Inner West


The Inner West of Sydney is an area directly west of the Sydney central business district, New South Wales, Australia. The suburbs that make up the Inner West are predominantly located along the southern shore of Port Jackson, stretching south to the shores of the Cooks River. The western boundary of the Inner West is approximately the A3 arterial road, which divides the Inner West from the Greater Western Sydney region. The Inner West is much larger than the Inner West Council local government area. The Inner West roughly corresponds with the Parish of Petersham and Parish of Concord, two cadastral divisions used for land titles.

Suburbs

The boundaries of the Inner West region are customary, not administrative or legal, and as such are defined differently in different contexts. The northern and southern boundaries are natural and thus generally well defined: they are the Parramatta River and the Cooks River respectively.
In the west, the upper reaches of the Cooks River flow close to, but do not meet, the Parramatta River, and the western boundary is thus ill-defined. Near the source of the Cooks River and at the point at which the two rivers run closest to each other, a large, uninhabited area stretches between the two rivers, occupied by the Enfield rail yards, the Chullora rail yards, Rookwood Cemetery, Flemington Maintenance Depot, and former industrial land stretching north to the shores of Homebush Bay, which is now Sydney Olympic Park. This geographical dividing strip has long coincided with council boundaries: the former municipalities of Concord, Homebush and Strathfield lay to its east, while the former municipalities of Rookwood and Bankstown lay to its west. The creek marking the former boundary between Homebush and Rookwood is named "Boundary Creek". Since the new A3 arterial road was built along this strip at the end of the 20th century, that road is now often regarded as the more precise boundary line between the Inner West and Greater Western Sydney. Today, council boundaries still largely, though not precisely, follow this line: with small exceptions, the City of Canada Bay and the Municipality of Strathfield lie to its east, while the City of Parramatta, Cumberland Council and the City of Canterbury-Bankstown lies to its west.
The eastern boundary is less well defined, as many suburbs immediately to the west of the Sydney city centre are alternatively regarded as part of the Inner West or as part of the city or "inner city" region. Customarily, either the A36 arterial road or the local arterial route formed by Sydney Park Road, Mitchell Road, Gibbon Street/Botany Road and Regent Street is often seen as the boundary between the Inner West and the inner city/Eastern Suburbs/inner south region.
The Inner West is alternatively defined as corresponding to the Parish of Petersham and Parish of Concord, two cadastral divisions used for land titles. This largely agrees with the customary definition above, except for some suburbs immediately to the east or west of the cadastral boundaries. For example, the western boundary of the Parish of Concord largely follows the course of Saleyards Creek, which approximates the boundary between Homebush and Flemington. The parish therefore excludes Flemington even though that suburbs lies mostly east of the A3 road. Conversely, the suburb of Rhodes is mostly west of the A3 road but in the Parish of Concord. On the eastern side, Erskineville and Macdonaldtown and Darlington are within the Parish of Petersham, but most of neighbouring Redfern and Alexandria are not.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics also defines a statistical region called "Inner West". This region comprises most of the Municipality of Strathfield, Municipality of Burwood and the City of Canada Bay, as well as the former Municipality of Ashfield and Municipality of Leichhardt. This region is mostly a subset of the regions in the two definitions outlined above, excluding the inner western and inner southwestern suburbs such as Glebe, Enmore, Petersham and Marrickville, which are instead in the region called "City and Inner South". As it is based on suburb boundaries, it also includes some small areas that fall outside the definitions outlined above, such as the part of the suburb of Strathfield South that lies south of the Cooks River and the parts of several suburbs that lie west of the A3 road.
Another customary definition of the Inner West is by local government areas. In this customary definition, the Inner West Council, City of Canada Bay, the Municipality of Strathfield and the Municipality of Burwood make up the Inner West. This definition is sometimes used in local government administrative contexts. This definition excludes the innermost suburbs that are within the City of Sydney council area and southern suburbs that are within the City of Canterbury-Bankstown, but includes some suburbs that lie outside the above definitions but are within the Municipality of Strathfield.
Commercial sources, especially in the real estate context, sometimes refer to suburbs that are not in any of the definitions above as being in the Inner West. For example, Beaconsfield is variously considered part of inner city, Eastern Suburbs or inner south Sydney, but is also sometimes referred as part of the Inner West. Likewise, Wentworth Point is part of Greater Western Sydney by any of the above definitions, separated from the Inner West by Sydney Olympic Park and the waters of Homebush Bay, and is normally considered part of that region in administrative contexts, but is sometimes referred to as part of the Inner West.
The contested meaning of the term "Inner West" is itself considered a cultural phenomenon in Sydney: in reference to this, Michael Koziol, the Sydney editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, has written humorously that "the inner west is a state of mind".
Based on the above definitions and the former distribution area of the Inner West Courier local newspaper, the Inner West generally includes the suburbs:
Other suburbs sometimes referred to as being in the Inner West, especially in commercial contexts, include:

Indigenous land

Prior to the arrival of the First Fleet, the Sydney region was home to the Darug people. This nation was broken up into a number of Aboriginal clans who tended to live in a certain geographic area. Each clan contained about 50 to 100 people and, to avoid genetic problems, the men would marry women from other clans. So the clans were interrelated and members from one clan would frequently travel in the territory of others, including to hunt, trade and perform ceremonies. They didn't consider themselves owners of the land, rather custodians.
What is now the Inner West was formerly home to two clans, the Cadigal, whose land stretched along Port Jackson from South Head to Lewisham, and the Wangal, whose land was immediately to the west of the Cadigals and stretched to about Homebush Bay. Other clans that would have been regular visitors to the area would have included the Birrabirragal and Muru-ora-dial in what is now the Eastern Suburbs, the Bediagal and Kameygal from the Cooks River area to the south, the Burramattagal from the Parramatta area to the west, and the Wallumattagal, Cammeraigal and Gorualgal from the northern shores of the Parramatta River.

European arrival

Land grants in the Inner West area began in the late 18th century. By 1814, a stage coach was running between the two major settlements of Sydney and Parramatta, then further west to Richmond. This spurred the development of several settlements along the stage coach route, now Parramatta Road. A number of the large land grants in the area were subdivided for commercial and residential development, such as Ashfield Park in 1838. The construction of the Main Suburban railway line in 1855 spurred further development, especially at the original stations of Newtown, Ashfield, Burwood and Homebush. Many of the original land grants in the area were subdivided for commercial and residential development in the decades following the arrival of the railway, such as the Village of Homebush in 1878. The colony's elite - politicians, judges, industrialists and businessmen - began to build grand homes in the "outer" parts of the Inner West, such as the Arnott family and the family of David Jones, who built various homes in Strathfield.
As a result of population growth, local governments formed in the area in the 19th century, such as the Municipality of Newtown in 1862, the Municipality of Petersham, the Municipality of Leichhardt and the Municipality of Ashfield in 1871, the Municipality of Burwood in 1874, the Municipality of Concord in 1883 and the Municipality of Strathfield in 1885.
During the last quarter of the 19th century, Sydney's tram network expanded into the Inner West, and continued expanding into the early 20th century, eventually serving almost all of the Inner West, as far afield as Cabarita, Enfield and Canterbury.
In 1895, a suburban railway line was built, branching from the Illawarra railway line at Sydenham, which provided access to the railway for suburbs in the south of the Inner West, such as Marrickville and Dulwich Hill.