Life in the ’burbs
The Age asked Melburnians to write about their suburb, whether the cliches about it are true and how life there has changed in recent years.
Opinion
My suburb used to be a country town that looked down on its neighbours
The country town feel of our suburb still survives, even if we’re surrounded by sprawl instead of farmland these days.
- by Clancy Briggs
Opinion
Hands off, Camberwell: Melbourne’s most charming cinema is ours, not yours
My suburb’s stereotype is Lululemon, accountants and lawyers, with a lot of “Where are your kids at school?” There’s also the case of an inter-suburban theft.
- by Sarah Moller
Opinion
The parks in my valley suburb are great – but there’s a grim reason why
Cyclists and walkers can easily find relief from the inner city in my suburb’s walking tracks, which overlook the neighbourhood’s biggest misfortune.
- by Chris Poropat
Opinion
My tiny offshoot suburb is just like Coburg – but boring
I tell myself that we made a very canny investment when we moved here. But the only reason was because we’d been priced out everywhere else.
- by David Clements
Opinion
My suburb likes to hide its identity. Even our most famous building is misplaced
After coming up in the world, my suburb would love to build a moat around ourselves. Instead, we keep people out with a welcomed level crossing and plethora of speed bumps.
- by Cara Waters
Opinion
My suburb has a bad reputation, but buzzes with the energy of those making a second start
If you watched the recent Q&A filmed in my suburb, you’d think our area was little more than crime gangs, cultural ghettos and “white flight”.
- by Rhonda Garad
Opinion
My shabby suburb was once at the cutting edge. Now, it is filled with hard rubbish
I call my suburb retro chic, but others say it is shabby and tired. Change here is rapid, but one thing is certain - if you let go of your trolley in the Coles supermarket in Dorset Square it’ll go rogue.
- by Everard Himmelreich
Opinion
A notorious YouTuber came looking for trouble in my suburb – but we surprised him
I understand why Spanian stopped by during his tour of the world’s “most dangerous and notorious neighbourhoods”. The video he shot revealed who we really are.
- by Stefan Koomen
Opinion
My suburb was like a dozy old uncle. And then it discovered designer threads
When I told a snobbish friend I had found a small but affordable house, I was firmly instructed to tell everyone it was actually in Ormond.
- by Linda Himmelfarb
Opinion
I left Melbourne’s inner city to live on the fringe and found exactly what I needed
I’ve found a nurturing environment for my children. But like many locals in newer suburbs, I’m concerned about transport problems and access to services such as healthcare.
- by Shemsiya Waritu
Opinion
My suburb might be boring, but walking the streets is an extreme sport
Our streets have seen countless broken wrists and scraped knees, with many locals familiar with the thrill of fanging downhill on what are arguably suburban Melbourne’s steepest streets.
- by Joe Comer
Opinion
My suburb fought so hard to stay off the radar that Melburnians can’t even get its name right
It’s nice to live in a suburb that is just somewhere people are happy to live. We’ve got one cafe, one convenience store and two churches – and the only residential tower is a retirement village.
- by Ben Ruse
Opinion
Once beautiful but neglected: My ‘Cinderella’ suburb is Melbourne’s mid-century belle
My parents’ first date in the 1950s was at a party in my now home suburb. The area was popular at the time with creative types such as writers, artists, actors, fashion designers.
- by Fiona Austin
Opinion
If Carlton North and Footscray had a love child, it would look like my suburb
The contrasts of my suburb are never more evident than at spring carnival time, when hordes of the well-heeled gatecrash the neighbourhood.
- by Noel Newell
Opinion
My suburb is so defiantly untrendy, it feels like even the Bunnings is trying to escape
There’s no ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ around here – people quietly go about living their lives in a landscape of benign suburban sameness.
- by Marisa Mowszowski
Opinion
Grandma said my suburb was for ‘poor people’. Now it’s one of Melbourne’s most expensive
When we moved here, Grandma couldn’t understand why my parents wouldn’t buy somewhere nice, like Glen Waverley.
- by Isabel Robinson
Opinion
I moved from the trendy inner north to a boring suburb – and it was worth the trade-offs
Now, when I visit suburbs with cachet, I leave feeling that being burdened with that much cultural capital looks exhausting.
- by Justin Buckley
Opinion
My little-known suburb was an inner-city swamp known as ‘Worst Smelbourne’
These days, you can look out over a valley of curved metal for the best industrial sunset view in Melbourne.
- by Kylie Northover
Opinion
There’s much more to my suburb than gangsters and footballer’s wives
My neighbourhood is considered one of the posher western suburbs – but an element of the underworld makes it an interesting proposition.
- by Kerrie O'Brien
Opinion
A fight over a mural has put a frog in my suburb’s throat
My suburb has witnessed school closures and division over elevating the train station. It’s now united but conscious of over-development and a nearby shopping centre’s sprawl.
- by Mary-Jane Boughen
Opinion
A monstrosity looms over my suburb. Yet, it’s hard to beat as the place to live
In some suburbs, you’d find irritated locals fighting tooth and nail to have this monstrosity removed. In my suburb, many fought to have it heritage listed.
- by Lawrie Bradly
Opinion
My suburb is a woke, lefty haven. It may also be Melbourne’s whitest
When Peter Dutton takes aim at “woke inner-city elites”, he means people in my suburb, where all children (or wokelings) are fluent in Welcome To Country.
- by Tom Ormonde
Opinion
My village may be tiny but you can still get a latte every 165 metres
Our little community sits at the point where concrete suburbia meets bushland. And like all good frontier communities, we make our own rules.
- by Rosie Beaumont
Opinion
My suburb once had 98 pubs. These days, you’re more likely to bump into a ‘nana trolley’
With a “pub on every corner” during the gold rush, my neighbourhood is now a source of amusement for suburban workmates.
- by Ella Hamilton
Coles, Myer, Ansett: In my suburb, these weren’t brands. They were our neighbours
My suburb’s luminaries were regularly seen picking up their milk supplies in their Rolls-Royces, while locals told the time by spotting a tycoon in his private helicopter.
- by Jon McMillan
Opinion
My big hug of a suburb never wants for anything. Who cares if it’s boring and bland?
My suburb’s secret sauce is its solidity. What the younger me saw as boring and bland, I now recognise as reassuring, comfortable and privileged.
- by Jacquie Byron
Opinion
My unpretentious suburb is such a vast nothingness, it doesn’t even have a stereotype
Maybe Clayton South’s bubble of irrelevancy is its appeal. You can leave the house looking as terrible as you please, without fear of retribution.
- by Maggie Zhou
Opinion
My suburb is Melbourne’s smallest – and no, it’s not the one you think
Even after the Brighton Empire’s annexation, my whole suburb has so far defied the worst of the growth-for-growth’s-sake mindset.
- by Robert James Stove
Opinion
On the mean streets of 1970s Fitzroy, even the trees looked like they wanted to die
The Fitzroy of today – filled with bars, cafes, markets and designer boutiques – was unimaginable. But back then, locals loved the cheap rent and “anything goes” attitude.
- by Justine Costigan
Opinion
In winter, my suburb feels like an abandoned carnival – and that’s its appeal
Aspendale is a sleepy paradise from Monday to Friday, a blip on Nepean Highway on the way to Frankston. But my suburb is transformed on weekends.
- by Jane Lewis
I teased a friend who moved to this daggy suburb. Then I joined her – and fell in love
After a fruitless search in cooler suburbs, my partner and I ended up in Glen Iris ourselves, thinking we wouldn’t stay in the area long. Twenty-five years and two extensions later, we’re still here.
- by Lisa Drought
Opinion
My suburb has a language barrier – and it makes people act differently
Owning a piece of sky instead of land? Raising a family in an apartment? All these things are normal in Asia, and yet so strange to many Australians.
- by Meg Davies
Opinion
In my suburb, a bypass was meant to fix the traffic. But people still pour in
The shops are now bigger and brighter in Greensborough’s beehive of development – and no longer owned by people whose names I once knew.
- by Martin Galvin
Opinion
Who needs the trendy inner city? My suburb had the Hemsworths
Inseparable like two peas in a pod, my suburb and its twin are tight-knit communities where families intermingle across their Scouts and sports clubs without a second thought.
- by Kellie Floyd
Opinion
My bayside suburb is split in half by eight lanes of pain
When I moved house, friends in the “Bayside Bubble” promised they would visit. But one thing turned out to be as much of a psychological barrier as a physical one.
- by Sofia Dedes
Opinion
My suburb attracts a cult-like loyalty, despite the grit and the gangsters
We haven’t had a gangland funeral across the road for years, but North Melbourne has always been an in-between place – a suburb of two identities.
- by Virginia Trioli
Opinion
My suburb used to embarrass me. Now I get why its homes come at a 30% premium
I’m proud to live in McKinnon now, but as a child, I was embarrassed by the suburb my grandparents called home. Why couldn’t they live in the more fashionable Caulfield South?
- by Melissa Singer
Opinion
Like the legendary soapie filmed there, my suburb is going through a revival
After leaving Nunawading in the 1980s, the quest for a refrigerator recently drew me back to my childhood suburb. Somehow, the neighbourhood survived without us.
- by Daphne Briggs
Opinion
My suburb was meant to be the ‘Toorak of the north’. It didn’t quite get there
Ivanhoe might sound like a place of nobility but its colloquial name tends to dampen notions of upper-class superiority.
- by Claire Burke
Opinion
My little-known suburb has no cafe. Yes, you read that right: no cafe
My family always said we lived in Rosanna East, which my friends from Viewbank found funny. Were we snobs?
- by Carolyn Webb
Opinion
In my suburb, no home is complete without staff, security and a six-car basement
If you can get past the assumptions people make when you say you live here, Toorak really is a wonderful place to live … when you’re not at your beach house.
- by Henry Kalus
Opinion
Families once fled my ‘struggletown’ suburb. Then the gentrifiers arrived
I once disembarked the tram at Bridge Road to wafts of Cussons Imperial Leather soap from the factory. But times have well and truly changed.
- by Claire Heaney
Opinion
‘Chap laps’ and Botox: South Yarra’s curated glamour isn’t what it used to be
South Yarra has pretty much everything you’d want in a suburb, but I’m not sure I belong here.
- by Karl Quinn
Opinion
Old Willy: The industrial sights and sounds that newcomers will never know
My sons’ enthusiasm gave me pause to think about my own happy childhood in Willy. But its newfound popularity comes with a dispiriting consequence.
- by Darren Dawson
Opinion
Lamborghinis next to old Commodores is the norm in our beachside suburb
Port Melbourne isn’t as affluent as Albert Park or as hip as St Kilda, but it has an honesty that embraces public housing, multimillion-dollar apartments and everything in between.
- by Alan Reynolds
Opinion
My suburb lives in the shadows of Highpoint, but its strip shops are fighting back
Despite being home to Melbourne icons the Royal Show, Masterchef studios and the Maribyrnong River, Ascot Vale has a slight identity crisis.
- by Suzanne Hemming
Opinion
From underworld hitmen to stolen packages, Scumshine isn’t what it used to be
Sure, we sometimes find an abandoned weapons cache during renovations, but in Sunshine West these days you’re more likely to bump into backyard chickens on the loose than crims and killers.
- by Jakin Ravalico
Opinion
My suburb is a wonky Tetris piece where the boundaries make no sense
Divided up as if it were the spoils of a suburban turf war, my ’burb’s bigger neighbours of Bentleigh, Carnegie and Caulfield South have claimed their lion’s share of the land.
- by Marish Mackowiak
Opinion
Pyjamas as outerwear? Nobody takes any notice in this inner-west wonderland
Footscray is a place layered with lore. It’s a multifarious wonderland where the Anglo heteronormative presence is a side dish to what’s really going on.
- by Lily Chan
Opinion
The suburb where everyone knows your name – and your marital status
In this homely pocket of Melbourne, oodle ownership is essential and everyone has a view on the conflict dividing the community.
- by Darren Levin
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