It was a paddock – nothing but grass and trees as far as the eye could see. But plans for this land at Luddenham in western Sydney envisioned a very different future: Sydney’s version of Silicon Valley.

Located just three kilometres north of the new Western Sydney Airport, the $5 billion mixed-use city known as Sydney Science Park would provide more than 12,000 jobs, 3400 homes, a STEM school, laboratories, research facilities and more than 80 hectares of open space.

The plans were approved in 2016, a sod-turning ceremony took place in 2018, and another in 2021, yet the rest of the land remains almost exactly as it appeared when planning began in 2011: a paddock, except for the addition of a water recycling hub.

By 2027, a sparkling new Luddenham metro station will sit on the edge of

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