With many empty-nesters staying put as their children leave home, possibly to join immigrants moving to greenfield suburbs, the population crush is coming down heaviest on western Sydney and it is skewing housing resources.

There are huge variations in population growth across Sydney.Credit: Wolter Peeters

The imbalance has serious consequences for the Minns government’s attempts to inject some constraint on Sydney’s runaway real estate market through increased housing density in the inner-city and eastern suburbs, a shift from dumping housing developments on Sydney’s western fringes and fast-tracking construction of new housing across Sydney, including a quota for affordable accommodation.

New Australian Bureau of Statistics population figures show Sydney’s overall population growth slumped during the pandemic border closures. It has since recovered strongly: the city added 147,000 people last financial year, mainly thanks to the surge in immigration numbers. The population of Greater Sydney reached 5.45 million. Some neighbourhoods are absorbing a disproportionate share of the post-COVID population surge. Western Sydney suburbs accounted for 17 of the state’s top 20 increasing population areas.

But around half of the city’s suburbs had not recovered their pre-pandemic head count. Among the largest declines compared with 2019 were Potts Point-Woolloomooloo, which lost nearly 3000 people, Kensington (down 1115), Newtown (down 906) and Bondi Beach-North Bondi (down 896). But the population boomed in greenfield suburbs to the city’s west: Marsden Park-Shanes Park in Sydney’s north-west added nearly 18,000 people between 2019 and 2023. Other suburbs to register strong post-pandemic growth include Wentworth Point-Sydney Olympic Park in the city’s central west, which added 6370 people in the period and Mascot, which added 3700.

KPMG urban economist Terry Rawnsley told the Herald’s Matt Wade and Nigel Gladstone that post-COVID population growth patterns meant the distribution of Sydney’s housing resources had become much less efficient. “We’ve got some places where every bedroom is occupied, but in other parts of the city, you’ve got an average of 1 to 1.5 bedrooms empty in every dwelling, which is not the most efficient use of our housing stock,” he said.

As reports of homelessness, vaulting rents, interest rate rises and the inability of younger generations to buy dominate the headlines, Premier Chris Minns deserves credit for the way he has tackled the state’s housing supply crisis.

His government’s plan to get to grips with the soaring cost of homeownership in Sydney so far involves widespread rezoning, which will allow six-storey blocks within 400 metres of more than 30 of the city’s railway stations. He has faced concerted pushback from some Sydney mayors over density plans, one of whom absurdly said that allowing dual occupancy on properties would turn “western Sydney into Kolkata” and end backyard cricket.