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Melbourne - worth living in?

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It's Snake Pliskin

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21 April 2005
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Hello,

I would like to know what the city of Melbourne is like to live in in current times. I have been there a few times and really like the city compared to Sydney.

What are the suburbs of Sandringham and Brighton like? Are they expensive, dirty, crime ridden or anything else?

What is transport like? What are the infrastructure and services like?
 
I ´m biased, Melbourne is home.

But I have also lived in Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Darwin, Albury...

Favourite place to live has been Cronulla. It ´s a riot of a time there!

On Melbourne, depends on your lifestyle to where you would like to live so can ´t comment.

I last lived in Fitzroy for 2 years and I will be going back there. It ´s a bit of a younger persons party suburb, if that ´s your thing. Heap of bars, restaurants, cafe ´s, parks and gardens nearby, and you can walk to the city.

 
I've lived in Perth, Brisbane, The Gold Coast and Melbourne, and visited Sydney heaps.

If I was ever forced, kicking and screaming to go back to Oz, it would be Inner Suburbs/Melbourne City.

Cosmopolitan, relatively safe, cultured, you get seasons....

Outer suburbs are crap mostly until you get out to Mornington Peninsula, The Dandenongs and around Mt Macedon.

Brighton is pretty highbrow, nice spot, if you like keeping up with the Jones'.
 
YES! I live in the CBD and love it; trams at my front door, trains a very short walk, chinatown & lygon street close by, plenty of pubs, walk to the 'G' for the footy & cricket, art & culture abound, plenty of good looking and *ahem* friendly girls

m.
 
Great place to live and bring up a family. My wife is a beautician and many of her clients have moved here from Queensland wanting to bring up their families especially those with daughters. In my line of work I meet a lot of professionals who have moved from Sydney, they appreciate the quality of life here. A multicultural society which blends into an Aussie one without the segragation seen elsewhere. Great food, footy, day trips, sport, education, roads, fishing, politics, relatively safe (no gangs other than the real Soprano's) and all in a compact consistant package. So if you love diversity then Melbourne is the place to be.
 
I think so. Have lived in many cities great & small, picturesque & full of vitality, all exhuberating their own charm. Yet none have that special something Melbourne seems to posses, or maybe they do & I'm just feeling very proud & patriotic after recently arriving back home.
 
We have the best cafe's, the best band scene in Australia and the best sporting facilities. Roads are on the mend, public transport is cr*p and you need to travel to get to the beaches.

I have lived in Balwyn, Canterbury, Fitzroy, Fitzroy North and now Fairfield. Inner city is better if you are younger; the 'burbs in the east are little bastions of the Mother Country and you cannot get a house in Balwayn now for under a million.

What I like best about Melbourne is there is no quintessential Melburnian - it is a melting pot of all the nations of the world.

Would I live elsewhere in Oz? Probably yes to Hobart and maybe to Sydney.

Now for the caveat - the weather is schizophrenic, the drivers are aggressive and we seem to be having an emerging issue with blockhead violence in the City after dark. Also housing affordability and rental supply are at all time lows.
 

To answer your specific questions, any of the bayside suburbs Sandringham, Hampton, Black Rock, Brighton tend to be expensive with entry levels in the $800k range. they are all very attractive clean and well serviced with the exception of public transport which tends to be a bit sparse.
Melbourne in general terms can rightfully claim to be the most liveable city in Australia despite some "variations" in daily weather patterns and a pretty average State Government at the moment.
A bit biased and yes I have lived bayside for a few years now.
 
Putting away my bias here (lived in Melborune, Canberra, Sydney & a couple of country towns, and Melbourne is my favourite) it really is a suburb-dependant city. Lifestyle in Brunswick will be completely different to living in St Albans.

Inner city living in Melbourne is fantastic, I share a car with my partner yet rarely drive as everything I need is close at hand, the local music scene is brilliant as are the hidden bars, galleries, resteraunts etc.

Downside is the media's constant need to compare Melbourne to other cities - seriously, if someone is happy where they live, what does it really matter?

BTW, if you tell someone you don't actually follow an AFL team, don't be offended by the blank stares you receive (you would get the same look if you told someone you were conceived by aliens, sport outpaces Christianity as a religeon here).
 

I'm 25 yo. Born and raised in Sandringham/Hampton/Brighton and only moved away from Bayside about 18 months ago....obviously I am a bit biased.

Housing is expensive, however if you go inland a bit it gets more affordable, public transport isn't bad as a train line runs straight through Bayside, it's approx. 15-20 mins to Flinders St station on the train. Bayside is great for families, nice schools, near the beach, plenty of parks, shopping areas and low crime. It's far enough from the city that the traffic isn't bad, but as I said it's only a brief train ride away.

I now live inner city which is awesome. So yeah, if you're young get an inner city apartment, if you have a family and can afford it go for bayside.
 
Melb is fine.

Has the critical mass to be good for jobs and entertainment.

Good affordability and good to get around for its size.

Probably will have some of the best immigration growth for those reasons.

Showing my bias id say not as pretty as places like perth and syd in terms of topography and blue water near the CBD but not a deal breaker.

Main prob for me is climate. After this year's winter Im even wondering if syd is too cold.
 
Thanks everyone for your replies.

I may be a Melbournian at some stage so just getting information.

With regard to rental properties in Fitzroy how expensive is the area? And how expensive is the city centre area?
 
It's Snake Pliskin said:
Thanks everyone for your replies.

I may be a Melbournian at some stage so just getting information.

With regard to rental properties in Fitzroy how expensive is the area? And how expensive is the city centre area?
Click to expand...

Was renting about 12 months ago in Ftizroy North - $1500 pcm for a small 2 bedroom in Batman Street (no jokes - a street near the Empress of Scotchmer Street). Rental market just gets tighter so expect a bit more now. Also there will be a Fitzroy premium attached. Just watch for the housing commissions around crn Gertrude Street and Brunswick Street. Part of the grungy inner city charm no doubt but you probably don't want to live right next door to it.
 
I lived in Melbourne for 27 years. Would I ever move back? no But it's good to visit a few times a year.

Fitzroy and anything inner city is getting more expensive. Brunswick street is definitely the more arty area, but has it's own very unique character. People have been attracted to the area, and many new apartment blocks have sprung up. Now they whinge about the noise/music venues, and the very things that made the area so unique. In some ways that character is being displaced.

There is a lot more to do in the town compared to the rest of Australia, only behind Sydney. Weather sucks ass a lot of the year, meaning you get about 4 months of "good", where you can actually enjoy the outdoor lifestyle there. The rest is iffy. Melbournites hibernate a lot of the year, and on the first sniff of warmth and sunshine swarm around like ants and everything is packed.

The Brighton and Sandringham areas are great for that, in fact all along that strip is great for going for a drive, dine, or riding a bike, walk, swim, etc, but the premium is large.

Public transport is getting very crowded these days compared to even a few years ago, and is completely overstretched. Roads are quite good during non-peak periods, however watch out for those 3km/hr speed cameras, they make driving a chore.

Places like Docklands can find you quite well placed apartments for not too bad a price right next to the city. Mainly due to over-supply a few years ago, but may have evened out by now.
 

Sounds like sour grapes. The number of expats moving back to Melbourne from BrisVegas is ridiculous. No longer is it 4 seasons in a day here and our median rainfall is less than South East Qld's, no longer is it "beautiful one day, perfect the next" in QLD. Melburnians can be found in the cafes, clubs, theatres and restaurants all year round unlike the Gold Coast which is a ghost town for the nine months of the year that we aren't holidaying in it. Got to love the rivalry. Go Melbourne Storm, Cats, Dogs, Hawks, Saints and Magpies
 
"Snake Pliskin" for some reason strikes me more as a Sydney name!
 
Capital cities annual average rainfall (this data is a bit old, 1960 - 1990, but still a reasonable indication)

Adelaide 552 mm
Hobart 626 mm
Canberra 629 mm
Melbourne 659 mm
Perth 870 mm
Brisbane 1150 mm
Sydney 1226 mm
Darwin 1814 mm

So Melbourne is relatively dry by Australian city standards. Melbourne does however have the lowest sunshine hours of any of these cities - 5.5 hours per day versus 5.8 to 8.5 for the rest. There's a lot of cloud and fog isn't uncommon which blocks the sun.

As for the speed cameras, you are joking right? 3 km/h is half walking speed. Surely Melbourne doesn't really have 3 km/h speed limits anywhere with cameras to enforce them? Surely not...
 

The lowest number of sunshine hours might explain why Victoria has the largest number of snow resorts in Australia, more than double the rest of the country combined.

3 km/h speed cameras= cynicism
we do have 40km/h speed limits in front of all schools before students arrive and again when they leave, this has seen a great reduction in the number of students involved in accidents.
 
Just move to Ballarat.

Communte every day by train 55mins to Spencer Street

affordable and you get more bang for your buck.

We moved here a year ago from South Yarra and would never move back.

 
3km/hr leeway.. it's ridiculous. You spend more time watching your speedo than you do the road. Anyhow, enough of that.

It's probably not the rainfall, mainly the average temperature that is quite different. Again, that's a personal thing. Some people say they like Melbourne because it's cooler weather.

Sour grapes? pft.. I chose where I wanted to live and I think I'm in the best position to know whether I'm happy or not with that decision. I visit regularly by choice, but after many years I know I'm happier here.

Anyhow, this is turning into rivalry. Everybody has their own perspective, that was mine
 
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