It’s one of the better cities in Australia in my opinion where you feel like you’re part of a global community. It’s cosmopolitan - a lot of cultural diversity. You meet many people on a daily basis originally from somewhere else. This means you can get near authentic food from almost any part of the world if you’re prepared to drive around Sydney-truly this is what I value about the place over and above the harbour and beaches. Sydney also is quite liberal and progressive generally speaking although there are conservative areas with recent spates of conservative politicians.
I’ve lived in Sydney for the best of my 45 years and I have seen it change rapidly in the past 15 years to massive traffic congestion, what feels like out of control apartment development, a public transport and road infrastructure that has failed to keep up with the “big Australia” dream we’ve been sold to by politicians. From my perspective the expensive housing, cost of food, petrol etc when trying to feed, house,move/transport, educate and do anything around Sydney with/for a young family is extremely testing and stressful.
Many of my friends and their kids have moved out of Sydney for this reason. However when you look around it’s easy to understand why this has been a political strategy- there are many retirees and aging people that need a big tax base to be supported.
I think I’d be bored in other cities in Australia. I lived in Melbourne for two years and didn’t like the weather. I liked Brisbane, Darwin and Perth but apart from an outdoor lifestyle there was nothing else to do and Darwin has cyclones in the wet season. Adelaide felt like a large retirement village but I think if you like parochial living you’d probably like it and Hobart.
I keep coming back to Sydney feeling very grateful to be in the place after travelling both overseas , interstate and regionally around Australia. For a non white person I feel secure I’m not the only one when I’m in Sydney where as elsewhere in Australia my ‘ difference’ is often noticed.
Weather wise I think Sydney is in between Brisbane and Melbourne but it does get stinking hot in Summer, though it’s pretty pleasant in winter.
End of the day I’m stuck in Australia and Sydney warts and all is a pretty good place to be stuck in.
I can’t speak for any1 else, but I’ll just speak from my own experience.
I live in Sydney in the suburb of Greenacre in a townhouse. What’s it like? Well, some things I guess I can mention that people from other countries might not be used to are …
Surprising amount of wildlife for a suburb. The backyard (which I admit, is mostly unkept) is teeming with insects (and spiders!). I’ve actually seen what I’m pretty sure was a red-back spider TWICE in my backyard. Possums live around this area and eat fruit from our trees in the backyard (we’ve tried to scare them off but they keep coming back). At night it’s not uncommon to see bats flying overhead. We’ve also had a few mice in the house. It’s not too hard to find tiny lizards in the backyard and sometimes even in the house. Oh, and there are TONS of cats in the complex (our household alone feeds 5).
Summers can get pretty hot sometimes. 30–40 degree Celsius heat in summer is to be expected. I would say we’re probably “hotter” than most countries on average. Compared to my parents (who are both migrants), I seem to get unusually chilly in mild weather (low 20s degrees Celsius), but am more ok in hot weather (low 30s degrees Celsius). But it’s only about a 50min drive to the beach from here, so that helps. Oh, and in case you didn’t know, most of Australia doesn’t receive snow, so you’ll probably NEVER see snow in any suburban/city area in Sydney.
I don’t know if I’m just complaining here, but I think internet speeds are unreliable and can be slow (relative to other first-world countries). I think my suspicion is somewhat justified (Internet Speeds by Country). My dad even thinks that the McDonalds wifi is faster than our home wifi.
Sydney also is (maybe?) more expensive in general. I remember telling my Texan cousin that the cheapest you can get milk in a major supermarket for is about $1/litre (maybe 90 cents actually). She thought that was expensive. And don’t get me STARTED on home-prices…
I know it sounds like I’m railing a lot of negatives here, but those are just the most immediate things to come to mind. There are also countless good things about Sydney (clean air, multicultural, etc), but it’s a little hard to list them all cause I don’t really know what a foreigner would regard as “good” and what they’d regard as normal. Obviously, spending most of my life in Sydney, it’s hard to give an objective assessment myself of what it’s like to an outsider.
And, of course, I should note that these are mostly just MY experiences based on 1 suburb in Sydney. Other parts of Sydney could be very different for all I know.
2 Answers
SADSDASD
Upvotes from:
I’ve lived in Sydney for the best of my 45 years and I have seen it change rapidly in the past 15 years to massive traffic congestion, what feels like out of control apartment development, a public transport and road infrastructure that has failed to keep up with the “big Australia” dream we’ve been sold to by politicians. From my perspective the expensive housing, cost of food, petrol etc when trying to feed, house,move/transport, educate and do anything around Sydney with/for a young family is extremely testing and stressful.
Many of my friends and their kids have moved out of Sydney for this reason. However when you look around it’s easy to understand why this has been a political strategy- there are many retirees and aging people that need a big tax base to be supported.
I think I’d be bored in other cities in Australia. I lived in Melbourne for two years and didn’t like the weather. I liked Brisbane, Darwin and Perth but apart from an outdoor lifestyle there was nothing else to do and Darwin has cyclones in the wet season. Adelaide felt like a large retirement village but I think if you like parochial living you’d probably like it and Hobart.
I keep coming back to Sydney feeling very grateful to be in the place after travelling both overseas , interstate and regionally around Australia. For a non white person I feel secure I’m not the only one when I’m in Sydney where as elsewhere in Australia my ‘ difference’ is often noticed.
Weather wise I think Sydney is in between Brisbane and Melbourne but it does get stinking hot in Summer, though it’s pretty pleasant in winter.
End of the day I’m stuck in Australia and Sydney warts and all is a pretty good place to be stuck in.
dora
Upvotes from:
I live in Sydney in the suburb of Greenacre in a townhouse. What’s it like? Well, some things I guess I can mention that people from other countries might not be used to are …
Surprising amount of wildlife for a suburb. The backyard (which I admit, is mostly unkept) is teeming with insects (and spiders!). I’ve actually seen what I’m pretty sure was a red-back spider TWICE in my backyard. Possums live around this area and eat fruit from our trees in the backyard (we’ve tried to scare them off but they keep coming back). At night it’s not uncommon to see bats flying overhead. We’ve also had a few mice in the house. It’s not too hard to find tiny lizards in the backyard and sometimes even in the house. Oh, and there are TONS of cats in the complex (our household alone feeds 5).
Summers can get pretty hot sometimes. 30–40 degree Celsius heat in summer is to be expected. I would say we’re probably “hotter” than most countries on average. Compared to my parents (who are both migrants), I seem to get unusually chilly in mild weather (low 20s degrees Celsius), but am more ok in hot weather (low 30s degrees Celsius). But it’s only about a 50min drive to the beach from here, so that helps. Oh, and in case you didn’t know, most of Australia doesn’t receive snow, so you’ll probably NEVER see snow in any suburban/city area in Sydney.
I don’t know if I’m just complaining here, but I think internet speeds are unreliable and can be slow (relative to other first-world countries). I think my suspicion is somewhat justified (Internet Speeds by Country). My dad even thinks that the McDonalds wifi is faster than our home wifi.
Sydney also is (maybe?) more expensive in general. I remember telling my Texan cousin that the cheapest you can get milk in a major supermarket for is about $1/litre (maybe 90 cents actually). She thought that was expensive. And don’t get me STARTED on home-prices…
I know it sounds like I’m railing a lot of negatives here, but those are just the most immediate things to come to mind. There are also countless good things about Sydney (clean air, multicultural, etc), but it’s a little hard to list them all cause I don’t really know what a foreigner would regard as “good” and what they’d regard as normal. Obviously, spending most of my life in Sydney, it’s hard to give an objective assessment myself of what it’s like to an outsider.
And, of course, I should note that these are mostly just MY experiences based on 1 suburb in Sydney. Other parts of Sydney could be very different for all I know.