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This report documents diverse community voices on the Future of Greater Parramatta, as captured through a public consultation undertaken from September to October 2022. The public consultation was launched as a part of The Glover Review on Parramatta 2035: Vibrant, Sustainable Global', and reflects the Centre for Western Sydney's commitment to a politics of listening. This research seeks to engage with local communities and reflect their vision for the future of Parramatta and the Central River City. The report documents the region's most pressing challenges, and the solutions required for a thriving future in Greater Parramatta as identified by its communities. It is these communities that are most invested in the future of the region, and ultimately most impacted by decisions made when planning for its development. By listening to these valuable voices, we highlight the importance of capturing the knowledge and experience of various communities when planning for regional futures. We argue that through engaged community consultation, planners and policymakers can build cities that respond to community needs and visions.

This Review, prepared at the request of the NSW Premier, tests the proposition that Greater Parramatta can become a ‘global city’ by 2035. Parramatta, in the past five years, has been the focus of intensive and accelerated urban regeneration. Equally, it has been the recent beneficiary of substantial public infrastructure investments. Ensuring these positive developments work to the city’s benefit, particularly against liveability and sustainability benchmarks is an emphasis of the Review. The city’s elevation into a ‘global’ cohort is conditional on the preservation and enhancement of these attributes, particularly in fundamental areas like housing affordability, cultural expression, and connectivity. Recognising the investment and talent attraction properties of these elements is a vitally important and, ideally, distinctive element of Parramatta’s current and future character. The Review identifies four priorities where government should now focus its efforts for this region over the next decade: 1. Greater Parramatta needs a Strategic Plan and better cross-government cooperation and investment in the region; 2. The development of the Greater Parramatta region needs to balance the goals of liveability and growth and better manage the unequal impacts of change; 3. Greater Parramatta’s economic future needs to be secured through preserving and investing in the region’s industrial and urban services land; and, 4. Sustainability needs to be a priority to ensure Greater Parramatta’s successful transformation into a resilient global city-region. The Review concludes that Parramatta will become a ‘global’ city, and notes that the real question is one of what type of global city it chooses to become. The Review makes twelve recommendations framed thematically across three priorities: 1. Strategic Planning and Governance; 2. Planning and Infrastructure Priorities; and, 3. Liveability and Sustainability.

This issues paper analyses the 2021 census data, considering the profound but uneven changes to educational attainment, industry mix and labour force participation. Western Sydney has registered a significant increase in its educational attainment over the past decade. The region’s proportion of higher skilled residents now sits on par with the national average. In some areas it exceeds that level. The shift is profound but uneven within the Western Sydney region, producing complex implications. Additionally, the census data reveals persistent socio-spatial polarisation between Western Sydney and the Rest of Sydney when it comes to high productivity jobs. This issues paper produces an analysis of the census data, and considers the implications of the data for policy makers in the State and Federal Governments of Australia.

In September 2021, the NSW Government announced the $5 billion WestInvest Program, designed to fund transformational infrastructure projects that support community amenity and liveability. In January 2022, the NSW Government commissioned the Centre for Western Sydney (Western Sydney University) to undertake a review of existing liveability data sources, and identify and define a set of macro metrics for the elements of liveability which are likely be impacted by the WestInvest Program. This report provides the outcome of a resulting study which identified 14 liveability metrics and assessed potential liveability outcomes of the WestInvest Program for the 15 WestInvest LGAs, the WestInvest region as a whole and the Greater Sydney region.