Butcher Noel Yeo is part of the economic engine driving western Sydney. Picture: Cameron Richardson. Source: The Daily Telegraph
IT'S the sad tale of two cities - the growing divide between Sydney's west and east.
The western suburbs are home to 20 of Sydney's 24 most disadvantaged suburbs, while more than 40 of the best NSW suburbs are east of Sydney's geographic heart.
It means that many western Sydney residents work more than 40 hours a week in freight, meat packing or cleaning, bringing home a median personal income of as little as $331 a week, while the unemployment rate is 13 per cent.
On the other side of town, the most advantaged people in NSW are east of Parramatta, where the unemployment rate is a third of that in the west, as low as 3.5 per cent, and the median personal income up to triple, as much as $1401 a week.
Committee for Sydney CEO Tim Williams said there was no future in the city developing low-density places 65km from the CBD that would leave people in poverty.
"Two-thirds of the new homes are created in the west and only a third of the jobs," he said.
Western Sydney director of the Sydney Business Chamber David Borger said western Sydney needed an airport to give it an engine room.
"We need the jobs that we want our children to have, professional jobs that involve high rates of pay. One thing we know: if you have more of those jobs, the unskilled get paid more," he said.
In Mt Druitt, Joe's Meat Market manager Noel Yeo said investment in western Sydney's infrastructure would become essential as the population continued to boom over the next 10 years.
"We need a second airport for a start," he said. "And more development on the roads. That development will bring jobs in its own right."
He said the shopping centre in Mt Druitt had tripled in size since he first did his butcher's apprenticeship in 1974.
"There are thousands more people working now. And it's only going to get bigger."
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