Sydney’s Ordinary Outliers: Long-Distance Commuting and Outer Metropolitan Coastal Suburbanization, 1945-2001

Abstract

From 1945 to the end of the twentieth century, the Central Coast region adjacent to Australia’s largest city—Sydney—grew from a population of 30,000 to nearly 300,000 people. This article examines the long-distance commuting that was integral to this growth. By the 1990s, around a third of the region’s workforce was regularly traveling distances of 50 kilometers or more each way to the main body of Sydney. For many, the Central Coast offered new opportunities not readily available elsewhere in the metropolitan area to access housing—whether they sought to buy or rent—within a distinct, increasingly esteemed, coastal landscape. Over time, this commuting was variously encouraged, resented, and problematized. While it had parallels to other parts of Sydney’s “commuter belt,” the region’s experience stands as a notable case study of the diversity of household values across work, housing, and mobility.