farms and dilapidated informal settlements2. (Coghlan, NSW
Statistician, 1895).
The hilly side of the hinterland and northern areas in general, and the waterways on which
Sydney is built, have caused problems with inland traffic
flow and access, and pushed house prices about 30% higher than other Australian cities. Sydney: A Brief History of
Inequality
New South Wales was founded in
1788 as a penal colony for British
convicts during the social upheavals of the
Industrial Revolution. With a population of
,
, the country operates under Westminster-style federal system. On the other hand, the barrier is the
Urban Slums Reports: The Case of Sydney, Australia
Great Dividing Range, about 100 kilometers inland, and the significant
waterways in the north made it a poor surface for inland access. Except for a
approximately 70-year period between 1860 and 1930, when Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, had
population, wealth and political importance, it was considered the
capital of Australia. The first
economic and population boom, coinciding with the discovery of
gold in the 1850s, was followed by a
depression in the 1860s, when Sydney's first large
slums appeared. As in
other cities, immigrants tend to congregate around
certain places, especially around ex-immigrant
hostels, where there are jobs and facilities suitable for the recent arrival, and where formal and informal social support is available for certain ethnic groups.
Sydney was home to the first European settlement
in 1788 and is the capital of New South Wales, Australia's most populous state.
