Peeking through the green vegetation along the escarpment is the tan Hawkesbury sandstone and lining the blue of the ocean is the golden rock turned to grains along our beaches.

Read more: The future of Wollongong's CBD: Is the only way up?

While the form this rock takes in the Illawarra may be unique, it is the geological thread that ties together the six cities region of the Illawarra-Shoalhaven, Sydney, the Central Coast and Newcastle.

First outlined in late 2021, the sandstone mega region of six cities - the Illawarra-Shoalhaven, the three Sydney cities, the Central Coast and Newcastle and the Hunter - has become Premier Dominic Perrotet and Infrastructure and Cities minister Rob Stokes preferred way to outline the future of Sydney and its satellite cities, and how the region will compete with global centres of capital.

It's a vision that ties together the six cities with fast rail to enable workers in each of the regions to reach the high-paying, knowledge-intensive jobs in the Sydney CBDs, while providing relief for the Sydney housing market.

What this means for Wollongong, in particular, is an additional 10,000 dwellings by 2036, according to projections completed for the Committee for Sydney think tank in 2018.

The form that this housing may take is still up for debate.

In a speech to business and political leaders in June, Mr Stokes outlined the type of housing he would like to see in Wollongong would be akin to Paris or Barcelona, with buildings between four to six storeys.

The Illawarra's current housing pipeline includes thousands of single storey dwellings in the West Dapto urban release areas and high rise buildings up to 100 metres in the Wollongong CBD.

Jeremy Gill, principle and partner at SGS Economics and Planning, which was involved in the housing projections used by the Committee for Sydney, said that Wollongong would need to confront the "missing middle" of medium density housing, something that other cities in the six cities region would also have to tackle.

"It's not just either an apartment or a detached housing approach, but there is a diversity, and a diversity of tenure types," he said.

This diversity would include social and affordable housing, housing for essential workers in health and education, and apartments for workers with space for working from home, as well as detached housing.

What would make or break this future urban development, would not be so much the height or style of buildings, but the amenities and services that serve the local population, and providing connections to employment.

"Having high rise apartments in a centre isn't a bad thing, you're putting people close to public transport and services, and all those sorts of things, as long as services are provided for appropriately in terms of the amount of them," Mr Gill said.

How to achieve this will be the focus of planners, politicians and the community, with the Greater Cities Commission now on the hunt for regional commissioners to help shape the guiding plan for the Sandstone Mega Region.

Mr Gill said an eventual plan would need to speak to the needs of local communities, as much as the broader mega region.

"It's a top down and bottom up approach to meet in the middle."

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