Dear Sydney,
This is a difficult letter to write. We have been together now for 37 and a half years, and I don't discount that kind of longevity and loyalty lightly. But things have been getting rather difficult for me to continue defending your honour, and you don't seem to be making any real effort to lift your game either.
It started off well enough, we met at Darlinghurst Hospital, now no longer there unfortunately due to the rampant gentrification in that area in the interim decades. That is just one sign of how much our relationship has changed. We spent my formative years together in some lovely, leafy suburbs and I always felt safe and secure in the comfort of your familiarity, watching your landscape change quite dramatically from the back window of my folks mustard yellow combi van as we would visit friends and relatives in far flung places such as Narrabeen, Palm Beach, Hunters Hill, Epping, Gosford, Kellyville, Rooty Hill, Windsor, Parramatta, and the Blue Mountains..... to name a few. Back then, the landscape would actually change from place to place, but now there seems to be a sameness about it all, with short-sighted development of MacMansion suburbs alongside highways cutting through and around you like a concrete petticoat.
Not that I am complaining you have upgraded what used to be one-lane dirt thoroughfares, because without them it would be even more difficult to get around than it already is. Did you know your people are choking? Did you know that the frustration from millions of your inhabitants as they sit in traffic snarls every single day is giving you a really bad rep, or did you already sneak out the back behind the bike sheds for a sneaky fag and to escape detection by the head teacher and weren't paying attention?
One way you have tried is by sprouting bike lanes in the very heart of your city. This would have been great, had it not removed so many trees, parking spaces and sanity from the locals.
Your inner city bars and clubs and live music venues used to be the apple of my eye, but one by one they have fallen prey to "development" and "urbanisation" and the live music venues pressured by falling revenues and cost pressure to close their doors and walk away. Your hip, indie music scene is suffering, Sydney, and we all suffer alongside it.
You used to be a city for the people, and now I wonder who those people are. We are being accused of increasing superficiality, and if it weren't for your spectacular harbour and amazing weather (most of the time, what was with that hot and humid summer, dude, that was Singaporean!) you wouldn't have much to recommend you to visitors when I try to convince them to drop in and share an experience of my town with me.
In short, Sydney, I have given up defending your liveability. I have become a laughing stock, and so have you.
Yours regretfully,
Natasha
This is a difficult letter to write. We have been together now for 37 and a half years, and I don't discount that kind of longevity and loyalty lightly. But things have been getting rather difficult for me to continue defending your honour, and you don't seem to be making any real effort to lift your game either.
It started off well enough, we met at Darlinghurst Hospital, now no longer there unfortunately due to the rampant gentrification in that area in the interim decades. That is just one sign of how much our relationship has changed. We spent my formative years together in some lovely, leafy suburbs and I always felt safe and secure in the comfort of your familiarity, watching your landscape change quite dramatically from the back window of my folks mustard yellow combi van as we would visit friends and relatives in far flung places such as Narrabeen, Palm Beach, Hunters Hill, Epping, Gosford, Kellyville, Rooty Hill, Windsor, Parramatta, and the Blue Mountains..... to name a few. Back then, the landscape would actually change from place to place, but now there seems to be a sameness about it all, with short-sighted development of MacMansion suburbs alongside highways cutting through and around you like a concrete petticoat.
Not that I am complaining you have upgraded what used to be one-lane dirt thoroughfares, because without them it would be even more difficult to get around than it already is. Did you know your people are choking? Did you know that the frustration from millions of your inhabitants as they sit in traffic snarls every single day is giving you a really bad rep, or did you already sneak out the back behind the bike sheds for a sneaky fag and to escape detection by the head teacher and weren't paying attention?
One way you have tried is by sprouting bike lanes in the very heart of your city. This would have been great, had it not removed so many trees, parking spaces and sanity from the locals.
Your inner city bars and clubs and live music venues used to be the apple of my eye, but one by one they have fallen prey to "development" and "urbanisation" and the live music venues pressured by falling revenues and cost pressure to close their doors and walk away. Your hip, indie music scene is suffering, Sydney, and we all suffer alongside it.
You used to be a city for the people, and now I wonder who those people are. We are being accused of increasing superficiality, and if it weren't for your spectacular harbour and amazing weather (most of the time, what was with that hot and humid summer, dude, that was Singaporean!) you wouldn't have much to recommend you to visitors when I try to convince them to drop in and share an experience of my town with me.
In short, Sydney, I have given up defending your liveability. I have become a laughing stock, and so have you.
Yours regretfully,
Natasha
