MORE than 40 per cent of Sydney's suburbs have become increasingly vulnerable to high oil prices and mortgage stress in the past five years, according to a study to be released today by Griffith University.
While those on the far-western fringe of Sydney are the most car dependent and burdened by household debt, a new wave of vulnerability at the bowser has washed through middle-ring suburbs such as Liverpool, Hurstville and Blacktown.
While vulnerability to oil prices declined in some pockets of the city, for example in the northern suburbs between North Rocks and Pymble, big areas became more acutely exposed to high prices. Parramatta and Blacktown increased on the scale, as did other areas such as Penrith, Hornsby, Mona Vale, Sylvania and La Perouse.
The study, Unsettling Suburbia: The New Landscape Of Oil And Mortgage Vulnerability In Australian Cities, assesses the way car use, income and mortgage repayments combine in the suburbs of each capital city.
Based on the 2006 census data, the research by Jago Dodson and Neil Snipe found an increasing number of Sydney suburbs were becoming "oil vulnerable".
"In Sydney high oil and mortgage vulnerability is distributed across much of the city's western suburbs, including Hebersham, Green Valley, Cabramatta and Canterbury in the mid and outer west," the report said.
"The number of areas in which oil and mortgage vulnerability increased over the 2001 to 2006 period far outweighed those in which oil and mortgage vulnerability declined," the paper says.
While people in far outer suburbs remain highly exposed to debt and car-related costs, they have been "joined by increasingly vulnerable neighbouring middle suburban areas".
About 18 per cent of Sydney's suburbs have become less vulnerable, the study finds. But this is eclipsed by those areas worse off, as "41 per cent saw their oil and mortgage vulnerability worsen between 2001-2006".
The study relied on an index created by the researchers dubbed VAMPIRE - vulnerability assessment for mortgage, petrol and inflation risks and expenditure. It combines census data on the proportion of people in each district that commute to work in a car, households with two or more cars, the median weekly household income, and the number of households being bought through a mortgage.
Big swathes of Sydney are already changing their travel patterns in response to rising petrol prices, by switching to public transport in record numbers and cutting back on non-essential car trips.
The authors say state planning policies have often contributed to the increasing social isolation of many suburbs where people rely increasingly on cars.
"The problems of suburban infrastructure deficits, especially in public transport, reflect the consistent failure of state governments to expand infrastructure to keep pace with the rate and scale of land development," the paper says. "These problems have been exacerbated by the planning of suburban areas around automobile travel."
As a result of housing, employment and transport planning in Sydney, the poorer communities carry the greatest burden of oil stress. "Households in middle and outer suburbs face higher levels of car dependence and fewer alternative travel options than those in the inner areas … This means that the costs of higher fuel prices will be borne most heavily by those with the least capacity to pay."
Source: Sydney Morning Herald, 11 August, by Linton Besser, Transport Reporter
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