• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

That's Melbourne, 5 years running world's most liveable city.

Status
Not open for further replies.
K

Komo

Banned
hamchan said:
Living in Sydney I sure envy how Melbourne city is organized in a grid fashion. Sydney is a huge mess in comparison.
Click to expand...

Yeah, grid cities are fantastic.

Is it just me or is Sydney really small in comparison to other major cities? Maybe it just feels that way because I've seen so much of it
 
H

H.Protagonist

[-_-]/
Darren870 said:
Err yea, I even try to get deals by buying directly from the Brewery and they still want $20-25 for a 6-pack :(. I do miss the east coast beer and how cheap it was. I really need to go back to the US and check out some of the breweries

London's micro brew scene was horrible actually. Besides a select few there it was always fullers or young's pubs.

Wine is great here though, 100% agree with that. Though Cali does have nice wine too.

Yea, groceries can sting. We go to Costco for staples and really have to shop in season or for discounts. I feel like we've gotten it under control, but man the first few months here I was pulling out my hair. My diet definitely changed pretty fast when I got here and found the cost of things. Maybe I'm just used to the prices now....
Click to expand...

Right? Even so-so beer is at least $18 a pack here. ;_;

Grocery-wise, we still don't have a handle on things. We don't buy anything extravagant, I try to base meals off of whatever's on sale, and our only vice is nice coffee, but we are over budget every month, it seems. :/ I even make our bread from scratch now to cut down costs. You're killin' me, Australia*!

*So what you're saying is we should get a Costco membership?


Mr_Moogle said:
I like how Adelaide seems to consistently rank 5th most livable city and yet most Australians who don't live there seem to think it's like Sierra Leone or something.
Click to expand...

I love Adelaide. My husband's family lives there, and it just has a really nice feel to it. Definitely more country, but I think it's a great place to live/raise kids. Public transport could be improved a bit, though.
 
Shpeshal Nick

Shpeshal Nick

aka Collingwood
SPE said:
Fuck yeah, Melbourne!

First came to Melbourne just over a decade ago from the UK. Chose Melbourne over Sydney on a whim. Had no knowledge about the place. Couldn't even point to it on a map. Instantly fell in love with the place. It's the single greatest city I've ever lived in.

I knew straight away that I wanted Melbourne to me be my home. Since then, have been to most of the other major cities in Australia, and while they each have their pros and cons, Melbourne reigns as King.

It's pretty. It's cultured. It's safe. It's dynamic. It's diverse. The job market has always been vibrant. The food is phenomenal. The surrounding countryside is stunning. The perfect city to raise a family in. Now have two kids born here, and their life growing up in this city will be so awesome.

Hey GAF, you should move to Melbourne. It's the best.
Click to expand...

Love this post.
 
C

CLEEK

Member
commish said:
The point remains that a person will feel more comfortable in a place that has other people like him.
Click to expand...

If you live in Melbourne, you will be surrounded by people who look like you. It's not like you only see white faces.

I'd also say that Australia as a nation has a problem with racism, fuelled by federal politics and the endless anti-immigration peddling of the Liberal party and Murdock media.

Melbourne as a city doesn't. It's an incredible harmonious place to live.
 
Q

qcf x2

Member
SPE said:
Such a stupid statement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Melbourne

For example, my office has around 120 people working here. The vast majority born outside of Australia, and moved here as immigrants (myself included). On the last culture day at work, we found out we have over 40 nationalities represented.

Viewing people's ethnicity as 'white' or 'non-white' is such an American viewpoint. Melbourne has huge populations of Greeks, Italians, Jews, British, Kiwis, all with their own cultural differences. You can't lump them all together as 'white'. Melbourne's Chinatown is the oldest Chinatown in the World, and you have people from all throughout Asia calling Melbourne as home.
Click to expand...

Nationality isn't race, and that has nothing to do w/ America. Race is race, nationality is a completely different thing. There are prejudices against both, but to act like they're the same is wrong.

Like several other posters I assume, I checked the first post, looked at the pics, saw 100% white people in all of them. I can't say Melbourne is this or isn't that because I've never been there, but those pics do a poor job of representing the supposed multicultural aspect and fail to convince me of the city's awesomeness. Just my 2 cents.
 
T

ThoseDeafMutes

Member
commish said:
The point remains that a person will feel more comfortable in a place that has other people like him.
Click to expand...

The peculiarity is that people in some countries will think of say, southern Italians and Scandinavian peoples as basically being in the same club despite not really looking remotely similar. It's the one thing that always strikes me as weird, the enormous ethnic diversity in the nebulous group that is "white people". I imagine that Australia is closer to the old skool Euro racism of "the wogs begin at Calais" than America is.
 
T

toastyToast

Member
Melbourne is pretty great. Don't know if I'll be able to buy anything here by the time I decide to get into the housing market though.
 
Y

yepyepyep

Member
qcf x2 said:
Nationality isn't race, and that has nothing to do w/ America. Race is race, nationality is a completely different thing. There are prejudices against both, but to act like they're the same is wrong.

Like several other posters I assume, I checked the first post, looked at the pics, saw 100% white people in all of them. I can't say Melbourne is this or isn't that because I've never been there, but those pics do a poor job of representing the supposed multicultural aspect and fail to convince me of the city's awesomeness. Just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...

Melbourne CBD is nowhere close to a sea of white people. 68% of people who live in the actual city are migrants and the highest growth in the last decade has been Indian and Chinese migrants.
 
C

chicko1983

Member
these people from overseas saying that Melbourne is not ethnically diverse without ever going there, smh....

I am from Adelaide so I am biased its the best city in the best country on earth.

However, if I had to chose somewhere else to live, it would be Melbourne.
 
C

CLEEK

Member
ThoseDeafMutes said:
I imagine that Australia is closer to the old skool Euro racism of "the wogs begin at Calais" than America is.
Click to expand...

Yeah, for sure. I think part of the reason American's view race as a white vs non-white thing is due to geography. As I'm from England, whenever I travelled to another European country, you can clearly see the physical differences with different nationalities. French people look French, Italians look Italian and so on. This is obviously changing now due to multiculturalism throughout Europe.

Australia being a British colony means it has the same hangover around how different ethnicities are viewed. Being 'white' doesn't mean anything. Anglo Saxon vs the rest is at the heart of it.
 
B

bigjig

Member
Mr_Moogle said:
I like how Adelaide seems to consistently rank 5th most livable city and yet most Australians who don't live there seem to think it's like Sierra Leone or something.
Click to expand...

Adelaide gets shit on a lot for being boring, but it's like a smaller, less expensive version of Melbourne. Lots of festivals and events, nice cafes and pubs and wine, not to mention the beautiful (less crowded) beaches along Glenelg/Brighton. You miss out on some international acts that only visit the eastern seaboard, but other than that it's a pretty great place to live.
 
Darren870

Darren870

Member
H.Protagonist said:
Right? Even so-so beer is at least $18 a pack here. ;_;

Grocery-wise, we still don't have a handle on things. We don't buy anything extravagant, I try to base meals off of whatever's on sale, and our only vice is nice coffee, but we are over budget every month, it seems. :/ I even make our bread from scratch now to cut down costs. You're killin' me, Australia*!

*So what you're saying is we should get a Costco membership?
Click to expand...

Yea, that's what we do also. Minus the making bread. I've probably become a more diverse cook since that's how we shop now.

Egh, even Costco here is more expensive! It probably be worth just having a look in and seeing if its worth it. I find that if you find a sale at Wollies or Coles its often about the same price as Costco, but in general its always cheaper. Around Aldi prices just better quality. Except Capsicum, those things fluctuate so much in price I can't wrap my head around it.

I miss eating like 1/2 pound of blueberries for $5. You are lucky if you can get 100 grams of blueberries here for that much.

SPE said:
The simple fact that Australian history is shaped by racism towards 'wogs', e.g. people from Southern Europe who are white, but noticeably distinct from Anglo Saxon whites, shows that this isn't the case. Prejudice doesn't start and end with skin pigmentation. Otherwise Jewish/Irish history etc would be entirely different.

The Us vs Them at the heart of racism comes down to differences between groups. Be that purely physically, or purely culturally, or a mix of the two.
Click to expand...

What would a Pommie know? Haha, god, I Iove that word.

But yea, I agree with you. Melbourne really sets the bar high for the rest of Australia. Very progressive city on multiple fronts.
 
J

jambo

Member
Melbourne is pretty good yo, always love visiting friends and family.

bigjig said:
Adelaide gets shit on a lot for being boring, but it's like a smaller, less expensive version of Melbourne. Lots of festivals and events, nice cafes and pubs and wine, not to mention the beautiful (less crowded) beaches along Glenelg/Brighton. You miss out on some international acts that only visit the eastern seaboard, but other than that it's a pretty great place to live.
Click to expand...

One problem with the festivels and events here is the whole Mad March thing. So much stuff squished in to a short period, with big chunks of the year being rather quiet.

Adelaide Fringe
Adelaide Festival of Arts
Writers Week
WOMAD
Clipsal 500
Adelaide Cup

It's an amazing time to visit Adelaide though.

We need a similar grouping in Sept/Oct to balance it out.
 
B

bigjig

Member
jambo said:
Melbourne is pretty good yo, always love visiting friends and family.



One problem with the festivels and events here is the whole Mad March thing. So much stuff squished in to a short period, with big chunks of the year being rather quiet.

Adelaide Fringe
Adelaide Festival of Arts
Writers Week
WOMAD
Clipsal 500
Adelaide Cup

It's an amazing time to visit Adelaide though.

We need a similar grouping in Sept/Oct to balance it out.
Click to expand...

Yep, I remember going to an outdoor Ennio Morriconi concert and they were bloody still racing the V8s around the city circuit smh. Took a call from the mayor attending the concert to get them to shut up lol
 
H

H.Protagonist

[-_-]/
Schryver said:
What about those killer spiders?
Click to expand...

That's why Adelaide isn't top dog. You can't even dry your face in the morning without the towels teeming with baby Huntsmans.

ys3Oje9.jpg
 
P

pupcoffee

Member
In my opinion this misses what's actually rich about Melbourne - the suburbs. The CBD is merely a HUB for all the suburbs.

Don't get me wrong, the CBD tries hard to be a good HUB with its festivals and things, but the real cultural diversity of Melbourne is found only in the family homes. Nothing I've experienced in the CBD comes close to the experiences of actually visiting the suburban home of someone with a different background or ethnicity. The CBD has failed to house that cultural diverse magic. Even noteworthy Aboriginal bloggers/speakers dislike the Aboriginal stuff that goes on in Melbourne because it seems to them as something more for "white people." That's how all the "culturally diverse" stuff in the CBD feels to me. You have to get out of the CBD to find the real stuff. Visit an orthodox church in the Northern Subhurbs. Live in Sunshine and have Vietnamese neighbours who knock on your door, holding food, out of sheer love thy neighbour spirit.

AFL - perhaps one of the most important centres of culture in Melbourne - has its soul in the suburbs, too. It's amazing to me that many teams of our national sport represent what are basically small neighbourhoods.

And, of course, Melbournians love to talk about Melbourne's suburbs. Frankston is a long, long way away from where I live yet its lore and reputation is relevant here, somehow.
 
L

Lucian Cat

Kissed a mod for a tag; liked it
I love Melbourne. Would move there in a heartbeat. Probably will in a few years. Living in the 5th best city will have to do me for now. Though I have no idea why it's so high, there's literally nothing to do here.
 
B

bomma_man

Member
doofy102 said:
In my opinion this misses what's actually rich about Melbourne - the suburbs. The CBD is merely a HUB for all the suburbs.

Don't get me wrong, the CBD tries hard to be a good HUB with its festivals and things, but the real cultural diversity of Melbourne is found only in the family homes. Nothing I've experienced in the CBD comes close to the experiences of actually visiting the suburban home of someone with a different background or ethnicity. The CBD has failed to house that cultural diverse magic. Even noteworthy Aboriginal bloggers/speakers dislike the Aboriginal stuff that goes on in Melbourne because it seems to them as something more for "white people." That's how all the "culturally diverse" stuff in the CBD feels to me. You have to get out of the CBD to find the real stuff. Visit an orthodox church in the Northern Subhurbs. Live in Sunshine and have Vietnamese neighbours who knock on your door, holding food, out of sheer love thy neighbour spirit.

AFL - perhaps one of the most important centres of culture in Melbourne - has its soul in the suburbs, too. It's amazing to me that many teams of our national sport represent what are basically small neighbourhoods.

And, of course, Melbournians love to talk about Melbourne's suburbs. Frankston is a long, long way away from where I live yet its lore and reputation is relevant here, somehow.
Click to expand...

I love footscrazy too, but this post is hipster af.
 
K

KrisB

Member
jambo said:
Melbourne is pretty good yo, always love visiting friends and family.



One problem with the festivels and events here is the whole Mad March thing. So much stuff squished in to a short period, with big chunks of the year being rather quiet.

Adelaide Fringe
Adelaide Festival of Arts
Writers Week
WOMAD
Clipsal 500
Adelaide Cup

It's an amazing time to visit Adelaide though.

We need a similar grouping in Sept/Oct to balance it out.
Click to expand...
Yup, they really need to spread out the events lol.
Soundwave was on during that period too.
 
Mohonky

Mohonky

Member
Kenshin001 said:
Adelaide is a great place to live if you have had a frontal lobotomy.
Click to expand...

Why?

I've never really understood much of GAF where users are obsessed with having to live in the middle of the city with everything happening, it's nice to be able to just chill.

I've lived in cities (or just outside of) and in small country towns and to be honest I would be happy with either. I havent been to Adelaide but I hear its beautiful.

I loved Perth. Perth is freaking awesome. I'm from Brisbane, its reasonable. Havent done Melbourne but I wasn't a fan of Sydney. Just too big and its a pain in the ass to get anywhere.
 
S

SnowTeeth

Banned
Azurex said:
Yeah, grid cities are fantastic.

Is it just me or is Sydney really small in comparison to other major cities? Maybe it just feels that way because I've seen so much of it
Click to expand...

The CBD, if you don't include North Sydney, is smaller than most other world cities. Greater Sydney however is absolutely massive.
 
Z

_Zento

Member
shink said:
lol what?
Click to expand...

kerotan_eater said:
I don't understand this. Have you been to there? I highly doubt a city can scream multiculturalism anymore than a city like Melbourne.
Click to expand...

SPE said:
Such a stupid statement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Melbourne

For example, my office has around 120 people working here. The vast majority born outside of Australia, and moved here as immigrants (myself included). On the last culture day at work, we found out we have over 40 nationalities represented.

Viewing people's ethnicity as 'white' or 'non-white' is such an American viewpoint. Melbourne has huge populations of Greeks, Italians, Jews, British, Kiwis, all with their own cultural differences. You can't lump them all together as 'white'. Melbourne's Chinatown is the oldest Chinatown in the World, and you have people from all throughout Asia calling Melbourne as home.
Click to expand...

It was more a dig at the lack of ethnic people in any of the people in the OP post really (as a joke). I know Australia has a lot of different ethnicities.

That said though I'm always hearing stories about Australians being a bit racist.
 
Mohonky

Mohonky

Member
_Zento said:
It was more a dig at the lack of ethnic people in any of the people in the OP post really (as a joke). I know Australia has a lot of different ethnicities.

That said though I'm always hearing stories about Australians being a bit racist.
Click to expand...

I personally find the racist schtick to be getting really fucking old, especially when you hear it from Americans that Australia has 'race issues' considering half our population at the very least mixed and 20 percent weren't born here.

Though someone will come along and point out some video somewhere of some dumb bogan being....well a bogan in public, something about boats which our didkhead Prime Minister seems to have a hard on over and then some ramblings about how poorly we treat the indigenous despite them not having a clue what that situation actually is.
 
W

Wellington

BAAAALLLINNN'
I am heading out to Melbourne over Thanksgiving here in the states, I can't wait. If anyone on GAF wants to do an official Melbourne GAF meetup I am in. I can organize it I just don't know any good bars since I am on the complete opposite side of Earth.

I plan on spending a few days there then heading out to cage dive with sharks. Should be a wonderful time.
 
T

TheSecondSpitter

Member
Mohonky said:
IThough someone will come along and point out some video somewhere of some dumb bogan being....well a bogan in public, something about boats which our didkhead Prime Minister seems to have a hard on over and then some ramblings about how poorly we treat the indigenous despite them not having a clue what that situation actually is.
Click to expand...

Which specific video are you referring to
The French woman: (actual footage starts at 1:05, language NSFW)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp6J6PF47CM

the Muslim family that just got off the plane:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPkv3gyoQFM

Or against this "Black c**t":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VCiBSxKR7I

Or the tirade against an Asian woman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sV2blXxREE

That's 'Straya, mate!
 
Darren870

Darren870

Member
Mohonky said:
I personally find the racist schtick to be getting really fucking old, especially when you hear it from Americans that Australia has 'race issues' considering half our population at the very least mixed and 20 percent weren't born here.

Though someone will come along and point out some video somewhere of some dumb bogan being....well a bogan in public, something about boats which our didkhead Prime Minister seems to have a hard on over and then some ramblings about how poorly we treat the indigenous despite them not having a clue what that situation actually is.
Click to expand...

As an American living in Melbourne, I can say the racism in the US is 1000 times worse then Australia on a bad day.

I can't even count the number of times I've seen it in the US, where here it's been literally zero.

I hate it too. Just ignore them, they are just jealous and don't realize how life is much better here :).
 
K

Kenshin001

Member
Mohonky said:
Why?

I've never really understood much of GAF where users are obsessed with having to live in the middle of the city with everything happening, it's nice to be able to just chill.

I've lived in cities (or just outside of) and in small country towns and to be honest I would be happy with either. I havent been to Adelaide but I hear its beautiful.

I loved Perth. Perth is freaking awesome. I'm from Brisbane, its reasonable. Havent done Melbourne but I wasn't a fan of Sydney. Just too big and its a pain in the ass to get anywhere.
Click to expand...

It's boring, full of bogans and it has a parochial small town mentality. I lived in Cairns which is considerably smaller than Adelaide and a great place to chill, but felt it also has a far greater vibrancy.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

I need cultural research help
35
1K
finalflame replied
US cities suck for certain games
49
3K
AmuroChan replied
If you could visit some of your favorite video game cities/towns
36
1K
CliffBronger replied
Captain America: The Winter Soldier remains the best damn MCU film
2
52
3K
DelireMan7 replied
Happy 10th Anniversary to DRIVECLUB!
Event 2 3
108
4K
Same ol G replied
Top Bottom