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  Downturn - The Trouble with Oxford
 

An important cultural factor in the downturn of Oxford Street has been the exodus of the gay and lesbian community. As homosexuality became normalised in Sydney, large parts of the community centered on Oxford Street dispersed.

While a considerable core has remained, homophobic and antisocial behaviours make the street a dangerous place and most locals shun it after dark.

Essentially, the social glue that once held the strip together has been diminished. Once this happened, another factor came into play: the border issue.

It is simply that Oxford Street has been allowed to become a divide. It is the boundary between Kings Cross and Surry Hills Police Commands. It is the dividing line between the suburbs of Surry Hills and Darlinghurst and it was where South Sydney Council stopped and City of Sydney Council began.

These factors conspired to place Oxford Street on no one's map; no one's agenda and under no one's care. We did not so much fall through the cracks as become one.


Unfortunately, the amalgamation of the two councils in 2003 did not do much to help. Through what was essentially a bureaucratic oversight, the council broke Sydney into seven Local Action Plans (LAPS) which once again cast Oxford Street as a boundary. The LAPs were then replaced internally with Activity Hubs, which placed the heart of Lower Oxford Street in Paddington - something that any local knows is just plain wrong.

To be fair, some elements within council have privately admitted the problems surround the LAPs and the city is starting to push the notion of the Oxford Street Cultural Quarter - a ham fisted, top-down, generic & nebulous project that none of the locals really understand.

Even so, the City of Sydney's Residents' Guides still split the Inner East along Oxford Street and more seriously, community meetings are still held according to these 'soft borders', with the effect that none of them concern themselves about Lower Oxford Street.
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