Within recent years, a lot of effort has been put into rehabbing Sydney’s nightlife, and more specifically, its reputation. However, even with the repeal of the lockout laws, the appointment of a 24-hour economy commissioner, the creation of new nightlife hubs like YCK Laneways and the Ivy Precinct, the reduction of red tape around late night licensing and ongoing efforts to protect venues from noise complaints, perceptions of Sydney’s nightlife remain dire, if the new Benchmarking Sydney’s Performance Report is any indication.
The analysis by the Committee for Sydney, which factored in data from 800 global city metrics and more than 140 critical rankings including the Time Out Cities Index, ranked Sydney’s nightlife as the second worst in the world, citing lingering disillusionment with the now-repealed lockout laws, which were completely lifted in March this year, and Sydney’s lockdown restrictions, which weren’t only a tough time for nightlife but pretty much every hospitality business in the state.
Committee of Sydney chief executive Gabriel Metcalf claimed that the reputational damage of Sydney’s lockout laws reaching back some seven years were still resonating within global rankings, impacting the attractiveness of the city to foreign investment.
However, it wasn’t all bad news for the Harbour City. Perceptions of Sydney's healthcare and safety (ranked 29th best in the world), life sciences (18th best in the world) and student experience (fourth best in the world) were all far rosier. Sydney also ranked highly for gender pay equality. However, Sydney’s air pollution ranking took a significant hit, ranked 48th in the world, largely due to the impacts of the 2019-20 bushfire disaster, and the city also ranked poorly for renewable energy availability. Also in news that will be a surprise to absolutely nobody, Sydney’s house affordability was found to be amongst the worst in the world.
You can find the full report here.