Professor Peter Rees, an international planning expert, has cautioned about dispersing jobs to suburban centres. Credit:Geoff Howden Photography Professor Rees, who on Monday was a guest speaker at a forum on developing the area around Sydney's Central train station, cautioned against dispersing jobs to suburban centres like Parramatta saying it would create congestion. The improvement of public transport links to and from the CBD should instead be the priority. "What I'm saying is the last thing you should do is divide up your CBD and just stick it all over the place," Professor Rees said. "People will get a job, get a home nearby, get a better job somewhere else and they won't move [homes]," he said.

Professor Peter Rees once said the Parramatta CBD was "sweltering in the sun and not very successful". Workers would then be left driving across Sydney to get to their new jobs in another suburban centre. "That means the only way to get to work is by car so your city will come to a halt," he said. The comments cut across the planning rhetoric of the state government, which has promoted the development of employment centres in Liverpool, Parramatta and Penrith and is moving thousands of public servants out of the Sydney CBD. While Professor Rees said he had not visited Parramatta for several years, when he last did he was "rather surprised to find a mini-CBD sweltering in the sun and not being very successful".

Suburban centres needed employment, he said, but it should revolve around small business start-ups and back offices rather than major companies or innovative and creative industries. "It's no good thinking Parramatta will be a slice of central Sydney. I can think of lots of people around the world who could be offered 12 months working in Sydney and they would say 'yeah!' and I bet they wouldn't be thinking of working in Parramatta," Professor Rees, who now works at the University College London, said. "I'm not having a go at Parramatta, I'm using Parramatta as an example of suburban centres and their limitations." Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue Chairman Chris Brown said Professor Rees' approach would leave people in western Sydney facing long commutes to reach good jobs. "That is the kind of stupid planning that has gone on for the past 200 years and it has failed. While obviously some jobs will centre in the CBD we won't stand around and let western Sydney be condemned to back office jobs," Mr Brown said.

Sydney Business Chamber executive Patricia Forsythe said there was too much urban sprawl in Sydney to get all workers to and from the CBD every day. The government's development of other employment centres, she said, was recognition of that fact. "I think the bigger challenge is to make sure that we have public transport connections that stretch across Sydney and that's always been a challenge," she said. Planning Minister Rob Stokes said Sydney had historically been a polycentric city, with multiple city centres providing local jobs. "Creating jobs close to where people live helps the public avoid long commutes, so they spend less time travelling and more time with their family and friends," the minister said.