Barangaroo: Sydney's hot new district

Sydney

IT'S almost impossible to think the Sydney Opera House, which receives more than eight million visitors each year, could ever be outdone by anything else on Sydney Harbour. But take a five-minute taxi ride west of the harbour's iconic bridge, and you'll find Barangaroo, a new waterfront development that's proving to be quite the competitor.

At 22 hectares, Barangaroo is about half the size of Vatican City - a former wasteland in the middle of the city that's now filled with restaurants, shops, offices, residential buildings, and a gleaming urban park. It's one of Sydney's largest and most ambitious regeneration developments since the 2000 Olympics, with a US$6 billion price tag that the New South Wales government has justified in the name of sustainable urban renewal.