Why don't Australian cities get more love and respect here?

[ThePhun1]

And I don't just mean Sydney and Melbourne.

I personally think most major Australian cities are gorgeous. Not as gorgeous as Jacksonville but gorgeous none-the-less and underrated.

[Crawford]

What is so "gorgeous" about Australian cities? They're like Canadian cities and some Scandanavian cities: functional and successful though kinda generic and anodyne.

To me, places like Venice, Florence, Toledo, Segovia and Salzburg are "gorgeous". What is so incredible and unique about Perth or Adelaide?

Also, Australia is isolated from the West, and a long and expensive trip, so most folks haven't been there.

[Centropolis]

easy answer: they are really far away. flights to oceania make london look easy (which it is)

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Crawford

What is so "gorgeous" about Australian cities? They're like Canadian cities and some Scandanavian cities: functional and successful though kinda generic and anodyne.

To me, places like Venice, Florence, Toledo, Segovia and Salzburg are "gorgeous". What is so incredible and unique about Perth or Adelaide?

Also, Australia is isolated from the West, and a long and expensive trip, so most folks haven't been there.

add some palm trees to a scandinadian plan and i wouldnt kick it out of bed. i mean they arent europe but...

[Commentariat]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

And I don't just mean Sydney and Melbourne.

I personally think most major Australian cities are gorgeous. Not as gorgeous as Jacksonville but gorgeous none-the-less and underrated.

I might be the only Aussie who ever posts here nowadays, and I have a grand total of less than 60 posts in over 2 years (mostly related to demographic statistics ). Everyone else posts on skyscrapercity.

I agree with the sentiment of your post, but I might be biased...

PS some day I hope to experience the wonders of Jacksonville, which I hear is like the best bits of Sydney and Melbourne combined

[Centropolis]

rem8nds me i have an auckland thread in the chamber

[dc_denizen]

Melbourne looks pretty cool imo. Seems like a great city.

[Commentariat]

I think Sydney is impressively urban for a 'Anglosphere' city. At 30 June 2017, the core 19 local government areas had 2,419,715 people in 236.9 square miles at 10,214 ppsm, and grew by 55,168 people in a year. By way of comparison, the City of Toronto had 2,731,571 people in 243.3 square miles in 2016 and grew by an average of 22,355 people a year from 2011-16 (although presumably it has gone up since then). If these growth rates did keep up, then it is possible that Sydney's core might overtake the City of Toronto at some future point. Even Chicago (2.7 million people in 227.3 square miles at 11,898 ppsm) could be in its sights given it is not growing in population.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Crawford

What is so "gorgeous" about Australian cities? They're like Canadian cities and some Scandanavian cities: functional and successful though kinda generic and anodyne.

To me, places like Venice, Florence, Toledo, Segovia and Salzburg are "gorgeous". What is so incredible and unique about Perth or Adelaide?

Also, Australia is isolated from the West, and a long and expensive trip, so most folks haven't been there.

Venice, Florence, Toledo, Segovia and Salzburg are museums with people living in them. Sydney and Melbourne are functional modern metropolitan areas.

[MolsonExport]

I've been to Oz twice, and I thoroughly enjoyed my visits to Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Cairns, Newcastle, and other smaller cities (e.g. Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, and Townsville).

The big Australian cities are wonderful. Yes, very much like Canadian cities, but without subways (in progress for Sydney, I believe, although Melbourne has the largest streetcar/trolley network in the world), and with considerably better weather (I was there during their "winters").

Melbourne in particular had a great urban fabric, and many older buildings...reminded me very much of parts of Montreal (particularly the old financial quarter of the latter city), whereas Sydney was a hybrid of Toronto and Vancouver but with a California coast setting.

Perth reminded me very much of Calgary.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

Why don't Australian cities get more love and respect here?

because this forum is utterly dominated by north americans.

and australia is extremely far away from north america, so most of us have simply never been there.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

because this forum is utterly dominated by north americans.

and australia is extremely far away from north america, so most of us have simply never been there.

yep and that's why african cities, south american, pacific, asian and many other places are under-repped here. it's pretty basic really. maybe they have their own websites we don't know about, who knows? we can only cover what we experience.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

I've been to Oz twice, and I thoroughly enjoyed my visits to Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Cairns, Newcastle, and other smaller cities (e.g. Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, and Townsville).

The big Australian cities are wonderful. Yes, very much like Canadian cities, but without subways (in progress for Sydney, I believe, although Melbourne has the largest streetcar/trolley network in the world), and with considerably better weather (I was there during their "winters").

Melbourne in particular had a great urban fabric, and many older buildings...reminded me very much of parts of Montreal (particularly the old financial quarter of the latter city), whereas Sydney was a hybrid of Toronto and Vancouver but with a California coast setting.

Perth reminded me very much of Calgary.

as far as new zealand, i thought auckland sort of felt like a sub-tropical and laid back mini-toronto surrounded by volcanos and sea.

[cannedairspray]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

And I don't just mean Sydney and Melbourne.

So what are we dealing with, then? Perth, Canberra, Adelaide, Brisbane, and Gold Coast? That's basically it of any size, right?

There's just not that many to talk about. I've been to Darwin. Not really much to say.

[mhays]

My impression is that pound for pound, Australian cities are much better than the average US city...like Canadian cities but with more British-derived culture. I've only been to Sydney which certainly lives up to this.

But this is a NA-dominated board.

[The North One]

I think Canadian cities are much less generic and more interesting than Australian ones. I mean does Australia even have significant non-white populations or immigrants? It just seems sterile and boring.

I think the British influence is also much stronger than in Canada which I think is a negative.

[Mr Saturn64]

You'd think we would have a lot of Aussies here given that this is an English language site and there are lots of skyscrapers going up in Australia.

[CherryCreek]

Originally Posted by mhays

My impression is that pound for pound, Australian cities are much better than the average US city...like Canadian cities but with more British-derived culture. I've only been to Sydney which certainly lives up to this.

But this is a NA-dominated board.

I agree. I think all of the biggest Aussie cities would be at or near the top of their class if they were in North America.

In my view, American cities are far less urbane, less interesting architecturally, have greater decay, higher crime, less developed public transport, and otherwise fall short of the finer things I love about cities, as compared to their non-US, developed world counterparts.

I've had non-American friends and colleagues who've toured many American cities and come away shocked. Putting aside New York, which does seem to impress most non-Americans, I think many foreign visitors find there to be a disconnect between America's reported wealth (no. 1 GDP) and the look and feel of its cities: we don't look the part.

There's lot of reasons, with the biggest being the sub-urbanization of America and the flight of capital and population from the city centers to the periphery. Yes, the most recent decade has seen a reversal of some of those trends, but 6 to 10 years of boom can't change overnight 40 years of development and demographic history.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

In my view, American cities are far less urbane, less interesting architecturally, have greater decay, higher crime, less developed public transport, and otherwise fall short of the finer things I love about cities, as compared to their non-US, developed world counterparts.

I think almost everyone would agree with this, excepting the architecture part.

Most of the depressed U.S. cities have much better architecture than cities in Canada or Australia. Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, Cincy, Pittsburgh, Buffalo have an embarrassment of architectural riches relative to size.

But, yeah, it isn't exactly breaking news that U.S. urban centers generally have crappier transit, higher crime and more decay than non-U.S. cities.

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

Putting aside New York, which does seem to impress most non-Americans, I think many foreign visitors find there to be a disconnect between America's reported wealth (no. 1 GDP) and the look and feel of its cities: we don't look the part.

The U.S. is the wealthiest major country based on household income. That doesn't have much to do with quality of public sphere. Spain has a terrific public sphere but moderate household wealth. Germany has inferior public sphere relative to Spain but is much wealthier.

And I would disagree that NYC is the only city that impresses foreigners. Boston, DC, Philly, SF and Chicago have reasonably impressive urban environments, and many other U.S. cities impress for other reasons.

[montréaliste]

Originally Posted by Crawford

What is so "gorgeous" about Australian cities? They're like Canadian cities and some Scandanavian cities: functional and successful though kinda generic and anodyne.

To me, places like Venice, Florence, Toledo, Segovia and Salzburg are "gorgeous". What is so incredible and unique about Perth or Adelaide?

Also, Australia is isolated from the West, and a long and expensive trip, so most folks haven't been there.

Congratulations, you've just been chosen for your very own mini Nobel Prize in the category of most anodyne(sic) poster.