Sydney City

General Information

4.5 million people on the world's most beautiful harbour.

Challenge: SanFrancisco and RioDeJaneiro? are much prettier.
Response: SanFrancisco's harbour is too open. Rio is too crowded.

World's best fireworks.

Challenge: World's most frequent fireworks. (PissTake)
Response: True. And the best. Ask BarbaraBush?.

Hosted the Gay Games last year (and it was faaabulous! :-).

I've heard that there's a SydneyXpGroup?. -- SydneyXpActivityClub

Real Estate

$1M+ for any nice house in the inner city.

$2M+ for a nice house with a harbour view.

People are paying this money because it's worth it.

People are paying this money because we've got too many rats in one trap. Not only are the property prices on a par with SF and NY, the availability of credit is far worse and taxes are more savage. You can't write off your mortgage interest payments.

Where else can you write off your mortgage interest besides the U.S.?

Food

Maybe 50% of SF or NY Chinese restaurants would be able to survive for more than a month in Sydney. The US has nothing competitive with the top 5% in Sydney.

Hong Kong gourmets prefer the cooking and especially the service in HK, but acknowledge the superior ingredients and culinary innovation in Sydney.

The New York Times on October 20, 1999:

PARIS, surely, and New York and probably London, but after that it's hard to think of another city that matches Sydney, the home port of the good life, for the sheer excellence and exuberance of its restaurants.

Downside

It rains frequently no matter what the season. It's impossible to find parking any place you'd actually want to go. The people are stressed and neurotic. Housing is dilapidated and frightfully expensive by northern standards. Cost of living compared with average income is ridiculous. The place is full of invisible mosquitoes and flying cockroaches. Any of the other Australian cities are preferable. Melbourne especially - a city with real class.

The average rainfall facts for the rest of the big swamp: http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/cgi_bin_scripts/map_script_new.cgi?66062 and http://www.bom.gov.au/olympic/thunder.htm .''

Response to:

rain: "current drought is worst since 1858"
rain: Sydney _is_ a harbour city, therefore rain is not unusual.
rain: And at least when it rains, it rains properly. No London-style grey drizzle for endless months. When it rains here, it buckets down for three or four days, then we return you to your regularly scheduled sunshine.
parking/pollution: as for parking, it is dreadful in the Central Business District (CBD) (there's always paid parking), but that, along with pollution, is to be expected in any major city.
people: WE ARE NOT STRESSED NOR NEUROTIC!! ARGHHH!! (in fact, we are comparatively laid back as a people, unless you are comparing us to folks in nice, quiet country towns.)
housing: dilapidated (read: charming/a renovator's delight) and frightfully expensive may be true for some suburbs in general, but it's still an inaccurate generalization - besides, what is meant by 'northern standards'? Remember, to us, the majority of the earth's inhabitants live to the north of us. :)
- Oh yeah, I forgot: locals are xenophobic and smug about it. Like New Yorkers, but less secure.
insects: that is simply not true - just go ask a Sydneysider (no, we aren't biased - I have yet to see a flying cockroach in my 15+ years of living here).
- Well, I lived there 30 years and dealt with more than my fair share. Most frightening (true, I swear) Sydney roach story is at http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/89q1/truenews.1.html - scroll down near the bottom.

While I do agree the Melbourne that I saw a couple of years ago is perhaps classier than Sydney (Mental note: avoid starting a debate), Sydney still remains an interesting and culturally diverse place to explore.

Comparison with other Australian cities

Melbourne's an overgrown country town. The other capitals aren't even overgrown. Sydney people tend to think of Brisbane as an outer northern suburb.

Melbourne has a higher standard of living, more culture, better nightlife, less pollution and rain (but it rains more frequently), and a far better attitude than Sydney. The only thing Sydney has over it are its beaches. Sydney has the best beaches of any major city in the world. Unfortunately, like everything else about the city, they're full of people packed like sardines any time you'd want to visit them.

I think one needs about $10k more pa to live at the same level in Sydney than Brisbane.

After taxes, that might be right, but I think it's on the low side. Ignoring other factors, it would cost me at least another $250/week to rent a comparable house to my current one that's only half-an-hour out from the CBD (and thus work) over what I pay in Brisbane. That's about double my current rent. Purchasing a house would be about the same. I could probably rent an apartment cheaper, but that would be perceived as a reduction in my quality of life. :) I've always thought that it would take an increase of about $40,000 (which boils down to about $20K-$25K after tax) to convince me to live in Sydney. -- RobertWatkins.

Links

http://www.ozemail.com.au/~eau/sydbest.html "The Best in Sydney"

http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~axolotl/Ultimo/ "Broken?"

http://www.smh.com.au "The Sydney Morning Herald"