Western Sydney Aerotropolis Masterplan
Core idea
Airport-centered new city with industry precincts
Why it matters
Long-term western Sydney economic engine
Description
The Western Sydney Aerotropolis masterplan, advanced by the New South Wales government from 2019, plans a new city around the Western Sydney International Airport at Badgerys Creek. Its key moves are a set of industrial, advanced-manufacturing, agribusiness and mixed-use precincts around the runway, a new metropolitan centre at Bradfield, and rail and road infrastructure knitting the aerotropolis into Sydney's third-city structure under the Greater Sydney region plan. It is state-led at a very large territorial scale.
Significance
The project is Australia's most ambitious application of the aerotropolis idea, treating a new airport as the seed of an entire employment-led city rather than a transport facility with ancillary uses. It is central to the 'three cities' rebalancing of metropolitan Sydney toward its underserved west. Debates concern speculative land dealing, the credibility of jobs targets, flood-prone land, and whether airport-adjacent development can produce genuine urbanity.
What shaped it
- The jet airliner and the airport (Comet 1952; Boeing 707 1958)
- The master plan (early 20th c.)
- Transit-oriented development (TOD) (1993)
Sources
- https://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/plans-for-your-area/priority-growth-areas-and-precincts/western-
- https://www.nsw.gov.au/ministerial-releases/aerotropolis-lifts-off-as-badgerys-creek-master-plan