Top 10 Most Urbanist Suburbs in Australia

What are the most urbanist neighbourhoods in Australia, the southern hemisphere version of Canada? Let’s take a look based on the 2021 Australian census. We’re going to measure urbanism based on three categories. First, population density - the denser the better. This isn’t to say that anyone into cities and urbanism must always prefer the highest density environments, but it’s the simplest way to compare. Number two: affordability. The cheaper the median rent, the better. And the third category is transportation, under which we’re including three separate measures: the percentage of people who commute by transit, the percentage of people who commute by walking or cycling, and the number of cars owned per household, with lower being better.
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[@OhTheUrbanity]

Want to see how your suburb compares? Take a look at our spreadsheet: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17SwBI9bM8_YCWw1CJfQIw2Lk0IM318RtE2saiJhdlys/edit#gid=0

[@hastalavista2075]

I've colour coded every census tract in the top 200 by state so you can compare different cities/states by transport, density, rent, vehicles per household etc. ill try to update past the top 200 when I have time. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ixPcU7UiNckvJqoWruRq7GKKnd9uI6iJANem5hmAAKo/edit?usp=sharing

[@thomthebomb9497]

It would be nice to be able to sort by City/State on the spreadsheet as well better rank the suburbs of each city better. Other than that great stuff!

[@electro_sykes]

Thing with Australia. the Inner suburbs are very transit oriented but the further you go out, it becomes sprawling car centric suburbia. But at least we still have trains in some suburbs. Also, all the suburbs you showed are in Melbourne and Sydney. Unlike those cities, places like Brisbane, Australia's third largest city, is crap at TOD. Its either transit, but not transit oriented development or theres transit oriented development, but not the transit. Chermside, one of the major northern suburbs is a classic example of this. But since winning the bid for the 2032 Olympics, Brisbane is finally trying. And both South Brisbane, Albion & Woolloongabba are very transit focused

[@connordarvall8482]

@@thomthebomb9497 Agreed. A lot of suburbs in different cities have the same name, so you're never too sure at what you're looking at.

[@otsoko66]

I'm a Montrealer who just spent 3 months in Melbourne, living in one of the inner suburbs (Fitzroy - 12 minutes by tram to the CBD). I didn't have a car and never needed one - used the trams, cycled and had about 15 cafés with amazing espresso within a 10 minute walk. Melbourne does city transport WAY better than Montreal, and is much more bike friendly (side streets give bikes priority and motorists actually give way).

[@elliotlevi8035]

Really?! I'm from Melbourne and I just spent 2 years living in Le Plateau and Hochelaga and in no way would I agree that cycling and transport is better in Melbourne. It's much worse (and slower)! Montreal is also much greener with far better apartments. Melbourne cafés and bars have something hard to find elsewhere though ;)

[@JohnFromAccounting]

The inner northern suburbs are by far the best for cycling. The rest of the city is not nearly as good. There are parts in the west and the far east that are downright hostile and suicidal to ride a bike in.

[@stormblessed2673]

@@elliotlevi8035I mean it’s gonna come down to what part of Melbourne you’re from and what part of Montreal you’re comparing to. Inner Melbourne, such as OPs example of Fitzroy, is objectively very urban and cycling friendly - it would compare well to any major city except perhaps cities of The Netherlands. But if you live on the outer fringes of Melbourne then it’s just as car centric and hostile to cyclists as any car centric part of North America.

[@Tasmantor]

Living in the south east (Moorabbin home to Mordialloc job) car free the whole time (7 years now) and it's fine. You feel it when the trains are down but a cup of concrete will get you through. Cars are often driven by c*nts but you learn to deal pretty quick.

[@yvonne4933]

Melbourne is a cold ugly city. Would never live there myself.

[@BuildingBeautifully]

Great video! I learnt a lot about not just about my own country but also Canada (can't believe Canada doesn't have their own version of geographical boundaries that we call suburbs). I suspect those in inner Melbourne may still be using public transport despite being so close to the CBD due to the free tram zone that exists in Melbourne CBD. I'm surprised that so many of Australia's most urbanist suburbs are so close to the CBD. Some of my favourite examples of urbanism in Sydney include Chatswood, Rhodes, Summer Hill, Wolli Creek and Lane Cove, all of which are located well outside of the CBD. But looking at your list, these suburbs don't actually rate all that high. I guess what I perceived is different to reality. Sydney's government recently announced massive zoning changes to allow more density to be built in places that people want to live (around train stations), so we may see a lot more urbanist suburbs pop up in the decades to come. Hopefully. Also, we Aussies don't use the word "downtown", we use "CBD". Not that it's really a mistake per se as we know what downtown means, but just a funny observation I made! Finally, if you ever wanna do a collab together please hit me up, your channel is amazing :))

[@RK-bx1by]

Would love to see a collab!

[@TeamEXAngus]

As a Melbournian, I was expecting more of Sydney's TOD on this list. I guess the developments are smaller scale than would be necessary to rocket them to the top of this list.

[@UltraXD.]

factsss.

[@srensburg133]

Free tram zone is only in the CBD so tram from Richmond to Melbourne (5mins) is $5.30 per trip

[@TeamEXAngus]

@@srensburg133 not necessarily true it's 5.30 for unlimited travel in a 2 hour period or 10.60 for unlimited travel all day

[@zUJ7EjVD]

Interesting to note that in 2021 the median personal weekly income in Australia was $800 a week, yet not a single one of these median rents got below $300 a week. In the top 100 the only (real) place that got below $300 is South Coogee. Sure these numbers make more sense for families, but the densest areas are historically preferred by working singles. Australia's housing market is broken.

[@OhTheUrbanity]

The housing crisis: another thing Australia and Canada have in common

[@StephanieHughesDesign]

Totally broken. Governments have been trying to resolve it for decades with little results.

[@alexconrad2904]

Any idea why South Coogee is so cheap? Looking through the dataset, Coogee-Clovelly which is right next to there, is 3x the price. Is there perhaps a mistake in the data, or something different there that isn't immediately obvious?

[@illiiilli24601]

And Australian rents in 2023 are 50% (ballpark) higher than in 2021, which were higher than in 2020

[@zUJ7EjVD]

@@alexconrad2904 Doesn't have a train connection?

[@ace13jk]

So cool with a citynerd style video from you guys! You can go far using data like this.

[@pollyjmorgan]

Our most recent census, in August 2021, isn't necessarily the best indicator for inner Melbourne, as it was held during one of our really long covid lockdowns. A lot of people had already moved out of some of the inner city suburbs because they'd lost their retail and hospitality jobs due to lockdowns, and couldn't afford to rent, so they moved back in with family in larger homes further out from the city. With universities and tafes closed for in person classes, students also moved away from relatively expensive (for them accomodation). Other people also moved because small apartments and townhouses with little to no private outdoor space were really impacting on their families (especially if they had younger children). At one stage we had a curfew and also people were only allowed out for an hour to do "exercise", shopping etc, so for a lot of families who previously used local parks a lot it became really difficult. The population in some local government areas in Melbourne fell. The public transit figures will also be seriously skewed as most people who were working were required to work from home unless they were not able to work from home and were employed in what was considered an "essential" job. I live in an inner Melbourne municipality and rent an apartment, & during lockdowns our medium density apartment block was 50% empty (it had previously been fully occupied prior to covid). Because lockdowns were particularly harsh and extensive in Melbourne, it may mean that more inner and middle suburbs in Melbourne would rank higher in your listing if a census was taken now. Although other Australian cities had lockdowns for covid, Melbourne had the harshest restrictions in place over the longest period of time of any Australian city (over 250 days between March 2020 and November 2021). Data for SA2s covering South Yarra, St Kilda,, Richmond and Docklands are very likely to be seriously skewed because of covid lockdowns. There are, of course, going to be long term changes due to covid and lockdowns - but the population fall in the inner city is already rebounding. It does look like there's been a big impact on people using public transport (particularly to commute to work), as there's a lot of resistance from people to going back to office work full-time in the cbd. One ongoing issue with Melbourne is we have terrible cycling infrastructure & there's huge resistance (& often a lot of backlash) to creating genuinely separated and protected cycling lanes on roads. Off-road cycling paths get heavily used, but there's a limit to where they can actually go.

[@Andrew-xm2yj]

Rents in the melb cbd also dropped 30-40% during covid

[@jacktattersall9457]

Very good point. Aussie COVID lockdowns were draconian compared to Canada to the point that Ontario and Quebec and other parts of Canada have no right to use the phrase 'lockdown' @OhTheUrbanity

[@FRC0711]

I agree. And those Melbourne CBD locations are even denser now, with quite a few more 50 story apartment towers in the past couple of years. The international students have come back and I would argue that the area designated CBD North is almost a 24 hour city now. The streets around there will be jammed at 11pm on a random Tuesday night. It's also the most "Asian metropolis-feeling" place in Australia - very tall skyscrapers, little Korean BBQ spots down alleyways, neon lights, late night bars, ramen shops, karaoke, etc. It's great.

[@shanejohnston4075]

Unexpected treat so thanks for the video. If you are curious about why Melbourne has some high public transport usage for those inner city areas, you can put that down to the free tram zone that covers the city/CBD and directly adjacent areas. Areas with high student populations like inner Melbourne (Melb. University and RMIT) and areas around UTS in Sydney (such as Ultimo/Chippendale) with lots of international students also rated highly. Was surprised to not see Docklands (Melb.) in the top 10 (it's at 19) but that is likely due to the water area between both sides of docklands bringing down the density and Pyrmont (Syd) (at 15) which only has one light rail connection to the adjacent Sydney CBD but is super for active walking to the city.

[@shraka]

Driving in the Melbourne CBD is a nightmare too.

[@RK-bx1by]

Would the Melbourne city loop for trains also have an impact?

[@shanejohnston4075]

@@RK-bx1by Having the city loop near by would be a nice convenience, but if you live in the city or inner suburbs, you would mostly just walk or use trams unless in a hurry to get to the suburbs or other side of the city. I could imagine you never having to go outside of the CBD for everyday needs if you live there, so those free trams plus walking would make up most of your trips.

[@pollyjmorgan]

Docklands was really hit hard by covid lockdowns (there were claims in late 2021 that it was the hardest hit suburb by lockdowns in the country) & a lot of people had moved out of Docklands when the census was held (which was during a stage 4 lockdown). It still may not make the top 10 but probably will with the recovery in population and ongoing development around there in the next 5 to 10 years.

[@shraka]

@@shanejohnston4075 Yeah, trams are great for day to day but I think you're under estimating the social benefit of suburban rail for Melbourne. Lot of people in the city are going to have friends or relatives in the suburbs and being able to get to them easily enables them to not have a car at all. I think if we had a proper light metro system in the city and inner suburbs even more people would stop using or stop even having a car, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.

[@pebblepod30]

Wow as an Aussie, thanks for this!!

[@Skip6235]

You talked about the similarities between Canada and Australia. I wish we in Canada could learn from Australia’s awesome suburban rail systems. Imagine electrified rail lines running bi-directional service 7 days a week in Vancouver and Montreal (I know Toronto is working on it with GO expansion)

[@RK-bx1by]

As an Australian, I wish we could learn from Canada's bus trainsit systems. They're quite lacking in our outer suburbs, but Canada and Toronto in particular have done a good job with the buses.

[@HappyfoxBiz]

trust me on this... the top 10 is just in 2 states... NSW and VIC... there are more states and territories to Australia and some parts here are deplorable to the point where we feel like they are just maintaining the infrustructure rather than expanding upon it which should always happen regardless of population growth.

[@hakohito]

Toronto is really improving a lot in recent years

[@HappyfoxBiz]

@@BB-xx3dv we did exist before cars... we just bulldozed our neighbourhoods for freeways rather than for railways, I wouldn't mind if a rail corridor was built around my area and stations were erected, tram lines running through the street would be absolutely divine... stuck behind a tram? at least you know that tram can take you to work... stuck in a 40kph zone where a bus is overtaking you... how is that a problem? we were expanding in the 40's, 50's, 60's all into the 70's but at the start of the 80's we stopped... our state government started to yield to the private transport and has been giving subsidized transport to private cars ever since... it's just sad, but hey... at least bulldozing those 3,000 family homes cut off 5 minutes of travel.

[@user-iw4jl6bc8h]

Toronto has a horrible old public transport with no mobile connection in the subway or buses . Toronto is a car centric city, polluted . Street cars break down , people get stabbed in the subway .@@RK-bx1by

[@UltraXD.]

You don't know how excited I was to see Oh The Urbanity! post something about Australia. I had to look twice - seriously!

[@davethibault6734]

Not surprising to see that the suburb I grew up in ranked well below the 1200 mark. No wonder my teenage years were so miserable. I now live in Montreal and have zero regrets.

[@zUJ7EjVD]

Mine doesn't even make the list. We have a bus that runs 3 times a week, one-way. There's another bus stop too, but where I live is 10km from either of them.

[@StephanieHughesDesign]

I was born and raised in Sydney. What a mahvelous city it is. Some of the world's best mass transit systems. Railway stations everywhere almost. During the 2000 Olympics, Sydney installed a lot of additional railway stations (62) and also built a tunnel under Sydney harbour between CBD and North Sydney in record time. Almost unheard of anywhere else. However, I can no longer afford to live in my city of birth. I used to live in beautiful Paddo. I cannot afford to buy a Victorian Terrace home there now or anywhere else in Sydney. Buying a house in Sydney is incredibly expensive. If I ever returned to live in Sydney I would NOT own a car - there is NO need to. Don't get me started on renting - it's horrendous. They charge by the week it is that expensive. Good luck if you want to qualify for a mortgage.

[@ChrisTopher_Urbanism]

I'm in a similar situation, though I grew up in regional NSW and moved to Sydney for Uni. Now that I've finished studying, I can't justify the ever-increasing cost of housing and am moving back to the country, although I'm still going to try to live car-free

[@metricstormtrooper]

I lived in paddo but bought a derelict terrace in glebe on eventually glebe became just like paddington and we moved to Tasmania although I kept the terrace for many years.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

Sydney is unaffordable for most, just a terrible situation.

[@Jacksparrow4986]

When I visited Sydney 17 years ago, they didn't have integrated ticketing, which is absolutely embarrassing and unnecessarily complicating things. If you live there, it's probably not too bad for your daily needs. The housing market suffers from the same issue of a lot of us cities drom my understanding: The only "proper" housing is considered to be single family homes that are ludicrously inefficient and thus expensive. Cheers from germany (5 story house)!

[@oufukubinta]

Sydney isn't nearly as good as you talk it up in terms of transit

[@tobyb6248]

Interesting video, thanks! The 2021 census probably isn't the best representation of especially public transport usage, as it was done while Melbourne and Sydney were in some sort of lock down. Most office workers were working from home.

[@philpaine3068]

I was surprised that the Glebe district in Sydney wasn't mentioned, as it felt VERY urbanist to me, and was full of those old Aussie-style row houses with frilly Victorian era balconies. It does look like an ex-counterculture neighbourhood that became gentrified, but it still has lots of quirky stuff. A peculiar neighbourhood further to the west is Canada Bay. This was originally settled by convicts --- specifically French Canadians who had been arrested after the Rebellion of 1837 and shipped as exiles to Australia to toil as prisoners building roads and public buildings. Another piece of Australo-Canadiana: I found an inukshuk in a small park in Brisbane, donated to the city by Canadians. Hope you had a chance to sample the meat pies!

[@user-iw4jl6bc8h]

You mean french canadians who were discriminated by the british empire and treated like slave prisoners in Russia and China.. French canadians still have to fight for their culture , rights and language in Canada in 2024. Australia was the land of prisoners for all the british empire , not only Canada ...

[@philpaine3068]

@@user-iw4jl6bc8h As a French Canadian, I can't say that I feel any particular oppression, and do not recall having to fight for my culture, rights or language in 2024 or at any time in my long life. I went to French-language schools in Ontario, a province were we are only a small percentage of the population. I use French-language media. I go out and party to French-language rock bands. Every product in Canada comes with both languages on its packaging. Every public service is provided in French, even in parts of the country where only a handful of people speak it. In Quebec, the dominance of the French language in politics, law, education, commerce, media and cultural life is about as thorough as it could possibly be. It is English-speakers who complain about neglect in that province. New Brunswick is bilingual in every aspect of public life. In the Canadian Parliament, all MPs are expected to be reasonably fluent in French, and all parliamentary debates, speeches, and press conferences are conducted in both languages --- with people switching back and forth between English and French. The national anthem is customarily sung with alternating English and French verses. The British Empire is something in the remote past for Canadians, who only have a vague memory of being somehow connected to Britain at one time. During the War of 1812, when the Americans invaded us, English and French speaking Canadians fought side by side, along with our First Nations leaders and warriors, to toss them out. The Rebellion of 1837 ---- the event that brought some Canadian convicts to Australia ---- had nothing to do with English against French. It was a general rebellion against British colonial rule in which both English and French speaking Canadians participated with equal fervour. In French-speaking Lower Canada (later the province of Quebec), it was led by Louis Joseph Papineau, against the governing French-speaking Chateau Clique. In English-speaking Upper Canada (later the province of Ontario) it was led by William Lyon Mackenzie, against the identical controlling Family Compact. Both rebel groups worked in consort. After the rebellion failed, the "ring-leaders" among the rebels were exiled, but this included both English and French Canadians. The British were terrified that Canada would follow the example of the Americans and sever connections with them, and knowing that they were utterly dependent on Canadian militias and incapable of controlling Canada without its consent, embarked on reforms that gradually turned the colonies of British North America into a functionally independent country. Two young intellectuals, Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hypolite Lafontaine, drawing on their very close friendship, laid the groundwork to transform Canada into a democracy more advanced than Great Britain's. This culminated in the Confederation of 1867, which united several British colonies with a population of French Canadians, English Canadians, immigrants and First Nations. All these areas were far more concerned with the danger of being swallowed by the huge nation to our South than with the negligible control of Great Britain. This Confederation was the product again of the common interest of both language groups, and was forged again by a personal friendship between two men, George Etienne Cartier and John A. Macdonald. The new confederation was profoundly influenced by the Scottish Enlightenment, and in the 19th century Gaelic was the "third language" of Canada. Scottish culture profoundly influenced both English and French Canada, and Irish culture had a particularly strong influence on French Canada. When thousands of Irish orphans from the potato famine were adopted into French-speaking families, popular sentiment ensured that they kept their Irish names, which now resound as unquestionably French Canadian names in French-speaking parts of the country. The dominant political figure of Canada in the late Victorian and Edwardian era was Wilfrid Laurier, who was as dedicated to preserving French Canada's heritage as he was a fan of Britain's political and legal institutions. He saw the Empire as a potential federation of equal nations, and used his prestige in a desperate attempt to prevent World War 1. His failure to accomplish this broke his spirit. Canadians fighting in World War 1, however, again with English and French Canadians fighting side by side, created a sense of common Canadian nationhood, and from that point Canada began a gradual process of shedding remaining legal and constitutional ties to Britain, retaining only a few symbolic ties to the Crown. During World War 2, both my parents (both of them dyed-in-the-wool French Canadians) served in the air force, my father as a Lancaster bomber pilot and my mother as a flight controller with the famed Ferry Command, where Canadian women pilots flew the airplanes manufactured in Canada through a wall of German fighter planes to airfields in England. My father was stationed in England and grew fond of English ales. After the war, they settled in Northern Ontario in a frontier town that was half-and-half both languages. I was born in this remote wilderness gold mining community, and never for a moment doubted my French Canadian "patrimoine." French Canadians were the bulk of the town's merchants, lawyers, doctors, etc. and loyalty to Canada far outweighed any sympathy for the separatist sentiments that grew in Quebec, which both my parents rejected as a regional pettiness that played into the hands of the real danger -- the Americans. My mother had spent her childhood in New England, in a poor working class family. Her parents, from rural Quebec, had moved there to work in the cotton mills. The U.S. was not tolerant of people speaking French, and she saw her older brothers and sisters abandoning their language and culture. Also, the U.S. was not in the war yet, and she wanted to fight the Nazis, so on graduating high school she moved back to Canada. But wanting to remain a French Canadian was also part of it. Our family remained fluent in both languages and I was educated in both. At no time did I have in the slightest way any impression that as a French Canadian, I was beholding to, inferior to, or answerable to English Canadians. Nobody oppressed me. Anyway, "English Canadians" meant nothing more to us than the Scots and Irish and Cree and Ojibway and Polish and Ukrainian and African-Canadian and Finnish and Chinese and Icelandic and Panjabi and Greek and Italian and Filipino Canadians who customarily used English outside of the home. As an adult, my family became partly Filipino. Though I have travelled far and wide, I consider myself to be very, very, very Canadian, and feel perfectly at home in every province and territory, from the shores of the Atlantic to the shores of the Pacific, and up to the shores of the Arctic Ocean. You will find French Canadians everywhere within those bounds, and in the territory of Nunavut, where the legislature is conducted in Inuktitut, and the stop signs say "ᓄᖅᑲᕆᑦ" I have heard French voices at the Tim Horton's in Iqaluit ordering donuts. As whole, Canadians do not hold any serious resentments towards Great Britain or the British, who have left us to our own affairs for well over a century and a half. We have always been far more concerned with our relationship with the superpower just to the south of us, with whom we are economically and culturally entwined, but who rarely even think about us. They are our friends, near brothers and sisters to us, but somewhat unpredictable and sometimes aggravating. That is what we have always focused on. Britain is just a foreign country over in Europe that has little impact on our affairs.

[@user-iw4jl6bc8h]

You can live in Quebec in english only but you cannot live in french in the rest of Canada ....You are really ignorant .Your never ending respond shows you are living in an other world . Ontario is certainly not the best province for bilingual services and only 30 % of people living in Ottawa ( the Capital) speak both official languages and very english colonists . British Colombia does not even have a policy for french services in 2024. @@philpaine3068

[@dtmt502]

Glebe has so many houses not many large apartment building, and no railway station

[@crowmob-yo6ry]

Thank you for making this video. I'm visiting Australia in March and I definitely plan to check out the best urbanist neighbourhoods in Sydney. However, I'm spending most of my visit in the Jamboree Heights neighbourhood of Brisbane where my relatives live, which is much more car dependent according to the spreadsheet.

[@kyletopfer7818]

Unfortunately you will be coming a little bit early to catch the new Metro line which will open in around the middle of the year in Sydney. Definitely recommend Surry Hills, Pyrmont, Potts Point, Parramatta, Chatswood, St Leonards and North Sydney. Brisbane is very car-centric with some decent areas scattered around.

[@p1mason]

Sifn't Jamboree Heights an urbanist wonderland! It's got the mighty 454 bus. Take you anywhere you need to go, provided you don't need to go in the next half hour. And provided where you need to go is Indro..

[@richardbaker2701]

As a fan of this channel and others like it I’ve always fantasised about someone talking about urbanism in Australia and here it is! So cool

[@CrabbedSun10]

Thanks @OhTheUrbanity , i was suprises to see my working class suburb (Glenroy-west) beating out more prestigious cities such as Pascoe Vale and Essendon- East. Thanks for giving me extra pride in my slandered and under noticed SA2 area! 😊

[@davidandrews2546]

Whoa! Thanks for this video. I wasn’t expecting this.

[@jasonarthurs3885]

Great start to the new year; looking forward to more.

[@ActiveTowns]

Fascinating! Thanks you two and Happy New Year! 🎉

[@benlever3172]

Great video! Even though a lot of them end up scoring quite low on the 'urbanism' scale, I think it's telling that the SA2s you included cover 17 million people, or about 65% of Australia's total population. This is despite your definition of 'too rural' excluding a bunch of semi-suburban SA2s (ie usually the suburbs on the edge of a city plus some adjacent farmland) - even by this relatively strict definition, the vast majority of Australians live in urban areas. There's a persistent image of Australia as a bush nation, often used as an excuse for why we can't have public or active transport, but we are in fact very urbanised!

[@8888k]

Thanks for sharing the spreadsheet for all suburbs!

[@trevorhare4238]

Great work, thanks for sharing

[@Kobraa0001]

Love this! would also love to see one covering cheaper suburbs with decent density aswell

[@xymaryai8283]

the rent data is 2 years old, so it might not be worth doing unless they can get better data, but they actually kinda did cover the cheaper suburbs, $350 is kinda as cheap as you can get

[@ruskin81]

Fantastic! Def going to check out the spread sheet now

[@davidinmel]

Thanks for this video. I really enjoy your channel, and its great to see some content on Australia, where Im from. You talked about the simularities between Australia and Canada, I keep visiting Canada, because it feels so much like like home !

[@terryomalley1974]

I've long thought, as a Canadian, that Australia is basically a warmer version of Canada, but with more of a British accent/influence. Similarly, Canada could be thought of as a colder version of Australia, but with more of an American accent and influence.

[@user-iw4jl6bc8h]

English Canada cities are a copy of USA culture, food, tv and car centric,from Toronto to Vancouver . @@terryomalley1974

[@davidinmel]

@terryomalley1974 Hi Terry, and we are both very similar in many other ways, Australia and Canada are much the same size, with much the same population and much the same uneven population distribution (yours along the southern border, and ours along the coast.) We both have a vast uninhabited interior (yours is frozen, and ours is desert. We were both settled by the same people (the British) at around the same time, and in both countries, the former colonies joined together to form a confederation / federation at much the same time. Today, we have very similar system of government, with your 10 provincial governments, and our 6 state governments, a federal government, a constitution, and the Queen (now King) as the head of state. Its no wonder I feel so at home, each time I visit.

[@terryomalley1974]

@davidinmel You nailed it! I know several Canadians who've been to Australia who say the same thing, that it feels like a warmer version of Canada. Hopefully, I'll be lucky enough to fund our for myself some day.

[@almarcaUrban]

So happy to see Melbourne featured on this channel, was surprised but not surprised to see the CBD take all the top spots haha. Excited to see more!

[@erinjanssen8336]

I’m not surprised to see Melbourne being in the top four, where they have a free tram service running through the CBD, and Melbourne in general having an extensive tram network which is fantastic. They are starting to bring light rail back into Sydney and have some services coming into Western Sydney (which is sorely lacking in this sort of transport, but I for one would love to see more of this). Some areas are bringing in more active transport infrastructure, which is wonderful. Penrith City Council, for example, have done some great strides in recent years to bring in safe active transportation paths. It’s in the early stages, but I think this will be great in the coming years.

[@mrawesome9219]

As someone who lived in Wolli Creek for a while, catching the train everyday, and now lives in Potts Point, walking to work everyday, it's a nice new years treat to see them mentioned on an urbanist channel (for the right reasons that is).

[@UltraXD.]

gotta respect the effort guys👏👏especially with that huge spread sheet

[@UmpireStrikesBack]

There may be an issue with your use of rent as a metric. The city rent figures are significantly distorted by the large amount of small studio and single bedroom apartments. For a like for like comparison between suburb affordability you need to compare the same sized house/unit.

[@definitelynotacrab7651]

Really cool video, great job!

[@SpectreMk2]

Interestingly the only places I have been when I visited Australia were all in your top 10 (our hotel in Melbourne was actually in the CBD North). No wonder I loved Australia!

[@ChrisTopher_Urbanism]

So funny to see Duntroon pop up at the end. I guess heavily subsidised Defence housing and marching from the barracks to the office to the mess for your daily commutes could be seem pretty urbanist just by the numbers lol, even when many of the access roads don't even have a footpath. Btw, Wolli Creek is pronounced "Woll-eye"

[@OhTheUrbanity]

Darn, I was worried too much about getting Woolloomooloo right that I forgot to check the simpler ones!

[@ChrisTopher_Urbanism]

@@OhTheUrbanity haha all good! We have some place names that are pretty hard to pronounce

[@superjubs]

not often i come across videos doing meta analysis of the data they're reporting. well done

[@scpatl4now]

I stayed in Paddington a couple of times I visited Sydney. I am shocked it was that much lower than Surry Hills. I found them to be rather similar. I also would have thought Woolloomooloo would have been a lot more expensive

[@ChrisTopher_Urbanism]

Woolloomooloo is almost 20% social housing, similar to Redfern and Waterloo, which might explain the lower rents compared to places like Paddington which has basically no social housing

[@tobyb6248]

I think you'll find it is due to Paddington including the massive Moore Park (probably larger than the suburb itself), which would half the density of the area. It was also in lockdown, so no one was really using transit.

[@gloryglory5688]

@@tobyb6248Paddington is Paddington & Moore Park is Moore park

[@thelongwaysbetter]

Really interesting analysis, and I appreciated that you included the long list data in the spreadsheet. It was interesting to see my suburb is ranked below average in the 730s which doesn't necessarily gel with my lived experience as a very cyclable/walkable area with good public transport, lots of missing middle housing and apartments as well as detached single family houses. We were able to successfully downsize to one car, and many of our shopping trips are done on foot or by bike (we're working on a cargo bike solution in the long term). I think part of this is the statistical questions only look at the travel to/from work when all journeys should actually be considered, and then on top of that there is a cultural tendency in Australia to choose driving instead of public and active transport options even if the actual POTENTIAL public transport and active transport journeys are there. People could be living in really well planned urbanist areas that are walkable/cyclable, but if people are choosing the driver out of habit or don't drive a lot but do drive to work, it will skew the data. It is a shame we don't have a fully populated Walkscore/Transitscore/Bikescore for all Australian cities as I think that would be a better metric for an area's urbanism from a transport perspective, but overall this is a really good conversation starter around what Australian urbanism looks like

[@philbanddrummer]

Thanks for the great insights! Just a suggestion for the spreadsheet - would be good to have a column indicating metro area (e.g. Carlton belongs to Melbourne metro area) to allow filtering

[@anderswennstig5476]

Regarding Duntroon, while the data may "lie" in that it isn't necessarily an "urbanist" neighborhood. In some ways it still embodies much of what "urbanists" want. Fewer cars = healthier people and environment, more room for nature, etc.

[@shraka]

Carlton isn't served by suburban rail until the new tunnel is finished. It makes it pretty time consuming to go anywhere but the CBD or Brunswick East.

[@nathancurnow6425]

Thanks for talking about Australia using Aussie terminology! Well, almost - we call it public transport, not transit 😅 The reason for such high public transport commuting for people living within Melbourne's CBD is our Free Tram Zone. This covers most parts of the top 4 on this list except for Southbank. Essentially you can hop on any tram without even having a ticket, so long as you're getting off before it leaves the zone. Sounds like a good idea, though it has some perverse impacts by benefiting those who drive into the CBD and park in garages, and then catch the tram around to their office, lunch etc. Thanks for the Australia content, I'd love to see more!

[@terryomalley1974]

You guys also say CBD for downtown, and tram for streetcar.

[@ttopero]

While the rankings were informative, it was after the top 10 I found most fascinating & important, especially how data has limitations & how the big 3 countries establish area borders. Thank you for sharing these insights.

[@Ladadadada]

A couple of interesting observations I noticed: Suburbs with stadiums scored well. I'm not sure if this is because they have good transit because of the stadium or if the stadium was placed near good transit or something else entirely but all of our major stadiums are in the top 200 (out of 1375 areas). 55: East Perth (The WACA) 98: Woolloongabba (The Gabba) 102: East Melbourne (MCG) 127: Paddington - Moore Park (The SCG) 164: North Adelaide (Adelaide Oval) Places with high rents also often have high car ownership. "Wealthy" Sydney suburbs scored poorly. Places like Turramurra and Pymble with high rents and high car ownership scored 1297 and 1340 respectively. The very bottom of the list is full of suburbs with rents in the $700 - $800 / week range and more than 2 cars per household. When you look at the areas they are often on the outskirts of a big city, overlooking the water or forest, very hilly terrain and three storey mansions rather than mere houses. Many of the places with the highest car ownership have the same style of street layout with many cul-de-sacs and large, purely residential areas with no schools, places of work or shops. The highest car ownership in the country is in Woronora Heights (2.4 cars per household!). A suburb perched on top of a hill on the far outskirts of Sydney, surrounded by forest in the valleys where it is too steep to build. Go and check it out on Google Maps if you want a look at how to design the most car-dependent place possible.

[@shigemorif1066]

Just wanted to mention that in Phoenix, the literal surface of the Sun, today we have a low of 6.11 C and a high of 18.33 C. 😊

[@barryrobbins7694]

Phoenix is brutal in the summer. Unfortunately during the rest of the year when the weather is nice, it is still Phoenix.

[@StephanieHughesDesign]

The average person can afford to buy a home in Phoenix. The average person cannot afford to buy a home in Sydney.

[@barryrobbins7694]

@@StephanieHughesDesign The average person has other options.

[@StLouis-yu9iz]

The reason why Melbourne's inner neighborhoods are so good for urbanism is probably because they retained their trolley networks... I feel like that's what Not Just Bikes was basically saying in his latest video: we need to prioritize installing more streetcars in (predominantly) English speaking countries, so that more people join us in being car-free. Then, we will have enough of an urbanist culture to work on bigger solutions (like congestion pricing) and that would make cycling better as well by reducing the amount of personal automobiles. :] Great video as usual though, thanks for sharing!

[@tobyb6248]

I don't think that is the reason here. Sydney had more inner neighbourhoods on the list, Melbourne just topped it because it has such a large CBD with lots of residential.

[@devilpizza123]

Hey, I love your videos and have been a fan for a while. I have lived in Melbourne my entire life and am an avid urbanist. I would like to mention that from an urbanism perspective, Southbank whilst has high density, is one of the worst planned neighbourhoods in Melbourne, being split up by a freeway overpass and a wide and extremely busy arterial - City Rd. Southbank's dining and retail are all clustered around the river and there just isn't enough mixed use in the area to justify it's high ranking. It's relatively walkable, but much of it is residential high rises only with the exception of the arts precinct and the University. I would say from a purely subjective opinion, Fitzroy, Collingwood, Richmond, South Melbourne, St Kilda and South Yarra are all much more walkable and pleasant when compared to Southbank.

[@marktvcturner2448]

Great video, thanks. Be awesome to add a 'State' column to the spreadsheet too. Cheers!

[@felixmcphie]

Hehe, enjoyed the little detail where phoenix is on the literal surface of the sun, real af

[@coasterblocks3420]

I’m impressed you pronounced Woolloomooloo correctly. One time I was in Sydney my friend and I were approached by an American asking how to get to Wallo.. Woollumu.. wol…. We let him struggle for a while pretending not to understand, giving each other sidewise glances and wry smiles, before interrupting “oh, you mean Woolloomooloo!” then pointed him in the right direction.

[@simont6337]

Thanks for the video! I'm from Melbourne but spent a month in Canada Sept-Oct 2023. Lots of similarities, but some huge differences. I was gobsmacked to find Montreal has 68 underground stations (at time of writing, Melbourne has just 3, soon to be 8) and you couldn't call it a Metro, but it does have a vast suburban rail system consisting of 16 lines and 222 stations, plus the 'world's largest tram network'. Montreal has none of this, although the opening of the first stage of the REM, only a few months ago, may begin to change that. Obviously it's better to have your stations underground if it snows for a significant part of the year, but on the face of it, transit in the two cities couldn't be more different. But they do share a housing crisis, with rents at frightening levels and home ownership way out of reach for most people. 😢

[@jonberg]

Rent alone is a very misleading statistic as it's basically just a proxy for density. Suburbs like Carlton are packed full of ultra high density crappy student housing. Renting a decent apartment in Carlton is actually not the cheapest. The metric should be standardised, e.g. rent for a 2bdrm home.

[@waveman1500]

Very difficult to do, as you would struggle to find a 2 bedroom apartment for rent in many Australian suburbs. Once you're 20km out of the CBD it tends to be either houses or single bedroom flats.

[@Tokahfang]

In addition to other issues with using the 2021 census data (re: Covid issues), another thing I haven't seen mentioned is that a lot of temporary cycleways were put in around Sydney for those not working at home, as people didn't want to use packed public transit that year for some reason.

[@elorani1714]

Would love to see something similar for New Zealand and South Africa!

[@JesusManera]

Thank you for explaining the different definition of "suburb" too. Can't tell you how many times I've seen Americans comment "That's not a suburb!" to what are clearly considered suburbs here. If it has a name on a map, it's a suburb.

[@LedZeppeli]

Once the list actually started something clicked and I thought “holy shit did they get city nerd to make this😂” (not throwing shade I love both your channels and its cool to have someone mention Australia)

[@Stegar]

Good video, but one thing that should have been explored further is household size. I have done a bit of investigating in New Zealand for household size versus car ownership and these have a relatively linear relationship. From this, it can be expected that inner city suburbs may have 1-3 bedroom apartments, whilst the majority of low density suburbs have family homes of 3+ bedrooms. Thereby while these suburbs might be urbanist on paper, someone with a family would have to compromise on floor space to live here. Also rent is likely reflective of smaller households. Not trying to criticise, but just some thoughts to put out there.

[@AllTheUrbanLegends]

I lived in Brisbane for 2 years (Coorparoo) and what I came to realize about the denser, inner suburbs is that, generally, Australians don't live there. Because we had a kid we were always in the parks in and around the CBD and we only met other expats there. The only place we met locals was in New Farm. West End was also full of Aussies but most of them were younger or older and had moved from somewhere else Oz. Just my observations - I haven't done a dive on the data to prove/disprove it, it's just an aboservation, but it seems like that North American style, downtown, high rise living is more appealing to foreigners than to Aussies.

[@BluePieNinjaTV]

Taking a look at the spreadsheet where I live is ranked over 1000. Makes sense as it's terrible for walking and has pretty much no transit to speak of. There are some good off-road cycling paths to get to the major shopping centre, and if you are ok with riding further than 5km, to the train station or much much further into the CBD. I'd love to move further in to areas that are more urbanist but the rent is cheap compared to if I moved further in.

[@barnowl.]

Some things to take into consideration regarding Melbourne in 2021. We were in a harsh, hard and long lockdown of various stages during the CO-Vid virus pandemic. People moved away from the city and the huge overseas temporary student visa population going to universities and colleges was down-turned. People were required to stay at home if they could work by distance. Only essential services were allowed to operate. Schools and other education facilities were closed. Complementary health services were closed. Even a visit to the doctor was mainly done by phone and internet. As a result the city centre, (known as the CBD (Central Business District ), was almost like a ghost town. We were only allowed a short time of masked outdoor exercise, to stay within 5kms of our home, no visiting others outside the family home, and one trip for essential goods eg. to the supermarket a day, if needed. No going to entertainment, sports, no coffee shops , restaurants etc as they were not allowed to be open. It did save lives. But as a result, that was not an accurate assessment of Melbourne's urban suburbs. As a result of the pandemic more people post-covid work from home, travel by private transport and buildings in the CBD are empty. The city council would like to open up such empty business buildings to be converted to more apartments for inner city living. Also FYI,, Melbourne wraps around Port Philip Bay and the city train transport system radiates out in a number of directions- north, east, west and south. Our tram (trolley) system is the most extensive in the world. People also live in provincial cities and towns not far from the city and travel in for work and play. There are vast areas of land around the outer city for the building of outer suburbs (whereas Sydney is hedged in by mountains). Melbourne has been named the 'most liveable city in the world' by overseas entities quite a number of times and has now passed Sydney in population numbers. I do not think Australia is like Canada, and much less-so like the USA. We are a multi-cultural nation (with over 200 ethnicities living in Melbourne ) and have our own unique culture. I live in Melbourne and LOVE it !

[@FGH9G]

2:33 'Phoenix, Literal Surface of the Sun.' LMAO 😂🤣

[@JesusManera]

My suburb is one that is split into 2 different SA2s on that list, my SA2 (St Kilda - Central) was ranked #33 which is pretty good for a suburb 6km out from the CBD. The other SA2 that covers my suburb (St Kilda - West) is ranked #47, didn't expect there to be that much difference, and the suburb I lived in for 3 years prior to here (Prahran-Windsor) is only #48 which is surprising because I actually thought it would be higher than St Kilda.

[@DJRJAU]

It's possible that part of the reason for the high level of public transit usage within Melbourne's CBD district is due to that fact that all public transit within the CBD is free, 24/7/365. Mostly that means trams, but it probably included buses as well that (from personal experience) don't actually stop to drop passengers off until outside the CBD. Trains (City Loop) are outside this fare exclusion zone

[@waveman1500]

Great video, surprised that Box Hill, VIC didn't rank higher. It's at 134. It has huge density considering how far out from the CBD it is, but I suspect car ownership would be high.

[@tobyb6248]

I think density in Box Hill is a bit of a misconception. It has a couple of newish tall res buildings, but it is still has A LOT of single family dwellings.

[@RK-bx1by]

Yep, same goes for South Yarra. I thought they would've performed much better.

[@thedamnedatheist]

The current state government in NSW is prioritising medium to high density development around public transport currently, which should change statistics in the next couple of census.

[@jackalcrackle]

The interesting thing with Melbourne and Sydney is that due to rising costs ruralisation is becoming a big thing. Also interesting is that within Australia 90% of people live within 100km of the coast.

[@alexconrad2904]

Looking at Adelaide, it seems like it would rank much higher if the neighborhood didn't include the entire parkland around it. The only stat that is much lower than the top neighborhoods is the density, and the parklands take up about half of the area in the tract. It would be interesting to see how much higher it would rank with about double the density. Also, this is an incredibly interesting dataset! I'll probably spend a few hours scouring it now.

[@waveman1500]

Population density of Adelaide CBD is genuinely quite low. Most of the area is office buildings and shops, and there are even single family houses with gardens within the CBD.

[@ChrisJohannsen]

Adelaide has the most dead city centre of any state capital. Even Hobart has more of a buzz

[@tomazstarasinic2081]

@@waveman1500 You are correct. After 5pm Adelaide CBD is dead except for Rundle Mall and Rundle street, because all the people leave the CBD and go back home to their suburbs with their cars.

[@Lupi33z]

country town surrounded by suburbs

[@ct1493]

Please do Aotearoa/New Zealand next :))

[@peterhoz]

Melbourne's CBD and Docklands areas are a Free Tram Zone, ie all trams are free within those areas. That probably accounts for the high transit use. And many of the rental apartments in the CBD North are studios or 1 bedroom, and there's a fair bit of student accommodation too. That'd skew the rental figures. Free tram zone excludes Southbank and Carlton.

[@donpetrossi]

Melbourne trams are free within the CBD, maybe that might have contributed to its dominance in your ranking. And as others here mentioned, the rents are definitely much higher now. But man is it worth it in Melbourne, A+ city ❤

[@CBMaster2]

The rent in Sydney is too damn high!!

[@sangle120]

Possibly one of the reasons for higher transit usage in Melbourne CBD is that there is a free tram zone. Sydney does not have this, they used to have a free bus route in the CBD but I think it went when the tram down George Street went in.

[@markbarbour6381]

I don't think FTZ trips would even be counted, since the FTZ isn't a real thing in the ticketing system. Melbourne CBD is bloody huge, and at any point you're within a couple of minutes of the city loop and/or the main tram routes. I'd think that's why patronage is so high. Sydney has a big CBD too, but it's a tiny bit more centralised and PT isn't *quite* as frictionless. It's not the fairest metric, since walking is a lot more "urbanist" than PT :)

[@sangle120]

@@markbarbour6381 I haven't spent a lot of time in Melbourne to compare the layout of the CBDs. I think they may have used census data though? The last census would be very messed up for Sydney though because it was in the midst of a lockdown for NSW so those who could work from home should have been doing so.

[@markbarbour6381]

@@sangle120 Yeah the Melbourne results would also be skewed by the pandemic, mostly its effect on rents. Renting in the CBD, Southbank etc. in 2021 was *cheap*. Really cheap. The CBD is so good on all the other metrics it probably doesn't matter, but overall would affect the rankings quite a bit

[@byroboy]

Inner Melbourne has free trams. That may account for the public transport usage in the melb CBD areas.

[@arthurwatts1680]

Definitely time for another Census (2026, apparently). They cost a bomb and some people can't even be bothered doing it online, but many renters in Sydney and Melbourne will be looking at those numbers and thinking 'I freaking WISH I was paying that !'. Ditto Toronto and Vancouver so I guess both ends of the globe are feeling the squeeze.

[@user-iw4jl6bc8h]

Vancouver and Toronto have always been expensive cities since wealthy asians from Hong Kong moved to Canada in 2000 . People from India are also moving to Australia . The housing crisis is all over the world not only in Canada.

[@arthurwatts1680]

@@user-iw4jl6bc8h absolutely and it's not helped by enrolment agents who feed students totally BS cost of living estimates. Australian landlords don't like finding out that ten people are living in 3 bedrooms - I'm sure Canada is the same.

[@dipdip7250]

What did you think of NJB’s coverage of Montreal?

[@terryomalley1974]

OJB's video? If so, not very good. The video he used was quite dated, and he made some unfounded assumptions about the city/country.

[@lovelyhurlin6494]

Surry Hills was such a fantastic place to live, lovely cafes, bars and restaurants. Some crazys around too though 😂

[@walmartgolem]

Melbourne rents were lower in 2021 by approximately 20-30% due to international borders being closed and practically no international university students. With borders now open rents are up around 50% since then.

[@CM90Q]

The reason for the high transit numbers in Melbourne would likely be that the Trams are free in the CBD and some inner suburbs, people would likely jump on a tram for very short distances instead of active transport

[@rogf2486]

Might be worthwhile visiting Aus and making another video of your top 10 but based on vibes rather than Aus census data.

[@OhTheUrbanity]

We’d love to visit Australia sometime, but it’s roughly $2,500 each for airfare and 30 hours of travel

[@zenmaster24]

where did you get these rents for sydney?? are they for a studio/a single bedroom in a share place? they all seem way too low for these areas tbh

[@arwon2227]

They're medians from the 2021 census so they're a) blind to size of household and b) during covid border closures in areas normally full of international students

[@alimfuzzy]

If you look online right now studios in sydney city centre are $700/week.

[@jasonschubert6828]

You will find the public transport usage in Melbourne is probably due to free trams in the CBD, which suddenly jump to $10/day as soon as you are one suburb out, literally the same price it costs from anywhere in Victoria. Living in an inner suburb, I have not used our public transport since this pricing structure was introduced.

[@ultrajaywalker]

Melbourne CBD is almost exclusively international students without a car who would probably also have jobs, and report commuting to those jobs by "transit". The cencus will always be swayed by this as it's massively concentrated around unimelb. Otherwise you'd see Fitzroy in this list and perhaps windsor or Prahran

[@ultrajaywalker]

Also that's what mucks with the rent - they're tiny boxes that are hardly livable and well overpriced and under recoursed for the average renter

[@tobyb6248]

Yeah, no it's the density of Windsor and Fitzroy not being close to the CBD. Melbourne has been notorious for bad density.

[@metricstormtrooper]

Where are you getting your rent costs from, they seem to be from about 12 years ago.

[@tjv2536]

The census was taken in 2021. Rents in inner-city suburbs were much lower during the pandemic due to the lack of international students.

[@jayfielding1333]

Unbelievably good pronunciation. I thought Woolloomooloo would get you for sure.

[@jayfielding1333]

Spoke to soon - Wolli Creek got you. Still better than most.

[@OhTheUrbanity]

We were distracted by getting Woolloomooloo right that we didn't pay as much attention to Wolli Creek as we should have

[@Bobbydazzlla]

I would say the fact that all tram services in Melbourne's CBD are free would be the most obvious contributing factor to the high use of public transport

[@earlwashburn1002]

You could use Forward Sortation Areas for data in Canada, but you'd run into the same problems as US Zip codes. Census Tracts are probably your best bet, but you'd have to come up with names for them!

[@robd8577]

I think therenmight be something up with the rents. Have you divided avg rent by avg occupants? It looks extremely low to me.

[@OhTheUrbanity]

Straight from the census: www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/search-by-area

[@edwardmiessner6502]

Melbourne I think is the nicest because they kept their trams and upgraded their commuter rail to a metrorail type of service.

[@tobyb6248]

lol Melbourne trains are certainly not as metro esque as Sydney's.

[@alistairhart9568]

One factor tgat may skew the results... Inner urban Melbourne transit is free ("Free Tram Zone") so people who live and work in the CBD may be using transit rather than active transport Great vid, Luv ya work...

[@mahonjt]

bike lanes everywhere, the planned boulevardes all contribute to inner Melbourne as a place to ride and walk.

[@yeetgaming69]

My suburb is in the 1300 range. No wonder i dislike living here.

[@roserpens]

Melbourne CBD has free public transport on trams. So most people would jump on one pretty regularly if they live there, even for one stop.

[@snkfrk10]

RE high transit use in Melbourne CBD top 4 --- trams are frequent and free in basically all those areas. So people just hop on and off for 1-3km or so instead of walking as why wouldn't you.

[@liam6nugget]

1:17 I can already spot my SA2 from here! (I guess I’m fairly remote, eh?)

[@betteramulet50]

Look, I know this might be petty, but you used footage of Sydney Rd in Brunswick for Carlton. They are adjacent to each other, although not directly - East Brunswick (different suburb, to the east of Brunswick, obviously) is directly north of North Carlton, which is (you guessed it) directly north of Carlton)

[@OhTheUrbanity]

No, we did not. The footage from Brunswick was tagged as Brunswick in the top right. It was not supposed to represent Carlton, it was used for a short segment on census rents vs market rents.

[@evanflynn4680]

Best way to find the most urbanism areas is to look at the train maps for every city and find the stations that are stops for express trains.

[@aditboy]

Maybe a reason for how high the CBD districts are on this list: Our downtowns are where a very substantial amount of people temporarily in the country rent. When covid hit and the government said all foreign nationals should leave (and didn't offer government support throughout most of the pandemic) a huge percent of them did. This had the effect of dramatically lowering the rent in the cbd, as permanant residents maintained their homes outside the cbd and many central apartments went empty. Working from home also meant that many offices were empty, and central businesses that feed off them (cafes providing morning coffees for the suits) struggled. Those who chose to stay or move to the cbd were able to lock in cheap rents, which may throw the stats a little bit. Cries of the "death of the cbd" were a bit far, but rent was notably below the inner suburbs - all of which appeared on this list or were, presumably, the rest of the top 25.

[@aditboy]

This is clearly not be being mad that Carlton/Fitzroy/Collingwood weren't the top 3

[@saynotop2w]

Australia used to look indistinguishable from American Southwest aside from the wildlife, but now they're getting much better than them

[@TenOrbital]

That’s true. Australia took to 20thC LA-style freeways-and-suburbs with gusto but had the advantage (as in so many things) of being a decade or two behind, to benefit from lessons learned. A couple being limit sprawl and keep CBDs alive. It’s always been somewhere between North American and UK models with a few Euro ideas here and there.

[@FRC0711]

Australia is a real combination of the US, UK and Canada. Environmentally and climatically, the populated areas feel most similar to the US - subtropical or semi-arid tending towards mild temperate as you move south. Taken as a whole, the bigger cities feel a bit more Canadian - clean prosperous, well-managed and with adequate investment in infrastructure and amenities. That said, the inner-city areas clearly recall the country's past as a British colony, especially in Sydney and Melbourne, with Victorian-era architecture, English-style parks and gardens, European trees, British place names. But if someone unfamiliar with any of these countries was blindfolded, spun around three times and dropped from space in a random Australian suburb, most people would probably guess they were in America somewhere.

[@samsam21amb]

Let me guess all Melbourne & Sydney (CBD locations) plus woli creek and Chatswood…. Looks like I was right, sad to see Brisbane just missed the top 20… and Hobart, 92nd let’s go! Made it top 100, thought Hobart would be lower.

[@krushingkobra]

I dont know where you’re getting these rent numbers for Sydney, but the reality is that they are much more expensive than that.

[@OhTheUrbanity]

We covered that in the video! These are median rents from the census, and they don't necessarily correspond to the market rents to rent an apartment now.

[@btoogood]

The reason Melbourne cbd has “surprisingly” low rent is all the apartment towers built recently were for the overseas investors market. So the apartments became a financial product, a commodity. They were not designed for purchase by people who wanted to live in them, they were mostly bought off plan by people who might never see them. So they are mostly poor quality 1 and 2 bed apartments that can only be rented out at rates not much above student accommodation. It’s all been a bit of a disaster

[@OhTheUrbanity]

Why would investors want to buy apartments they can't rent out for very much money? That doesn't sound like a good investment.