Now, the strip threatens to become nothing more than a destination for late night, violent drunken behaviour. This is at a time when both the City of Sydney and N.S.W. Government are desperately trying to curb late night, alcohol fuelled violence.

There are both external and internal factors causing this decline.

Externally, as Sydney (and many cities around the world) work to push cars from the streets, the suburban shopping malls and their thousands of free parking spaces naturally attract customers. Couple this with the sad efforts of Tourism NSW since the 2000 Olympics and the City of Sydney's myopic focus on marketing only Sydney's CBD and you have a picture where Sydney City's non CBD precincts are slowly being drained of daytime life.

This is a major issue for the entire city and solving it will require a concerted effort by all levels of government.

The very first thing that needs to happen is the recognition that government has a pivotal role to play in nurturing and promoting Main Street shopping districts as these are the places that give a city its character, its personality and is what actually attracts people to International cities - not the latest Zara chain or Darling Harbour. This is not interference in markets, this is the protection of the character and amenity of Sydney against the unstoppable forces of globalisation and the internet.

Internally, a rather large cultural shift has left Oxford Street vulnerable to the general lack of visitation. This, a sad lack of strategic vision, a poorly managed infrastructure upgrade that turned Lower Oxford Street into a six-lane highway and the abysmally managed Council owned properties have all helped to push Oxford Street closer to becoming solely a night time economy.

The problems and some potential solutions are set out more detail in the following pages (use navigation bar above). By no means does this site pretend to have all the answers, but the conversation needs to happen.