Australian cities among most liveable due to their size, say experts | Hacker News Reader

Australian cities among most liveable due to their size, say experts

abc.net.au

3 pointsdcw3036 comments

I strongly disagree with the EIU. I lived in Melbourne for 7 years, and while it may be home of the greatest sport on the planet, saying that it trounces a place like Tokyo in public transport and safety from crime is laughable.

If you want to go out in the CBD, you can come in on rail and switch to trams, but navigating to any specific location outside the 3000 postcode is not fun. Everyone knows you need a car to get around.

And don't even get me started on the violent crimes around pubs and clubs, the number of times you see broken glass and missing windows on cars parked in the streets, or the entire suburbs conquered by the illicit drug trade.

I'd say it really depends on the part of Melbourne you're at. East is the nicest. Northern suburbs (where I'm at) are pretty livable as well. West and Southeast can be dodgy. And I don't have much trouble getting from the Northern Suburbs to work in the Eastern suburbs or around on the weekends without driving. Actually, driving is getting to be much worse than public transport during peak hour.

Good point. I'll walk back my hyperbolic statement a bit and agree that location is important. My statement was mostly from the time I spent around the inner city (North Melbourne, Richmond, St Kilda) - Northcote was was much more comfortable by comparison.

>And don't even get me started on the violent crimes around pubs and clubs, the number of times you see broken glass and missing windows on cars parked in the streets, or the entire suburbs conquered by the illicit drug trade.

This reads like fiction. The crime rate in Melbourne is one of the lowest in the world and apart from the standard drunken violence you find in the CBD Melbourne is an extremely safe city.

Me thinks most people in Melbourne who are surprised by our ranking havn't spent much time in other large developed cities.

I've lived just outside Adelaide, in Canberra and in the suburbs of Melbourne (Elwood then Mentone).

I now live in Thailand, but outside Bangkok.

There is definitely a hard-to-describe size difference - Bangkok as a metro area has half the population of Australia.

Australian cities have nothing to complain about when it comes to traffic. I've sat in the car in Bangkok traffic, and taken an hour to go the final 900m of a journey.

Having said that, some Australian cities are unlivable imo, because they're too "small town".

Visiting Adelaide is like a trip in time back to the 70s when shops all close at 5pm and nothing is open on Sundays.

I live in Sydney and traffic is a nightmare. I want to get out..

Help. Please.

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