Between 2011 and 2021, the number of professional artists, writers, musicians and performers living in Greater Sydney shrank by 17% – even as overall employment increased by 20%.

This didn’t happen anywhere else in Australia. On the contrary, most of the other capital cities had growth of artists above the rate of employment.

Among Sydney’s policy makers and art sector, there’s an entrenched belief the decline is specific to the inner city, with increasingly diverse artistic communities migrating out to the western suburbs.

But the data consistently shows the opposite: the artist population fell in all areas of Sydney, becoming less diverse, both racially and economically. And a new survey suggests things are probably getting worse.

I first saw this trend in 2021, analysing data from that year’s census. I wasn’t surprised. Working in the cultural strategy team at the City of Sydney we’d already seen the drop in the 2016 census. Our own research showed a 28% decline in creative spaces – studios, rehearsal rooms, small galleries and venues.

Still, so many people insisted Western Sydney’s creative community was growing that I tried cutting the data in different ways. I always came up with the same results.

As the census only allows you to list one profession, and most artists have day jobs, I also checked the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ participation in select cultural activities data. That shows both........

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