Sometimes you get out in the streets...

If you read Isabella Kwai and Besha Rodell’s piece about Sydney’s struggle over nightlife and the lockout laws, you’ll meet a wide array of Sydneysiders talking about what kind of city they want.

Their views on when government should intervene and when it should not are by no means universal, but the debate raises interesting questions about the way a local issue can feed into a sense of national and international identity.

Does Sydney want to be a big global city like New York or Hong Kong where anything goes (at least in some places) and officialdom reacts to trouble as it emerges? Or does it want to prioritize prevention, safety and perhaps the calmer quality of life found in smaller cities?

There are some who clearly want the latter, and who expect government to hold the line on everything from drinking to population growth. But as was the case with the argument over the Everest advertising on the Opera House, there is also a surging constituency in Sydney that’s tired of business as usual.

They want government to reconsider how things work. They are the ones who (as we wrote last weekend) also tipped the Liberal Party in Wentworth.