No Idea

Compare & Contrast

I’ve been making some observations and comparing Sydney to other cities that I have lived in. Here’s what I think.

Housing

Sydney property moves quick, real quick. Today I turned up to look at a place near Kings Cross it was an open house inspection, I was about 5 mins early and there were already 10 other people there. It was raining too. Getting a rental seems to be like a job interview, the landlords can virtually name their price and pick their tenants.

As you can imagine, prices are high here, probably not quite as bad as London but I can see it going that way in a couple of years. At least most people can afford to live within a mile of the CBD, even if they don’t live in luxury. However I would rather live in Kings Cross Sydney than Kings Cross London, they both have a rep for being a bit seedy but London is waaay worse.

The housing here is in no way as affordable as Vancouver, and people tend to live in small suburbs just outside of the main CBD rather than actually in the CBD a la Vancouver. I totally prefer Vancouver for its cheapness, high level of housing and centralised downtown, but Sydney has amazing beaches. For me London does not come close to either, I remain largely a London hater.

Transport

People tend to complain about the Sydney transport, often relating that London has it better, but I don’t think it is all that bad. First there are heaps of buses that go almost everywhere, and in my experience they move quicker than London buses, rarely is there total gridlock. Then you have the rail, city rail, suburban rail, monorail and light rail in the form of the tram, I only really know about the city/suburban rail which whizzes around the city to most the main places you want to get to. For everything else there are the wonderful, wonderful Ferries, there can’t be a better way to commute to work than hopping on a ferry from your neighbourhood wharf. There is one just down the road from my hotel.

London’s one saving grace is the oversubscribed tube, I mean you can virtually forget the buses as they are now permanently held up in traffic since Ken keeps expanding the congestion zone. The tube in London, when it works and when it is not stifling hot and/or completely packed, is pretty amazing, it goes just about everywhere. However London transport suffers from being overcrowded, unreliable, unsafe and expensive. By contrast in Sydney the transport seems to be clean, reliable, safe and efficient, it’s even affordable, a weekly ticket that gets you almost everywhere is $41AUD (£18), you can even get to Manly which is a half hour ferry ride on that ticket.

I can imagine a Syndneysider just arriving in London would have some nice things to say about the transport, you don’t really know the system until you have lived and worked with it for a while. If I still think that transport is good here after 6 months then it will become fact, until then the provisional opinion is that it’s quite favourable.

Transport in Vancouver is simple, jump in your car. I mean you can get the bus or SkyTrain in Vancouver but most will drive, and as such the public transport is a bit lacking. It’s not all that bad but not as good as Sydney or London, but it is probably the safest out of them all. People tend to drive a lot in Sydney too, and like Vancouver parking in the evening is often free and rarely all that difficult to find a spot. London with a car it’s possible but expensive and not really all that convenient.

Food

So far the food trumps London on price, there seems to be more variety and people seem to be more willing to eat out. The same went for Vancouver which excelled in Sushi. I think Sydney excels in seafood, the lobsters down at Fisherman’s Market look just amazing, and the tiger prawns, one of them bad boys could inhale a king tiger prawn from Tesco. London has some excellent food, but it is expensive and more of a treat than a regular part of your life.

Weather

Just joking.

Conclusion

These comparisons are rather subjective, obviously I don’t like London all that much. I find it too busy, too grey, too work orientated and too expensive. I like Vancouver for the total opposite reasons, it is relaxed, reasonably affordable and people have a healthy work/life balance. Sydney seems to be panning out in a similar fashion and just like Vancouver there are lots of outdoors things to do, something London really lacks badly. London needs a beach or a mountain or something, parks just don’t cut it really. There are only so many times you can enjoy jogging around the park, but I dare you to find surfing, mountain biking, hiking or snowboarding monotonous.

October 24th, 2007 

Labels: Tags: autralia, comparison, sydney