Is your suburb the black sheep of your council area?

Have you got a favourite child? I guarantee your council does – that one suburb where they seem to be pumping all of your rates into. Here’s what to do if you live in the black sheep suburb of your local council.

Have you got a favourite child?

Who is it? It’s OK, you don’t have to say it out loud if your family is around. You can simply email it to me, get it off your chest and mum will be the word.

“Tom, that’s a terrible thing to ask! I love all my children equally,” you might say. Oh really? All of the time? Or is there one you like a little less when they disrupt your Saturday morning sleep-in with a swift kick to the groin? Because I can guarantee when one of my kids pull that kind of stunt while I’m trying to sleep off a big Friday night there’s one I feel at least a little less fondly about for a while.

So you reckon you don’t have a favourite child? Interesting. I guarantee your council does. When it comes to suburbs anyway …

Every council has that one suburb that they look after like this. Which suburb is it in your council area?

Without naming my local government area, there’s one suburb I’m thinking of in particular. It has shops, schools, a traffic hub, sporting facilities, green spaces and for many people it’s a weekend destination. House-wise, it’s beautiful. The hedges are trimmed, the front yards neat and the cars in the driveways largely late-model SUVs.

But it’s what’s in front of those houses that has me irked – the streets. Immaculately maintained. There’s not a paver out of place. Kerbs are mown almost weekly, with council workers taking their time to get the edges looking schmick. The street trees are pruned impeccably and if a maintenance issue needs to be dealt with, I’m told the council are on to it within hours.

If you listen carefully you can hear this council worker whistle Zippity-Doo-Dah as he trims this hedge in one of my council’s prized suburbs.

Then there’s my suburb, which is just a few over from that one. Not a small suburb – we’re talking nearly 7000 residents. We seem to have been forgotten. The footpaths on some of our streets are overgrown. The grass, more than 60cm high, will need to be whippersnipped before it can be mown.

Whereas here you can hear him shouting obsecenities at the sky as he whippersnips my footpath.

The street trees look like they could use a good drink and the asbestos I reported dumped in a nearby park where kids play sat there for more than a week before it was removed. Same council, different approach.

Money clearly talks. Sure, my suburb might not be as prestigious as the other locale (you could argue this is due in part to the council investment in beautifying the more expensive one) but I still live in a nice one. Our median price says I do. I pay council rates just like those in the nicer one do, so why do those in my suburb get treated like second-rate citizens?

Now, I’m not a huge fan of the performance of councils and I’ve been known to drop the F-bomb when they send me a rates notice – the average annual rates bill in SA ranges from $1135 for Port Adelaide Enfield residents to $2267 for Hills residents. This annoyance isn’t because I get nothing for my money – I enjoy going to my local library, taking the kids to the local pool and having my waste collected. It’s because I know so much of what I pay each year goes to making life better for those at the top end of town.

This whole ‘council favouring its elite suburbs at the expense of its black sheep suburbs’ idea can get right in the bin. Confusingly, our yellow bins are for recycling, not garbage as shown above. They are in my council area anyway. Whatever colours you have in your area, make sure you put that school of thought in the rubbish bin, not recycling.

But I can see why the council does it. It’s about getting a return on investment. Spend the money where it can be seen and save it where it’s not.

My council doesn’t stand alone in this regard. It’s something I’m certain is prevalent in many areas. I’m sure each council has a favourite child.

So which is it in yours? And why aren’t you on the phone demanding the same sort of love the nicer suburbs are getting? You’re paying for it. Heck, you’re paying for theirs too …

Most parents will tell you they love their children equally. It’s time our councils started showing it.

And now, having vented my spleen for the week, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to bed to enjoy a lovely, hopefully uninterrupted, sleep-in.