Big-name architects honor us by coming here to put up their signature buildings. The information and entertainment economy has hard wired the city and its citizens into a global community. Swings and roundabouts. There's so much happening in greater Sydney. But those at the edge no longer dance to a central beat.
Life bubbles along in the self-contained suburbs.
The city has lost its pull and push for most of the residents of the basin. Like Los Angeles, the place is vast, freewayed, ethnically diverse, dynamic, independent. For a look, perhaps. Few have a purchase on the harbor, the fashionable restaurants are beyond the reach of average folk, no one but a master of finance will occupy a room with an unobstructed water view. The city's temper is not as democratic, or as sweet, as it once was.