. The name East Sydney is used for the unofficial suburb that is around the Australian Museum, and it is confusing for it to go all the way out to Moore Park.
* The Rocks - well defined, good.
To avoid the geographical issues with names, perhaps we should manufacture some. Say Sydney/Centre East, Centre South, Centre West, Haymarket, Rocks, CBD, Darling Harbour?
Outer. Again, agree with the zone concept, but I think we need to think carefully about the grouping. I agree with are going to need a lower north shore. Cremorne, Mosman, and the national park areas along the foreshore are definite attractions, and putting them in the same group as Berowra is going to confuse. I agree that where the attractions are sparse, we can have larger zones. However the real challenge is covering the gaps, with Sydney's geography. The more precise we seem to get with our naming, the more gaps seem to be created. --(WT-en) inas 19:45, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
I like your suggestions - but can we have "City East" instead of "Centre East", etc. They're a bit artificial otherwise. What would you describe as "Centre West" or "City West"? Pyrmont/Ultimo/Chippendale? (WT-en) JRG 07:06, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
Okay - agree City East sounds better than Centre East. How to distinguish City West from Inner West is the question. Saying Chippendale is City West, and then Newtown is Inner West sounds confusing doesn't it? Perhaps City West isn't a good idea.
So, for the central zones. We have
* CBD - the area north to Circular Quay, and the Opera House, including the Botanic Gardens, South to Liverpool Street, West to the Western Boundary with the Rocks, and West to Western Distributor at the Rocks, and Sussex St and Darling Harbour. East to incorporate all of the Botanic Gardens and the Domain, and the Art Gallery, but not Woollomooloo. Including Cook and Philip Park, Bounded south of William St by College St,
The Rocks - North of the Cahill overpass to the west of Circular Quay. North of the Western Distributor on Kent and Sussex. incorporating Walsh Bay.
I think we are essentially agreed on that?
Okay, City East... West bounded by the CBD. East of Botanic, Domain, College, Wentworth. South to include the end of the Moore Park Precinct as far as Cleveland. East as far as the end of Paddington Shops on Oxford, not including Wollahra or Centennial. Include Elizabeth Bay, Potts Point, Darlinghurst, Taylor Square, Kings Cross, but not Rushcutters Bay. Include Crown St Surry Hills, Forveuz st East of Central.
How does that sound? Redfern isn't really attraction. We could include the few things there either in City East or whatever our Southern Sydney zone name becomess?
Now more controversially..
Okay City South, West of Central, North to Liverpool, includes Chinatown, Capitol Square, Paddy's Markets, Entertainment Centre, Haymarket, Ultimo west of Harris, Chippendale, but not Glebe, not Newtown. Includes Broadway, UTS, but not Sydney Uni, not Victoria Park Pool, etc. Includes the backpackers zone, but the CBD extends to include World Square. By using City South for this area, we don't have to worry about the actual definitions of Haymarket, and it sort of corresponds to the signage around, with uses the City South signage.
More controversially still
Darling Harbour - includes King St Wharf, Cockle Bay, West of Sussex St, Darling Harbour Precinct, not the Entertainment Centre, and Ultimo East of Harris (including the Powerhouse), and Pyrmont West of Harris, including Star City. Star City, the Power House and Harbourside are all close, the Get In, Around methods are all the same..
Getting closer? --(WT-en) inas 00:41, 11 June 2009 (EDT)
Absolutely, I'm happy with that. Just define an eastern boundary for City East that is easy to work out. What's next? (WT-en) JRG 07:00, 15 June 2009 (EDT)

Okay, for the wider Sydney region. Okay, lets firstly define what the outer boundary of Sydney should be. Sydney is bounded by Wollongong/Illawarra, Central Coast, Southern Highlands and the Blue Mountains. We can include/exclude Helensburgh, which is effectively more part of Sydney than of Wollongong. We can include/exclude Brooklyn, which although in Hornsby is more part of a Central Coast trip. We can include/exclude Windsor/Richmond which have the feel of separate towns, or we can go with the standard Sydney Metro area LGA's, which is consistent with our new policy of using geographical names correctly when we choose to use them. Any opinion?

We have essentially already decided that the compass points around Sydney give us the outline of our major regions, so lets go aronnd the compass, starting east, which is the easiest start.

The region there is Eastern Suburbs, it has a western boundary with City East, and a Eastern Boundary at South Head all the way to La Perouse and Bare Island along the coast. It follows the northern side of Botany Bay as far as the western side of the airport, then everything east of Southern Cross Drive as far Moore Park, where it joins with city east again. If we wanted to subdivide this district into neighborhoods, they would probably be Harbourside, from Rushcutters Bay to Watsons Bay. Bondi/Bronte, Southern Beachside suburbs, Bayside, and University/Randwick area. How does that sound as a region? --(WT-en) inas 00:06, 16 June 2009 (EDT)

Also, to backtrack one step, what we referred to as Sydney CBD previously, is currently Sydney City. Do we actually want to rename this as Sydney CBD? Would a name City North per preferable? --(WT-en) inas 00:16, 16 June 2009 (EDT)

Let's exclude Helensburgh (very north end of the Illawarra as far as I'm concerned), include Brooklyn (not really Central Coast, though if we have a separate "Hawkesbury" section it could go in there), and include Windsor and Richmond - they are now really outer parts of Sydney rather than their own towns. This is consistent with the Sydney metro area. As for the Eastern Suburbs, that sounds good. Let's just do the main articles for now, and make sub-articles (Bondi, etc will be the obvious ones). Bayside sounds a bit artificial - another name would be needed I think. As for the CBD, I think "City Centre" or "CBD" is better than "City North". (WT-en) JRG 02:27, 20 June 2009 (EDT)
Regarding City North, City Centre, City South. These are the general directional signs coming into the City, anywhere between central and the Quay. If we use start using that terminology, City South, City Centre... Hmmm...
Including Brooklyn in a Hawkesbury district? I just can't see that working. It must be well over an hour's drive Richmond/Windsor up to Brooklyn, must be close to 3 hours by public transport. If it doesn't go with the central coast, it will have to go wherever Berowra ends up, I think.
Okay, next around from the east, to the south. The Sutherland Shire forms such a distinct region between south of the Georges, north of Wollongong. West to Alfords Point, West to Heathcote National Park. East to the coast.
Where does south divide from West and South West. Well the council areas of St George, Hurstville, Rockdale and Kogarah are generally regarded as south. Bankstown is generally regarded as southwest. Marrickville is generally regarded as Inner West. Do you agree? A consideration here is that we would like all the airport hotels, etc to be in a single article, rather than scattered amoungst several. --(WT-en) inas 21:05, 22 June 2009 (EDT)
I'll start work rearranging the centre bit in a week or so.. --(WT-en) inas 01:27, 16 July 2009 (EDT)

Been away from here a while, trying to digest all the talk, so pardon me if I've missed something. The visitnsw website uses the concept of Inner Sydney and Greater Sydney, which I know has been discussed a little already. While it works similar to our current groupings (Central Sydney and Suburban), it's a little more focussed. It then breaks down only into precincts of interest. IE, inner Sydney goes as far west as Leichhardt but also includes Manly and Northern Beaches, which to me seems to cover most travellers' focus areas. Greater Sydney includes Parra, Olympic Park, Cronulla, Hawkesbury, etc. They have a fair few blank zones but I suppose they can get away with it, whereas we must draw the line. Still, the site is worth a peek.

From the chat above I'm a little confused as to how the inner ring is going to be split up. I mean there's distinct Glebe/Balmain/Leichhardt, Newtown/Erskineville/Enmore, Waterloo/Surry Hills, then the Paddinghurst/Potts Pt zones. Do you group them like that, or as a single ring-shaped precinct? Also Southern Sydney currently includes all the airport area - not good enough? (WT-en) Ronaldo123 03:19, 20 July 2009 (EDT)

Inas - sounds good. Let's not use the City signage terminology - it's simply for use of motorists, not tourists. City Centre is fine. Ronaldo123 the areas are still a work in progress, but there's no "inner" and "outer" as such - the names are common names in use, Inner West, etc. We are splitting the areas up primarily according to the commonly used names. (WT-en) JRG 09:16, 20 July 2009 (EDT)
(WT-en) Ronaldo123 - I've looked around at many of the regional groupings, used at NSW tourism, LGA's, other tourism sites, and even the yellow pages at the top of this thread. None of them are really inspirational. I agree that Leichardt does form a border of sorts, as far west as a city tourist would naturally go. What is your point about Southern Sydney and the airport, I don't understand what you are saying. --(WT-en) inas 00:56, 27 July 2009 (EDT)
I'm starting to roll the central city changes through. --(WT-en) inas 20:51, 29 July 2009 (EDT)

break in discussion

The City changes as outlined above are nearly in place. I've moved a few listings around. I'd like to suggest that we use this opportunity to create a Harbour Islands district. These have distinct features and ways of getting in, and currently the info is in the Sydney article. That would assist us in getting the last of the detailed content out of the Sydney article and into the districts. If we don't create this district, I'm at a loss where this info should go. --(WT-en) inas 01:42, 5 August 2009 (EDT)
I'll proceed to add the district - if anybody objects later we can change.
This gives us our final Sydney Central areas as City Centre, The Rocks, City South, City East, Darling Harbour, City West, and Harbour Islands. --(WT-en) inas 21:29, 5 August 2009 (EDT)
Let's change it to "Sydney Harbour" - not "Harbour Islands". I agree we should have one for the Harbour islands but I think it can be expanded somewhat. Sydney's Ferry services and the places to which they go are an attraction in themselves. (WT-en) JRG 00:39, 13 August 2009 (EDT)
Yeah, but we don't have articles on WT for bodies of water, so I don't think that is an option, without changing policy. But certainly I agree, it would be useful to have the harbour cruises in one place. Note that there is currently a Sydney Harbour article, which attempts to direct travellers to what they may be looking for, the harbour cruise information in Sydney/City Centre or Sydney/Darling Harbour, or the Harbour Islands information, that is now developing in Sydney/Harbour Islands. --(WT-en) inas 20:13, 13 August 2009 (EDT)
You are misreading the policy -- bodies of water can be used as the names of region articles when appropriate, and it would be stupid to separate cruises in the harbour from islands in the harbour. (WT-en) Jpatokal 23:54, 13 August 2009 (EDT)
I'm not misreading the policy. If we create a Sydney Harbour article that covers cruising the harbour, sailing the harbour, ferries on the harbour, etc, you may as well delete the bodies of water guideline and be done with it, because it breaks every part of that guideline. --(WT-en) inas 00:04, 14 August 2009 (EDT)
That may be the case, but it would make sense to put the ferries (as a tourist attraction rather than a means to get somewhere) in with the article. The article could be more comprehensive in that way and cover more. But I'll leave it up to you. (WT-en) JRG 21:23, 14 August 2009 (EDT)
I kind-of agree. I think mentioning the ferries as an attraction, and not just as a utilitarian means of transport is good. I think mentioning them near the cruises is good, because lets face it, the ferry trips are just as nice, and can save you significant amounts of money over a cruise. The reason I put the harbour islands in a separate article was that it was the only land region within 10km of central Sydney which didn't yet have a home in any district. I considered just putting them in Sydney/City Centre, but that didn't seem quite right, and I like the idea of covering them in more depth on Wikivoyage, because the coverage of them elsewhere is limited. Still, I don't agree with (WT-en) Jpatokal that not mentioning harbour cruises and islands in the same article is stupid. I think the most popular harbour trips are probably Manly, Parramatta and the zoo. I think the harbour cruises don't have a focus on the islands, and they are not often visited this way. The choices seem to be to put the info in the district where they arrive and leave from, or in the main Sydney article, or in the some other article focussed on the harbour. Still, this is all just a peripheral issue really, so for now we might was well progress with the other districting stuff, and just return to this a little later, hopefully a few others can jump in with their opinions. --(WT-en) inas 00:37, 17 August 2009 (EDT)
In relation to North Sydney - let's keep the page but change the link at the top so it is a sub-page of Lower North Shore. There's far too much in that article to just merge into the area article. The idea was not to delete suburb articles if they are significant enough but to set out with a set of "area" articles under which we can put other information if need be. North Sydney is like Sydney's second CBD so it should probably have its own page, but definitely only as a sub-page of Lower North Shore and not linked on the Sydney page. Select some of the best bits for the Lower North Shore page. (WT-en) JRG 08:08, 27 August 2009 (EDT)
Sure, there is lots of material there, but little of it is actually about North Sydney suburb. I've removed the merge notice. I'll relocate the Lower North Shore info to that article, and beef up the North Sydney info too, and when we see what is left we can decide if it is an article worth keeping. --(WT-en) inas 16:33, 27 August 2009 (EDT)

Inner Radial Refactoring

In line with Ronaldo's thinking, I propose a concentric circle model. With most of the visited areas closer to the city covered by smaller districts, as they have more attractions. I propose that we have a Inner Radius, which would consist of Eastern Suburbs, Southern Sydney, Inner West, and Lower North Shore. Southern Sydney would include down to the airport and Brighton, and up through Tempe to the Inner West. Inner West goes from Glebe to Strathfield, up to Five Dock and Drummoyne, Balmain and the River. Lower North Short includes Lane Cove West to Mosman, North to Chatswood. If the districts sound generally okay, then I'll define the boundaries more precisely. --(WT-en) inas 02:55, 10 August 2009 (EDT)

Sounds good Inas. (WT-en) JRG 00:40, 13 August 2009 (EDT)
Hi Ians - I love the inner city map. It's good, and sets out the districts really well. For the sake of accuracy, can we add the Harbour Tunnel (as a dashed line) and Cross-City Tunnel (as a dashed line), and draw in the city railway lines and light rail just to help people? I know it's supposed to be a very general map but public transport markers (I know you have written in the station names) will help people get their bearings. (WT-en) JRG 02:15, 12 September 2009 (EDT)
I'll at least put in station markers, that is easy, and useful, and quick. The location of the underground railway would be guessing, as I'm not aware of any free source of the location of the lines.. --(WT-en) inas 23:24, 14 September 2009 (EDT)

Outer Radial Refactoring..

We seem to be progressing well.

Lets have a shot at the outer radial refactoring.

Starting from the North and East.

If we look at the region bordered in the south and east by Manly, North and East by Palm Beach, North and West by Terrey Hills South and West by the Spit, and Roseville Bridge/Middle Harbour.

This is a large region, with quite a few accommodation options, beaches, national parks. Some of the places are even holiday and travel destinations for Sydneysiders.

It is also distinct. Middle Harbour and bushland, and the lack of a rail network isolates this area somewhat from the rest of Sydney - really the Roseville Bridge, Mona Vale Road and the Spit Bridge are the only road access points. The only other access method would be by ferry to Manly.

So, it makes sense for this to be a distinct region for the traveller.

Currently we have an fairly bare Northern Beaches district, and many beachside suburbs, and a few forest ones have separate articles. Where these exist they tend to be fairly light.

The question arises, whether to make it one large region, or whether to split it.

if we split...

  1. we could do a Northern Beaches/Forest split (sort of an east/west split) The advantage of doing this that the beachside suburbs get lumped together, and the the suburbs like Belrose, which really aren't beachside suburbs have somewhere else to go. The disadvantage would have to be that the forest suburbs are not really major destinations, and many are really only residential, so we end up with a heavy article for the Northern Beaches and a light on for Forest.
  2. we could split of Mona Vale to Palm Beach as a third region. This option makes more sense if we get ride of the Palm Beach and merge into this region.
  3. We could expand the Manly article to be the Manly LGA, to take in Seaforth, and Balgowlah, up to Brookvale, and make the Northern Beaches article cover from Curl Curl to Palm Beach.
  4. We could use the LGAs. Manly much as above, Warringah and Pittwater. This gives us clear boundaries, three distinct regions, but buts the Forest areas together with the beaches.

My preference is a three districts. Northern Beaches, with Manly being a separate article. Forest, with no separate articles, and Pittwater, with no separate articles. Merge, Palm Beach. The advantages I see of this division are..

  • The district stay small enough, so there is not a great deal of need for lots of smaller suburban articles.
  • Forest, Northern Beaches, and Pittwater regions are well known names.
  • Even though Forest may be a bit bare of attractions compared to the others, this in itself is imformative to travellers.
  • The Forest areas, Pittwater and areas south of Mona Vale have different get in and around type options. Forest you are always going to go via bus from Chatwood or similar, or through Roseville. Northern Beaches via Ferry or via the spit, so we won't have to put distinct sections within the Get in and around.

Any comments, ideas for this district? --(WT-en) inas 23:01, 14 September 2009 (EDT)

I really don't like the terminology for the "Forest" area as a major area of Sydney. It's not really a term in common usage (the only site I get looking it up on Google is Wikipedia, which is hardly reliable, and local sporting clubs). The "Forest area" is really only 5 or so suburbs that don't fit into either north shore or northern beaches, but Northern Beaches is closer. We can't just create top-level districts just because a few suburbs don't fit. Let's make "Northern Beaches" include those suburbs as well and make it "Forest" or whatever you call it a sub-article. Also, putting Palm Beach, etc. as Pittwater is going to be confusing. Most locals will talk about them as Northern Beaches. Yes, "Northern Beaches" goes from Manly up to Palm Beach, but we can just add sub-articles underneath. The whole idea was to have a few sub-Sydney articles and to put some below that, not to merge everything into one article at this stage.
    • Let's have four sub-articles under "Northern Beaches"
      • Frenchs Forest area (or "Forest" if that's what you wanted to call it, I'm ok with the term as long as it's not a main district in Sydney) - could include Garigal National Park, Oxford Falls and Terrey Hills area;
      • Barrenjoey Peninsula/Pittwater (or whatever you want to call it) - Mona Vale to Palm Beach area
      • Manly (as is, enough on its own); and
      • Warringah (everything else, essentially north of Curl Curl up to south of Mona Vale)
I'm happy to include Mona Vale in the most appropriate category - Warringah could be a better place. Let me know your thoughts. (WT-en) JRG 09:45, 19 September 2009 (EDT)
Okay - so essentially you agree with me (with minor reservations) on the Forest - Frenchs Forest is worse, because it is a suburb. You have things like Forest Coach Lines, etc and plenty of sporting clubs with the Forest in the name. I think it is an identifiable district.
Pittwater you agree also.
You think we should use Northern Beaches as a second level encapsulating district, with sub-districts. I'm not sure you really mean to have three level districts, but have an organisation like Chicago. If so, I don't really have a problem with that. There are still only two levels, but we group them in the main article.
I think we agree on Manly.
I don't agree on using Warringah for the area for Curl-Curl to Mona-Vale, because it is a name of a LGA, which also incorporates the Forest area, and doesn't include Seaforth etc. I think it would be confusing. Do you think Seaforth is a better fit with the Forest, Manly or this "lower northern beaches", area? --(WT-en) inas 01:23, 13 October 2009 (EDT)
I picked "Warringah" as in "Manly-Warringah" - it is the common name of the lower part of the Northern Beaches. I'll accept "Lower Northern Beaches" as a compromise, although that's technically not accurate as it doesn't include Manly. Warringah may be the LGA but it doesn't matter as long as we explain what it is. Seaforth is also unacceptable because it is the name of a suburb. (WT-en) JRG 06:41, 15 October 2009 (EDT)
Wasn't suggesting Seaforth, I was just pointing out that whatever region name we decide on should include it, and I'm not sure that Warringah necessarily does. Maybe we just use Northern Beaches for the area, which is definitely inclusive, and a common name. We can then direct people off to Forest, Manly or Pittwater for more information on those particular regions/suburbs, and use the Northern Beaches article to cover the remainder of the area. I agree Lower Northern Beaches isn't ideal, because it is a term I've never heard used before. --(WT-en) inas 18:19, 15 October 2009 (EDT)
I don't agree with your suggestion. Let's try something else. (WT-en) JRG 01:26, 7 November 2009 (EST)
Do you have an idea that addresses the issues - that is it includes all areas, and doesn't reuse common (or defined) names to mean something different to their common (or defined) use (and therefore will likely confuse casual contributors)? My only other suggestion is really to use the LGA's, Warringah, Manly, and Pittwater. If you want me to come up with the another idea to progress this discussion, you need to be explicit about what your problems are with my last suggestion. This isn't a chocolate wheel. --(WT-en) inas 04:49, 8 November 2009 (EST)
Thanks to (WT-en) JRG on for the message on my talk page. To me it seems like we agree on the district division, we just don't agree on what to call them. So, since time and consensus is limited, I'll arrange the districts with a reasonable set of names, and then if and when we think of better ones, renaming is easy if the boundaries don't change significantly. --(WT-en) inas 17:44, 23 December 2009 (EST)
Good work inas. (WT-en) JRG 07:07, 22 January 2010 (EST)

Speed cops

Can somebody local please verify this, as it seems somewhat unlikely. Thanks. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 22:46, 9 April 2010 (EDT)

Its clearly nonsense. The police have enough choices of speeding drivers to pull over without resorting to pulling over ones following the rules. But even if it were true, it is very poor advice to a traveller. A visitor to city would have a much better chance of a voiding a fine by showing deference - if they were just a little over, a visitor might just get off with a warning if they are nice. --(WT-en) inas 04:05, 10 April 2010 (EDT)
I have protected the article for 24-hours, for the anon edit-warring on this, and left a pointer to this discussion on their talk page. --(WT-en) inas 19:43, 28 April 2010 (EDT)
Over 30 years in Sydney and I've never heard any aligation of this first hand, second hand or in the media. In fact if anything NSW police are more lenient than some other states.

City East Boundaries

I can see there's been a fair bit of discussion on the district boundaries, so apologies if this has been discussed, but I don't think the boundaries of City East are quite right. I suggest that Potts Point, Elizabeth Bay and Rushcutters Bay should be included in City East rather than Eastern Suburbs. Rationale: - Potts Point and Kings Cross should be grouped together. Officially Kings Cross is not actually a suburb, it's really just a locality within parts Potts Point and Elizabeth Bay. There is no real natural breaks between what most people would consider to be KC / PP / EB. Also the boundaries are undefined, for eg some of the backpacker hostels in that area could be considered to be in either KC or PP. Does anyone have objections? Thanks, (WT-en) Lturner 08:14, 17 April 2010 (EDT)

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but to make a few contrary points. Kings Cross isn't a gazetted suburb, but it is one of the best known areas for locals and visitors alike. It has a station that is part of the Cityrail "City" area. The area which is currently City East is all very accessible from the City Centre, by walking, train, or by catching any of the frequent buses up Oxford St, etc. Elizabeth Bay, and Rushcutters Bay, although easily geographically combined with City East, share more characteristics with the other Eastern Suburbs. Getting there has to be more carefully planned, and they are nowhere near as frequently visited by tourists or locals as Oxford St or Kings Cross. --(WT-en) inas 19:11, 19 April 2010 (EDT)
Thanks. I totally agree that Kings Cross is well known should be used. My main point is really that Potts Point, Eliz Bay and Rushcutters should be grouped together with Kings Cross. The comment about the name of the district (City East or Inner East) is really secondary, and is probably not that important. It looks like we agree that Potts Point should be grouped together with Kings Cross (currently it is grouped in the Eastern Suburbs). This makes sense to me as most of the restaurants/clubs/bars that are in Kings Cross actually have their postal address in Potts Point, so it would be create a lot of confusion about where to put something if KC and PP were in different districts. For me the same goes for Elizabeth Bay. It's only a 2 minute walk from Darlinghurst Rd into Elizabeth Bay through Fitzroy gardens or down Roslyn St. Also a couple of backpackers and restaurants that are in Elizabeth Bay would definitely be of interest if you're coming to stay in the Kings Cross area.(WT-en) Lturner 02:32, 21 April 2010 (EDT)
Yes, your point is valid for Potts Point. Even though there are parts of Potts Point which I would definately consider part of the Eastern Suburbs, the fact that Kings Cross really is Potts Point (in the majority) is going to make things confusing otherwise. I'm personally happy to see the line drawn at Rushcutters Bay. --(WT-en) inas 02:39, 21 April 2010 (EDT)
Ok, agree with Potts Point. But I'd still have to disagree that Eliz and Rushcutters Bays shouldn't be there as well. For example, where would you put this place? http://www.headquartershostel.com.au/. It's in Rushcutters Bay, but market themselves as being in Kings Cross. To me the whole area is so small anyway, I can't see the point in splitting it up. Cheers,(WT-en) Lturner 03:10, 21 April 2010 (EDT)
My reasoning is access from the city and city transport, and grouping the areas that have a distinct commercial flavour as opposed to those that really are primarily residential. By the time you get to Rushcutters Bay, you are a way from downtown, too far to comforably walk, the charater of the area is residential. I think most of Potts Point and Eliz Bay falls into that category too, but I see the point that they really are adjacent to or include the parts of Kings Cross. We have to divide somewhere, and we seem to be just talking about 1km either direction here. It really seems to me that the Kings Cross and Darlinghurst areas belong in the city east, perhaps we just accept that is the boundary, and the parts of Rushcutters, Eliz Bay and Potts Pt which you would consider to be part of the Cross we just include in City East. --(WT-en) inas 06:46, 21 April 2010 (EDT)
Ok, no worries. I'll just put the stuff that is right near or in Kings Cross into City East. I think that will basically get everything of interest in Rushcutters Bay and Elizabeth Bay anyway. Because as you said, most of the rest is more residential, which probably has very little interest for travellers. I take your point about the residential / commercial distinction, but I was coming at a different pespective. More like, if someone was coming to stay in the Cross, what would they want to know about the immediately surrounding area (cafes, restaurants, bars etc), which does include Elizabeth Bay and Rushcutters Bay (ie anything east of Ward Avenue which is only 100m from the centre of the Cross).
Whilst I cannot claim any significant cultural knowledge of Sydney, I lived in Kings Cross and Darlinghurst for a while. I certainly regarded that area as part of the City. Same goes for the inner bits of Paddington. Outer Paddington feels much more like the Eastern Suburbs. My own feeling was that the Eastern suburbs started at Elizabeth Bay, Rushcutters, Edgecliff and the Wollahra side of Paddington, and that Darlinghurst, Kings Cross and Potts Point were all "in the city". --(WT-en) Burmesedays 22:08, 19 April 2010 (EDT)
It is always going to be a bit arbitrary, but that is pretty much the current division, I think. --(WT-en) inas 22:37, 19 April 2010 (EDT)
Seems these map and border issues are a bit contentious, the City east resolution seems quite good though. However the current Sydney map does not yet appear to properly incorporate the City east precincts as shown on the City east map. BTY I tend to agree with aspects of what Burmesedays has said, to me Paddington has an inner city aspect to it and further out has an eastern suburbs feel to it, especially as you get closer to Woolhara and Queen street. Personally I like to think of a lot of this City east area as just inner city and from my own personal point of view I tend to include Haymarket and Chinatown into that as well. As an inner eastern city resident may well consider that a logical part of their domain (WT-en) felix 02:22, 4 June 2010 (EDT)
Well, yes, the City East area is supposed to be Inner City. We have a few inner city districts, split into South (Haymarket), Darling Harbour, Glebe/Pyrmont, and the Rocks. Its not really about what the domain of the resident is though - this is a travel grouping. A Darlinghurst resident may well head into Chinatown for dinner, but I think they are distinct enough as travel groupings to attract different styles of travelers, and to have different logistical issues in getting there.
I think we are trying to draw the line where Inner City (City East) commercial/entertainment/accommodation gives way to primarily residential Eastern Suburbs.
Paddington has an Inner City feel to it, and the shops and entertainment to match. It certainly diminishes when you go further up Oxford Street. Personally, if I had to draw the line, between the two, I would do it at Oxford and Centential Park, so as to place the park in the Eastern Suburbs. IMO there is no doubt Woollahra is the Eastern Suburbs, and Edgecliff Station definitely is. I would include the area of Rushcutters Bay that is really just part of the Cross, but exclude the part around the Oval and the Bay, that is really just residential. There is no suburb called the Cross anyway, so by necessity the region is going to include parts of Rushcutters Bay, Elizabeth Bay and Potts Point.
This division also works, because it is the limit of a reasonable walk from the City. If I was giving a walking tour of Sydney, I wouldn't plan to walk further east than Centential Park, or further West than Glebe Pt Rd, or further south than Central. Thats a nice area to cover.
No division is going to be perfect, but there is no doubt in my mind that the City East map goes too far west by including parts of Edgecliff. Although regions can always be tweaked here and there, we really have to draw a line in the sand somewhere, and the City East map being drawn differently to the Sydney City map isn't good in the medium term. --(WT-en) inas 02:48, 4 June 2010 (EDT)

Districts (Part ??)

I am very late to this discussion ... errr... by a matter of years... and have tried to plough through what is a very long discussion. Inas, perhaps you could give a quick reprise of how things stand? Also, can I ask for clarification of how the area to be districted is being defined? Can someone point to map that shows the precise extent of the Sydney Urban Agglomeration? I would certainly like to help with this project if I can.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 21:45, 4 May 2010 (EDT)

Thanks for coming into the discussion. Have a look at this link , and click on the Sydney regions (inner and outer) and the the local government subregions. It should give you an precise idea both of the extent of the Sydney metro area, and a rough idea of the regions we are required to classify.
As far as the state of play is concerned, I think we essentially agreed that our aim should be a essentially a three ring affair, with the city centre, inner suburbs, and then outer suburbs. We finished the city centre - and I drew the map for it. We started on the inner-radial refactoring, and I led off anti-clockwise from the north. The region here to classify is the basically the Warringah, Manly, and Pittwater areas. Problems arise - Manly is a Local Government area, but the article just covers the suburb. Warringah covers beach and suburban inland areas, which from a traveller point of view are very different. We essentially agreed on how to divide the area, but not really on what to call the areas. People in Sydney rarely use names for districts, and are much more likely to describe regions in a broad brush.
After we get finished with this "northern beaches" - north east region, the next one along is easy - Upper and Lower North shore are already there - then North West, West, and South West will be tough again, South and South East I think will be easier.
I have been contributing to this discussion for close to 5 years now, and there is some progress being made. There are usable regions for most of the popular tourist areas, and Manly, Bondi, the Eastern Suburbs and the city areas have are well developed. We just aren't quite in the position to do a map yet.
Sometimes I think we are making real progress, and other times I just think we should use the political LGA's, at least so we have some classification to start with. The problem being, that even Sydneysiders don't use the LGAs for directions - The Hills and The Sutherland Shire are possibly the only two exceptions to that. --(WT-en) inas 23:57, 4 May 2010 (EDT)
Thanks for that reprise Inas. I certainly do not want to suggest a step backwards, but are we absolutely sure we want to district such a vast area? Do folks (for example) normally regard Penrith as part of Sydney for example? I know that it is, but......--(WT-en) Burmesedays 06:26, 9 May 2010 (EDT)
No doubt people in Penrith consider themselves part of Sydney - when you come down the hill towards Penrith you see the "Welcome to Sydney" sign. Excluding it wouldn't make our lives easier, we would just need to make a Sydney (region) or some such, and we would still need to classify the district . --(WT-en) inas 06:57, 9 May 2010 (EDT)

Maybe it's worth considering using a 3-level structure (city / district / "area") for Sydney, rather than just 2. Because Sydney covers such a huge area, being restricted to 2 levels might make it too difficult to organise in a clear and unconfusing way. This would be similar to the way it's done for New York, where it has been broken down into City / Burrough / District.

To be avoided if at all possible I think. We managed to deal with London without resorting to three levels. NYC was a very special case, and frankly I am not sure I would have agreed with doing this even there. Sydney can be figured out I am sure. It is matter of getting the chunks defined correctly. Maybe we should not stress too much about the precision of those seemingly unending western bits, as they are of little interest to the visitor in any case.
Critical to the success of the London districtification was the creation of five relatively huge outer districts, understanding that these areas are of far less interest to the visitor than the inner and central districts. The South London district for example contains six boroughs, houses a population close to 1.5 million (that is just one of the 28 London districts with a population about one third of that in Sydney), but the See and Do sections are not exactly over-flowing. Sydney may well require similar treatment - creation of huge super districts for the outer areas.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 23:09, 22 May 2010 (EDT)
I agree. If we were having outer districts that were overflowing with content then we may want to consider doing the two layer thing. I think larger outer districts are the go. But that said, we should keep a district to a reasonable size for someone to visit, and not link places both sides of pittwater, for example, where you can spend a hour or so driving better them. --(WT-en) inas 04:14, 23 May 2010 (EDT)
I can see that approach works well for a city like London where most of the interesting destinations are located near the geographic centre and it becomes less and less interesting as you move further out. Sydney is not really like that, mostly due to the harbour and coastline. Some of the most visited places are well away from the centre (Bondi, Manly for example).
In fact, some of these places are already part of an unofficial third level eg Bondi. I have to say I would find 3 levels no problem to use if I was travelling to a city the size of Sydney. I find it far easier to understand when organsised this way. I guess that's just a personal preference. The 3rd / lowest level only needs to be used if required. What is the main objection to using 3 levels? -- (WT-en) Lturner 14:15, 23 May 2010 (EDT)
My main objection is content. We we end up with vacuous second level region articles. Wikivoyage is full of these middle region articles, which are just "click throughs", and empty. My second objection is how many clicks and prints we would have to give a visitor to Sydney. But, as you say we have some aspects of a three level systen already, by grouping the city centre etc, together, snf by creatig articles for areas noted for particular interest by travellers in a region, like Sydney/Bondi Beach. If there is an area in a district which is so crowded we split out its own artice to give more detail, there is a orecedent for that and I don't see an issue there. --(WT-en) inas 16:29, 23 May 2010 (EDT)
Yes, totally agree if the content isn't there, there's no point with the 3rd level. But some small areas definitely deserve their own page, even if they are part of larger districts. Also, it's probably a good way to allow the articles to grow as content increases without having to redo all the disctrict boundaries and maps etc. Is there any way of getting the breadcrumb menu to show all levels, ie Sydney:Eastern Suburbs:Bondi Beach, rather than just Sydney:Bondi Beach ? (WT-en) Lturner 13:50, 30 May 2010 (EDT)
I agree for Bondi it makes sense. No, there is a bug in the software that always uses the parent page when using subpages for the breadcrumbs, and ignores is isPartOf. --(WT-en) inas 17:00, 30 May 2010 (EDT)

Greater Sydney Districts and Map

[[Image:Greater Sydney Discuss.png|rhumb|300px|right]] I've created this map, to help restart and aid with discussion about Sydney districts. It's rough at the moment, but eventually it could evolve into a useable map for the article.

It generally matches the district structure as it is, with a couple of exceptions, which I'm putting forward for consideration / discussion.

1) Split Southern Sydney into 2 districts: South Sydney and St George. Rationale is that "South Sydney" and "St George" are commonly used and understood as parts of Sydney, while "Southern Sydney is not in my experience.
2) Include a "Parramatta" district. Parramatta currently has a page of it's own and probably deserves to be a district in itself.
3) Include a "Canterbury-Bankstown" district. I couldn't see where this area was classified currently. Is it split between Inner West and South West?

The way I defined the boundaries was to broadly use groupings of local government authorities, with some exceptions as required:

1) Northern Beaches - Manly, Warringah, Pittwater
2) Eastern Suburbs - Woollahra (ex Paddington), Waverly, Randwick
3) Upper North Shore - Kuringai, some of Hornsby
4) Lower North Shore - Mosman, North Sydney, Lane Cove, Willoughby
5) Central Sydney - Sydney City (north of Cleveland St, incl. Paddington)
6) South Sydney - Sydney City (south of Cleveland St), Botany Bay
7) Inner West - Leichhardt, Ashfield, Burwood, Strathfield, Canada Bay + some of Sydney City
8) Canterbury-Bankstown - Canterbury, Bankstown
9) St George - Rockdale, Hurstvillle, Kogarah
10) Sutherland Shire - Sutherland
11) North West - Ryde, Hills District, Hornsby
12) Parramatta - Parramatta, Holroyd, Auburn
13) South West - Liverpool, Campbelltown, Camden
14) Outer West - Penrith, Blacktown, Fairfield

One caveat to the above. When it comes to defining the exact district boundaries, I think suburb boundaries should take precedence over the LGA boundaries. So where a suburb is spread over 2 different LGAs we make the decision to put it into one or the other for the purposes of our districts (as we've done with Paddington which is divided between Sydney City and Woollahra LGAs).

Any thoughts, comments? (WT-en) Lturner 11:05, 14 July 2010 (EDT)

Back again after a long absence. I do like how it's evolving and I think this suggestion has merit, especially improving the obviously weird Southern Sydney and Inner West.
There's a problem of convergence of four districts near the airport. I'd suggest overcoming this by simply incorporating Sydney Airport into South Sydney, so you end up with a South Sydney and Airport district. (WT-en) Ronaldo123 18:09, 17 September 2010 (EDT)
The map is good, but what sort of attractions are there to tourists that will make up a St George page and a Canterbury-Bankstown page? I could get a Northern Districts page to make up the Macquarie Park, etc. area given the National Park in the area and the restaurants in the Eastwood or so area, but some of these areas don't have a lot to offer by way of travellers. If the page grows that much, then sure, but at the moment that isn't the case. (WT-en) JRG 22:59, 21 September 2010 (EDT)
This map and the city map would benefit greatly from a scale.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 10:14, 25 April 2011 (EDT)
The Inner West should be divided on that map into Inner West and Canterbury Bankstown - I have never heard of the Inner West extending west of Strathfield or that far south. It could cause confusion for tourists. --(WT-en) Mw12310 12:28, 2 January 2011 (EDT)

Stay safe

Is pickpocketing really a concern in Sydney? You obviously have to be cautious of leaving bags and coats unattended, but I've lived here my whole life and have never heard of anyone being pickpocketed, whether a local or tourist. —The preceding comment was added by 124.169.135.38 (talk • contribs)

Such things rarely make the news, but I don't really know one way or the other about its prevalence in Sydney. (WT-en) LtPowers 19:51, 2 January 2011 (EST)
I have had a wallet stolen on two occasions on Elizabeth Street near Cleveland. Admittedly that was many years ago and I assume there was a particularly persistent and quite skillful thief at that locality as he got me twice at or near the Lebanese take-away joints with over a year separating the incidents. I never knew it had happened until I had left the locality so I he/she obviously struck after I had paid for what I was purchasing, watched where I put my wallet and knew I would have my hands full, and struck as I was leaving. The next person who tried, also in Sydney, nearly got his fingers snapped off as I caught him with his hand drifting into my pocket. He protested that he had just "dropped something", apparently he thought he had dropped it into my pocket as he was having a good dig around in there and already had contact with his quest. That was near Central on Eddy Ave. My partner had her handbag stolen in the George Street cinemas by a notorious gang that worked the cinemas there and bag snatched in the food halls in Chinatown by some junkies lurking around there for that purpose. I found the same junkies later (they were not very smart junkies) and Ronnie and his smack head girlfriend then experienced an entertaining evening around at the Police station, but we never got the bag or the contents back-not that I expected we would. Ronnie said he was ... "sorry", I assume he meant that he was sorry he was caught. I have watched junkies snatch bags and run several times around the city and inner suburbs of Sydney and know several people who have lost handbags and handfones snatched from car seats whilst waiting at the traffic lights at Cleveland and Regent Streets, one of whom had their car side window broken open with a hammer whilst waiting at those same traffic lights. Sydney is the only place in the world that someone has lifted a wallet off me with any success although many have tried including gangs working Asian airport arrivals crowds and produce markets, and gypsies in Rome and other euro cities who were keen enough to have a go at me. Anyone who thinks Sydney does not have pick pockets and bag-snatchers may be in for a nasty surprise. Maybe IP 24.169.135.38 does not get out much. Or maybe Sydney has lost all it's thieves in the last 2 and a half years since I was last there. Maybe all the junkies have gone cold turkey and the wallet stealers have given it up and gone home to watch cable TV and drink beer. (WT-en) felix 10:22, 3 January 2011 (EST)
Re: "Maybe IP 24.169.135.38 does not get out much." Or maybe Felix505 just dropped his wallet and blamed it on pickpockets. Who knows. And snatching a handbag is very different to pickpocketing. Anyway, no other guidebooks I can find mention it as a problem, including LP and Frommers (both of which have rather large warning sections for just about every European city), which is why I found it rather odd, and neither do any official Sydney crime statistics I can find. I, for one, am not about to start suggesting to tourists to wear a money belt when they go out in Sydney based on Felix505's anecdotes. —The preceding comment was added by 124.169.135.38 (talk • contribs)
None who lives Sydney uses a money belt. It seems odd to me to recommend to visitors to wear one. However, some visitors carrying passports, etc may wish to, the same as they may wish to anywhere else in the world. The areas in Redfern (Cleveland and Regent) would have to be the most sus area in Sydney. The current Sydney article vaguely mentions something about that area, but seeing it isn't a tourist area, and there is little there.
To compare Sydney petty crime with any other first world city is entirely reasonable. Bag snatching does happen in Pitt St Mall as it does in Oxford Circus. To compare it with Asian markets, probably not as resonable, based on a single anecdote. Most first world travellers should take the same precautions they would take at home. --(WT-en) inas 17:15, 6 January 2011 (EST)
Hey I never suggested anyone should wear a money belt. As to "anecdotes", user 124.169.135.38 said they had never heard of any tourist or local being pick-pocketed, well now they have. Petty thievery is quite common in Sydney, and yes, especially in the area mentioned above. Petty crime is not a new phenomena in Sydney, it has been going on since the inception of the colony of New South Wales. I responded to the rather strange comment "never heard of anyone being pickpocketed, whether a local or tourist" as it seemed to be both naive and ill-informed. I also assure anyone reading the above that I did not just "drop" my wallet, twice at the same location. It was stolen, on both occasions, and the location was notorious for it at the time. I took to stuffing my wallet down the front of my pants to assist in better managing my situational awareness in such environments. Indeed it is situational awareness that prevents pick pockets rather than money belts. My guard was down as I was in an area that I was familiar with. I doubt many tourists would have felt anything approaching comfortable there, "sus" is probably an understatement. There are a few backpackers and budget accommodations in that general area now (Cleveland Street and nearby) and if traversing to or from Central on foot some hapless guests may pass through or nearby to some somewhat doubtful areas. An informing caution may be appropriate in the Sydney/City South article, but I do not think it requires undue stress upon the issue. Travellers should be assumed to have some basic common sense. The look of the area is not deceptive and tells the story well enough. I guess if some luckless individual looked at a map of Sydney and though they could take the train to Central from the Airport and walk up to a backpackers on Cleveland street they may end up with a slightly nervous walk if it were at night. As for my relating of a pick-pocketing attempt on Eddy Ave near Central, I was on heightened alert as I noticed the guy, hence I caught him with his hand in my pocket. The problem applies to many cities in the world, I would in no way signal that Sydney has special problems, however the problem is certainly not absent there at any stretch of the imagination.
I am a bit perplexed as to where all this is coming from, is someone suggesting Sydney needs a special caution? If so I cannot see any reason for it. However it certainly should not be suggested that Sydney does not require reasonable precautions such as not leaving anything in view in an unattended vehicle, to secure your personal belongings when in a public place and to be cautious as to the likelihood of pickpockets or bag snatching most especially when in crowded areas. Indeed I think it is bag snatching that is more of an issue in Sydney than pick-pocketing. It requires less skill and is more prevalent. The existing article caution with Kings Cross is not out of line but could be generalised with the emphasis removed from pick-pocketing as the main issues there are not really pick-pockets. The Rocks, some areas around Darlinghurst including Oxford Street, south end of George Street, Eddy Ave near Central and Bondi Beach have some issues in regard to petty crime and assaults that are just as concerning as Kings Cross. There are more dangerous areas in Sydney but they are not normally frequented by tourists. Inas, I did not compare the situation to an asian market, I just mentioned that no one had ever succeeded in pick-pocketing me in places normally considered to be much more notorious, despite being exposed to such opportunities quite frequently; yet they did succeed in Sydney. Indeed I live in a 3rd world asian country and I spend plenty enough of my time in environments where petty crimes such as pick-pocketing are quite prevalent. By the way in case it is of any interest I think I have worn a money belt maybe twice in my life. My concern was to the protection of my passport, however at those times it was rather more likely it was my life that was at risk, rather than my passport. (WT-en) felix 05:17, 9 January 2011 (EST)
I'm a bit lost now. I think it is an exaggeration to call petty crime in Sydney common. I don't think there are really many precautions above the generic stay safe that can be taken. I think it is reasonable to identify Cleveland St south of central as an area where you might feel nervous arriving late at night. If there is other specific advice we can give people to reduce their risks while in Sydney, then lets add it. --(WT-en) inas 06:51, 9 January 2011 (EST)
Reliable crime stats for NSW and Sydney are a bit controversial, they have been manipulated for various political reasons for a long time. However there are national figures available for theft, that being a non-violent robbery. Hard to get a picture of Sydney from that though as they are generalised nationally. "Pickpocket or bag snatch crimes will be buried in the stats for theft as it is not defined separately. The Australian Institute of Criminology releases reports on crime in Australia. As far as I know the most recent one came out in 2009.
The Local Government Area Crime Report - Sydney - Steal from person issued by Law Link NSW in 2009 has a collection of maps detailing crime reports in the inner Sydney area. Map 11 shows no significant Steal from person activity in the Redfern area (which is notorious for thefts and robbery) I note that if you go to the Robbery map then that area shows up in red. This may sugggest that the victim is less likely to get things stolen from them, more likely they will be robbed , which means with violence or the threat of violence. The map of Sydney has a big red patch running straight down the middle of it with satellites in KingsX and Oxford Street, the traffic lights at Crown and Cleveland, Redfern and some other somewhat predictable areas. No big surprises there. Interestingly the CBD and the area projecting south into the George street cinema district are bright red (top 10%). Maps covering alcohol related assaults and non-domestic violence, robbery, and theft also tell a fairly predictable story. This is the official NSW government version of things. Steal from person -map 11/13- is the category under which theft of a wallet or a bag snatch would be classified for statistical purposes. Robbery with violence, unarmed robbery with violence, assaults, vehicle thefts and all the rest are detailed on the other maps.
Lawlink, NSW Government Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, BOCSAR Online Queries, Crime Trends -search postcode 2000 may also be of interest.In October 2009 it showed a downward trend of 9.6% in more covert crimes such as steal from person offences in a 24 month period from October 2008 to September 2010, Maybe people stopped reporting such events, or maybe as there was no suspect identified the reports if any never found their way into the official stats. However that was probably not an issue that changed significantly over the same period so hopefully that sort of crime is on the downward trend. Robbery without a weapon also trended down at -6.6%. More overt crimes such as robbery with a weapon and robbery with a firearm remained stable.
Australian crime - Facts & figures 2010, from the Australian Institute of Criminology [www.aic.gov.au] defines other theft as "the taking of another person’s property with the intention of permanently depriving the owner of the property illegally and without permission, but without force, threat of force, use of coercive measures, deceit or having gained unlawful entry to any structure even if the intent was to commit theft. This offence includes such crimes as pickpocketing, bag snatching, stealing (including shoplifting), theft from a motor vehicle, theft of motor vehicle parts/accessories or petrol, theft of stock/domestic animals and theft of non-motorised vehicles/boats/aircraft/bicycles", (emphasis added). "It is the largest of all the crime categories included in the national statistics. There were 496,697 victims of other theft in 2008; a rate of 2,324 per 100,000 population". It further detailed that; "Other theft was most likely to occur at retail locations (30%), followed by outbuilding/other residential land (17%), on streets and footpaths (16%) and at dwellings (10%)". I note the stats are fairly consistent to what I was suggesting above. If you know Sydney well the maps will not have any surprises, the patterns are quite consistent with what I see with my own eyes when I am there and my own direct and anecdotal experience gained from others. NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research Local Government Area Crime Report, Sydney 2008 is quite interesting. It also appears to indicate that at the time of the report Steal from person reports were declining. This of course may have reflected less reporting of the crime, or a real decrease in the occurence. Similar reports do indicate that this sort of crime is seriously under-reported. Trends in recorded crime will reflect movements in the underlying factors that influence the detection, reporting and recording of crime, as well as changes in the true level of crime in the community. This is touched on in page 9 of that report "...information will not usually be recorded for criminal incidents in which there are no known suspects. This is very common among incidents of property crime that have low clear up rates. A cleared criminal incident is one which, in the view of police, has been satisfactorily cleared either by the commencement of legal proceedings against an alleged offender or otherwise." Pickpockets are rarely caught and the suspect is normally unknown, hence these crimes even if reported do are not likely to enter the statistics. The same applies to robbery with violence or robbery with threat of violence, whether armed with a weapon or not. Sydney is certainly not a place to let your guard down, then again it is not a place that anyone should be particularly alarmed by if they act sensibly. That said I know several people who have been violently assaulted in Sydney without any provocation what-so-ever. Again the maps mentioned above have no big surprises, the assaults occurred right in the reddest areas defined on the map for assaults. Good common sense and well tuned situational awareness is required. Again, I am not suggesting that Sydney needs any special mention or cautions, I just felt a little alarmed to see the idea being put forward that Sydney does not suffer from these problems. Indeed it has plenty of them, and generally they are kept well hidden. (WT-en) felix 10:41, 19 January 2011 (EST)
Crime stats are available, incidents are reported in the daily papers. Your extrapolations from what you have read may be valid, or may not be, but to say entire areas of crime don't enter crime statistics because the perpetrator is unknown seems very odd, and I think it is unlikely to be true. Why would people be reporting less crime? Your theories don't really get us anywhere.
Again, if you have some text that we could add to the Stay Safe section that would keep visitors to Sydney safer, then suggest the text. --(WT-en) inas 17:17, 19 January 2011 (EST)
In response to the apparent supposition that I have presented "theories".
  • From the Forward to Australian crime: Facts & figures 2009, (pg53) - Estimated reporting percentages of categories of offence reported in the 2005 Crime and Safety Survey:
  • "Robbery (39%), attempted break-in (31%) and assault (31%) were less likely to be reported by victims to the police." (ref: Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2006. Crime and safety, Australia 2005. ABS cat. no. 4509.0.)
So that "theory " is one presented by the Australian Institute of Criminology, not my own.
  • From NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research Local Government Area Crime Report, Sydney 2008
  • Trends in recorded crime will reflect movements in the underlying factors that influence the detection, reporting and recording of crime, as well as changes in the true level of crime in the community. pg7 (pdf-9/48) of that report
  • "...information will not usually be recorded for criminal incidents in which there are no known suspects. This is very common among incidents of property crime that have low clear up rates. A cleared criminal incident is one which, in the view of police, has been satisfactorily cleared either by the commencement of legal proceedings against an alleged offender or otherwise."
  • Australian crime • Facts and figures 2005, , (pg49).
  • "Victimisation surveys are useful for assessing the extent of crime that is not reported to the police. Surveys find a wide variation in reporting rates depending on the type of crime"....
  • "Victims of robbery (53%), attempted burglary (38%) and assault (37%) were less likely to report these crimes to police."
  • "Reasons for not reporting assault were provided; that the incident was not serious enough to warrant police involvement, the offender was known to the victim, there was nothing the police could do, and fear of reprisal from the offender", (my emphasis).
  • By examining these earlier figures it is easy to identify a trend of further reduction in reporting of crimes such as robbery, attempted burglary and assault between 2005 and 2009, ie robbery-reduced from 53% to a 39% estimated reporting rate.
So (WT-en) inas these are not my "theories" more they are the "theories" of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research and the Australian Institute of Criminology. However if they were my own theories based upon an extrapolation of the available reports and studies then I see no reason why you or any one else should be dismissive of them. I do not appreciate being chided as I have been above when I give responsible and informed feedback based on both direct personal experience and authoritative sources. A look at the reports and the incidence maps I detailed above provides a clear picture as to which areas should be considered appropriate for any warnings in the article, if indeed any warnings are justified at all. A look at (a map of Steal from person crime report density) Pg 31/48 of Local Government Area Crime Report, Sydney 2008 would make that task quite straight forward.
I have given informed feed-back based upon direct experience and/or official government statistics, analysis and conclusions. My original assertions were made as a response to the implausible statement ("never heard of anyone being pickpocketed, whether a local or tourist'"-- that was made by 124.169.135.38 (talk • contribs)) asserting that crimes such as pick-pocketing do not occur in Sydney. I stand by my earlier responses to those assertions. Further to that, crimes such as theft from a person, robbery and assault are apparent in the areas defined and are shown to be significantly unreported when analysed in state and federal government reports.
As to LP and Frommers, since when were they deemed to be expert sources for either crime statistics or criminological analysis. Incidents such as pick-pocketing are not detailed in the statistics as there is no provision for such, it is officially called "theft", or "stealing from a person". Hence "pickpocketing" will never officially appear.
I never said "entire areas of crime don't enter crime statistics because the perpetrator is unknown", although that may indeed be true. Why would people be reporting less crime? (WT-en) inas, I detailed why previously, and I quoted the official reports I cited in that response.
What I related was; Similar reports do indicate that this sort of crime is seriously under-reported. Trends in recorded crime will reflect movements in the underlying factors that influence the detection, reporting and recording of crime, as well as changes in the true level of crime in the community. This is from the pages of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.
On in page 7 (pdf-9/48) of that report, in regard to victims and persons of interest:
  • "...information will not usually be recorded for criminal incidents in which there are no known suspects. This is very common among incidents of property crime that have low clear up rates. A cleared criminal incident is one which, in the view of police, has been satisfactorily cleared either by the commencement of legal proceedings against an alleged offender or otherwise.".
The above came straight out of NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research Local Government Area Crime Report, Sydney 2008 , much of which is detailed on 7 (pdf-9/48) of that report.
Further I refer to Definitions and explanatory notes for recorded crime statistics, Cautionary notes about crime data, from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.
  • "Data consist of criminal incidents reported to police and recorded on the NSW Police Force's Computerised Operational Policing System (COPS). While this system is used for record-keeping for all police operations, not just for criminal matters, the Bureau only reports on criminal incidents.
  • Recorded crime statistics for some offence categories do not accurately reflect the actual level of crime in the community. This is because the number of incidents recorded may be affected by extraneous factors which are not easily measured. In particular:
  • Many crimes which occur are not reported to police and will therefore not be recorded - for example, a large number of assaults, sexual assaults and robberies are not reported to police."
So, these are not just my own theories or ruminations that you are being dismissive toward, rather you are being dismissive of the two primary authoritative sources that are applicable to the issue.
(WT-en) inas if you want to look over the Steal from person and Robbery density maps in the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research Local Government Area Crime Report, Sydney 2008 and if you then think it is appropriate to put in some cautions or similar into the article, then I will be pleased to assist you. The hot spots are clear and quite predictable. The Rocks, Darlo/KingsX/Oxford St. and a long smear running from Circular Quay down through the middle of the central city and on to Central/lower Surry Hills/Redfern. Darling harbour and other areas come up as small satellites of activity. Maybe we do need to give some consideration as to the appropriateness of putting some cautions into the Sydney article relating to hand bag snatch, pick-pocketing and watching/securing personal possessions. Personally I see no reason to be less alert in Sydney than in any other city. However, I do not think it needs any special mention. Might be a job for Capt. Obvious. I do think that the current (Kings X) reference to; "pick-pocketing or mugging can happen to the unwary" could possibly benefit from being edited to read ...assaults, pick-pocketing or theft of personal possessions can happen to the unwary.... If doing this it is a little difficult to overlook that the Rocks (bar areas) and the Darlinghust section of Oxford Street, the George St cinema strip, areas around Central and Redfern station and parts in between have similar issues. As my opinions and information provided have been somewhat disputed on this Talk page I will assume that the issue is contentious so I am certainly not going to leap in with any edits to the existing content myself. (WT-en) felix 10:26, 21 January 2011 (EST)

When I said your theory I meant the theories that you are presenting. There may well be people and organisations that would say a reduction in crime stats in Sydney is due to lower reporting. There may be others that would think that it a result of crime dropping. Also, as with many western cities these sort of crim figures increase at night, and around areas where there is alchohol. Although your stats show higher crime rates in the Cross and Surry Hills, those areas have a considerably increased amount of people on the streets. Does a higher rate indicate a crime hotspot, or just reflect the increase number of people in the area associated with alchohol at night? Anyway, I keep coming back to the same point. I don't see that the article currently says Sydney is crime free. Rather, it says that it has the same sort of problems as other western cities, but it really doesn't have any no go areas. Some of the areas you highlight in your stats are probably the most visited party sports by backpackets, and ther are warnings in the guide. I appreciate the research you have done, but without some concrete improvements to the guide to discuss, I think I'll leave the discussion at this point. --(WT-en) inas 15:10, 21 January 2011 (EST)

Yes I agree (WT-en) inas, I don't think we are really getting anywhere with this. However, I regard to your recent comments I must mention that in my reading of the reports I did note that there has been a gradual decrease in the crimes we are discussing and there has also been a significant reduction noted in the estimated reporting rate. The impression I gained was that the overall crime rate has decreased, and the reporting rate has also decreased, so possibly less crime, being less reported. However in some specific areas theft without violence has been supplanted with robbery (with violence or the threat there of). If we pay any attention to this (re the article) then that would probably be the sort of thing we should address. The Redfern area and surrounding precincts are probably the stand-out. I recall that is addressed already in the article. Careful examination of the stats and most especially the maps gives a good account of the other areas of concern. If you have a look over the stats and maps the alcohol issue is well documented. Although I understand your proposition regarding higher numbers of people in an area giving rise to higher crime incidents you must understand that we are looking at the likelihood of stealing-robbery-assault here. If there are more people in the area that are likely to commit an offence against an individual then the chances of any individual becoming a victim are greater, hence a higher crime rate and a higher level of risk to the individual. Yes, certainly in some areas there is a higher rate of assaults where alcohol is involved.
The reasons may be varied, however the issue is one of whether risk is present or not, rather than why that risk is apparent. I have taken some interest in statistical analysis in a past life, I have some remnant knowledge and I admit to also harbouring some degree of remnant cynicism on such matters, and the reports that draw conclusions from them.
I will have a look over the information again sometime soon and try and identify any useful information that may benefit the article.
At this time the only edit I would propose is the one that I outlined above:
The current (Kings X) reference to; "pick-pocketing or mugging can happen to the unwary" could possibly benefit from being edited to read ...assaults, pick-pocketing or theft of personal possessions can happen to the unwary.... If there is consensus on this I will edit accordingly or if you wish to do so, or add something to similar effect then I would be in agreement. (WT-en) felix 12:58, 22 January 2011 (EST)


Safety on trains is a pretty big concern I think, particularly in the western suburbs. There's a lot of weirdos between richmond/penrith and blacktown during the day (off-peak) and after dark. In fact I don't think i've ever not encountered a weirdo on the off-peak train between Richmond and Blacktown. Most of the time theyre just loud, vulgar and obnoxious but sometimes they cause disruption like smoking in the carriage, disgusting PDA, swearing at other passengers, fighting amongst themselves etc. I've had a bunch of 15 year old kids at Blacktown station approach me and telling me to "get a room" simply because I was leaning on my boyfriends' shoulder whilst waiting for the train. This then lead to an argument and them wanting to "fight" us. Sorry if this is in the wrong spot, I have no idea how to use the talk pages. —The preceding comment was added by 138.130.108.86 (talk • contribs)

At the moment we don't have a single piece of travel information or a single attraction listed for the area between Blacktown or Richmond. When we come up with some travel content for the area, then a guide for how to stay safe on the local trains in the area also sounds relevant. If you are familiar with the area, feel free to add some content to the guides, as we are very thin on the whole district. --(WT-en) Inas 17:15, 18 December 2011 (EST)


Merging major tourist destinations (Manly, Bondi, etc) into districts..

I don't think there is any consensus or policy reason to merge the Sydney/Manly, Sydney/Bondi Beach, etc into wider districts? I haven't seen any agreed proposal that would eventuate with this. Did I miss something? --(WT-en) inas 22:58, 19 October 2011 (EDT)

I haven't either. The on-going saga of districting Sydney continues..... Maybe it is time a for reprise discussion? By the way, very good to see you back Inas :) --(WT-en) burmesedays 23:28, 19 October 2011 (EDT)
Thanks, likewise. But just the mention of "Sydney" and "Districts", in the same sentence sends those familiar shivers..
Never-the-less, I think we are nearly there. The districts as we have them have a bit of a hole out west, and the Inner West does need splitting (more for what it is than it isn't). I still think the major tourist destinations of Manly, Bondi, North Sydney, and probably a couple of others need to be excised from their districts so the info doesn't get diluted. Those two destinations probably see as many visitors as the rest of the Sydney regions combined. --(WT-en) inas 00:05, 20 October 2011 (EDT)
I added those merge tags. Now looking at it though, I do think places like Bondi Beach and Manly deserve separate district articles. I just followed the map at Sydney#Districts, as I thought that was a final districts map. Seems like theer is still some sorting out to do for the beach destinations... --(WT-en) globe-trotter 03:50, 20 October 2011 (EDT)
Agree those districts deserve their own articles. But is there any specific reason why Sydney needs three layers? Would it not make more sense to link directly to all districts from the main article?, --(WT-en) ClausHansen 18:06, 20 October 2011 (EDT)
Yeah - we should update the maps to have these places directly marked. They are all linked from the districts text now, though. --(WT-en) inas 19:11, 20 October 2011 (EDT)


tickets

just in case anyone is wondering what i am doing, the public transport info section is bloated by ticket info appearing in multiple places - there is a ticket section up the top, and then it is duplicated for each form of ticket - do my thought is to move the multi-modal ticket information to the top - as this is popular with visitors, and the other ticket information can go with the transport form, as they do vary in how you purchase them and the ticket types. --(WT-en) Inas 03:55, 21 November 2011 (EST)

Travel Concierge Sydney Airport

These edits look a bit suspicious to me. Is "Travel Concierge Sydney Airport" an official contractor or is this just an ad? (WT-en) LtPowers 16:15, 16 March 2012 (EDT)

Drag shows

I found this bit of what does appear to be original writing regarding drag shows in Sydney. Is it worth merge&redirecting to Sydney#Do/Drink? --Peter Talk 06:56, 14 September 2012 (CEST)

Yes, merging and redirecting sounds good. Sydney does have a lively drag scene, but it isn't so huge to deserve that much content and its own travel topic. JamesA >talk 08:56, 14 September 2012 (CEST)

Festivals

So, what is a festival? Is a annual one-day band gig with $150 entry tickets a festival? Crave, Vivid, Sydney Festival all qualify. I think the Arabic films can be moved to the Parramatta article, and the other one-day gigs be moved to the music section. --Inas (talk) 05:24, 24 October 2012 (CEST)

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