
Message from the Chief Commissioner
The Greater Sydney Region Plan – A Metropolis of Three Cities is a 20‐year plan with a 40‐year vision where everyone more equitably shares in the benefits of the growth and success of Greater Sydney as a liveable, productive and sustainable metropolis.
The Greater Sydney Commission believes that to effectively plan and manage our city it is essential to measure its progress. To start us on this journey we asked the people of Greater Sydney and our fellow government agencies to help us measure what matters.
Measuring what matters
The Greater Sydney Region Plan and five supporting district plans set out a vision to manage growth and change in Greater Sydney. They were developed alongside Transport NSW’s Future Transport 2056 and Infrastructure NSW’s State Infrastructure Strategy 2018‐2038.
In preparing the Plans, the Greater Sydney Commission heard from stakeholders and the community that it is not enough to simply prepare the Plans, we must also monitor and report on their implementation.
The Pulse of Greater Sydney is the first comprehensive monitoring and reporting framework for Greater Sydney. We have identified and gathered the most recent publicly available data as no one government agency, council or organisation can do this alone. Over time we expect to expand monitoring and reporting as more data becomes available to help us understand how Greater Sydney grows and changes.
This year’s Pulse 2020 will include the status of the new District Plan Action reporting for 2019-2020 and also expanded and updated indicators. Pulse 2020 is also being prepared to take into account city making implications of COVID-19 and will be published in Quarter 4 2020.

Greater Sydney performance indicators
In developing the indicators, the Commission engaged with and listened to people about what matters to them in Greater Sydney. We listened to the community, State agencies, councils, together with social, environment and industry peak groups. We also hosted a Citizens Panel of 100 people from across Greater Sydney as a key input.
Our stakeholders reinforced that cities are multi-functional places with layers of activity and competing demands. It is difficult to capture this complexity in a single metric. We have therefore developed four indicators that draw together the interrelated aspects of the 10 Directions to measure progress towards evolving to a metropolis of three cities.
The indicator matrix below shows the intersection of the performance indicators with the 10 Directions for a Greater Sydney.
What the indicators tell us
The Greater Sydney performance indicators tell us we need to:
- Align jobs, education and housing
- Increase access to education opportunities
- Increase housing diversity
- Improve connectivity
- Increase opportunities for trips by walking
- Increase tree canopy.
Read a summary of the indicators
Greater Sydney Dashboard
The Greater Sydney Dashboard is a single point of access to government data that is important to understanding what is happening across Greater Sydney. It is an interactive tool that provides links to a wide range of data sources to help monitor growth and change. It will continue to be developed as new and updated data becomes available.
The Greater Sydney Dashboard includes the context data for the 10 Directions and data used in the performance indicators.
Reporting on the Plans
Progress on Greater Sydney Region Plan actions
The 15 actions in the Greater Sydney Region Plan identify programs and initiatives to implement the Plan’s objectives and strategies. Each action has a lead agency responsible for delivery.
The summary of the status of these actions demonstrates the progress towards delivery of the Plan.
Read about progress on the actions
District Plan implementation
Monitoring and reporting on district plan implementation will support local planning and provide a line of sight between the Region Plan, council's LSPSs and agency programs.
Updated - 1 August 2019 (to address minor errors and inconsistencies)