I'm moving to Australia. Which city would be better, Melbourne or Sydney?

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SADSDASD

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Other answers here have given lots of great detail about job markets (Sydney and Melbourne have more jobs) and housing (Brisbane is way more affordable). This answer is just about the feel of the cities.

Firstly, Melbourne is COOL. From the minute you get off the plane, everything that is cool about Melbourne is available to you. All the laneway bars and soup stations and quirky shops are there. You can eat incredibly well cheaply. The culture and arts scene is accessible and full of wonderful surprises. There are a bunch of different sub sections of Melbourne depending on what you’re looking for. You can live on historic areas, converted industrial areas, hipster clusters, leafy suburbia, hellhole suburbia etc. Melbourne also has trams, which makes getting around in the chronic traffic congestion bearable. People in Melbourne make sure they dress cool before they go to the shops to get a litre of milk.

Sydney is FLASHY. This is a town built to impress. The harbour is so beautiful and the ferries are a great way to get around if you can be near the harbour. In Sydney, status is everything. For ambitious people, there are a lot of head offices and a real focus on power. Material wealth is the most important thing, and the benefits of material wealth are on show. There is also a lot of history and culture woven into Sydney. It is a town with some depth. It also has an enormous sprawl of suburbia to the West, as the housing market is so expensive. In Sydney, people accesorise with the latest status symbol (perhaps a miniature French bulldog) to go to the shops to get a litre milk.

Brisbane is RELAXED. It is built around a really lovely river and it is known for its colonial houses on stilts perched on thousands of steep hills. It can be a nightmare for cyclists with its hot weather, steep hills, and murderous swooping magpies. Brisbane has more houses with gardens and less traffic than Melbourne and Sydney. There is a backyard barbecue culture which is very laid-back. It can be hard to access the social side of Brisbane, because most people know someone who knew someone and are introduced that way. Brisbane still has some elements of being a large country town. There are a lot of good eating places, bars and culture, but it is smaller than Sydney and Melbourne. An hour’s drive North or South gets you to some of the most beautiful beaches in Australia - white sand, great surf and no crowds. There is less pressure to conform to the rat-race in Brisbane and enjoying a good lifestyle is valued. People in Brisbane go to the shops to get a litre of milk without giving any thought to their appearance - it is more a matter of staying breezy in the hot weather in comfortable clothes.

dora

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Do you have the money to live in Sydney and Melbourne?

Are you going to be able to get a decent job in Sydney or Melbourne to live a decent life?

Both these cities are extremely expensive to live in. Melbourne I think is slightly cheaper but not by much.

If you can’t afford either of these cities you are going to struggle massively, you are going to be working long hours just to make ends meet and you are going to be stressed out.

If you think what I have said above seems like your situation why not consider Brisbane instead. It is a cheaper city to live in than Sydney or Melbourne is.

If you can get a decent well paid job or you have a lot of money and can afford the expensive cities of Sydney and Melbourne then by all means live there. However, Brisbane also has a lot to offer and I feel it is a city that people forget what it has to offer as well.

Since you asked about Sydney and Melbourne here are the cons and pros in my opinion:

Sydney cons:

Insane housing and rent prices.
Terrible traffic congestion.
In my opinion the centre of the city among the building feels dark, dirty, closed in and like you are breathing in trapped exhaust fumes.
Toll roads which are very expensive so I hear from an Australian guy.
I also hear the humidity can get high which means sticky weather.
If you think Sydney is going to be a city where people stop in the street to talk to random strangers forget it. Sydney is a busy city, with people rushing to get places.

Sydney pros:

The weather does not have a habit of changing every 2 hours like it can in Melbourne.
It is much warmer than Melbourne in the winter.
There are slightly more job and career opportunities than Melbourne.
The actual Sydney Harbour is pretty. So to is Darling Harbour.
They city puts on a great display at New Years.
There is no shortage of cafes, restaurants, bars and nightclubs.
Shopping is plentiful.
Sydney gets many international events come to the city every single year.

Melbourne cons:

The weather can change often and you can get all four seasons in one day. However, you do have days that are not like this as well but this does happen in Melbourne more than many other Australian cities.
House and rent prices are still pretty expensive.
I hear the traffic can be bad but not as bad as Sydney.
If you like beaches this is not a good place to move to.

Melbourne pros:

Less humidity than Sydney so mold, dampness and things rusting around your home is less of a problem.
It seems to have a very arty and cultural vibe.
My friend that lives there says the tram network is great. It is the biggest in the world.
There is no shortage of cafes, restaurants, bars and I think night clubs either.
Most of the shops you find in Sydney you will also find in Melbourne as well.
While Sydney gets many international events each year so to does Melbourne.
If you like a city with more old restored type buildings you will like Melbourne over Sydney.

Don’t forget Brisbane either. It is no hick town by any means and actually has a lot to offer than Sydney and Melbourne fail to offer such as a more chilled out pace of life, less stress, a great place to raise a family and is a lot less of a concrete jungle like Sydney and Melbourne is and has much more green grass and plant areas which is much nicer.

The weather is great in Brisbane as well as well as so much being so close such as the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast. Brisbane also feels a very clean and tidy city and also does better I think in terms of personal safety than both Sydney and Melbourne.

So there are a lot of major things Brisbane does better than Sydney and Melbourne but the city is often overlooked and belittled.

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