The Thing About Melbourne!

[ecclipse83]

Does Melbourne Really Have Everything ?

A friend of mine visiting from the US, posed this question to me today, i sat and pondered this whilst working away at some project at my desk, i honestly cannot answer this, is there anything Melbourne does not have, ummm not really we have it pretty sweet!

Can you think of any thing ? (and don't say Mardi gras):D

[gandolf69]

Melbourne has everything from culture to sports and CLASS. Entertainment wise we have everything including Kylie, Dame Edna, Also, some of the best radio stations in the world today, some of the best beaches in Australia, Eddie McQuire and finally THE MCG.

What other City can beat us?

[ecclipse83]

i am waiting to find out

[Ruffnut]

Well you don't have a beautiful harbour, bridge and opera house like Sydney. And as for the weather Sydney beats ya hands down......(Oh I luv shit stirring)

[mindstar]

I wouldn't list Eddie McGuire as a plus to be honest...

[Ruffnut]

But then KD Lang said she loves Melbourne.....

[foongsta]

melbourne (and victoria) don't have Underbelly....yet

[ecclipse83]

melbourne (and victoria) don't have Underbelly....yet

I know we just watch it play out in real life every day :p

[Marshy]

I disagree with the beaches call. Even if somehow ours manage to compete with NSW, QLD, Tas. and WA, we don't have the weather to suit it.

[Ruffnut]

Oh I forgot, Melbourne does have an inferiority complex.....

[mindstar]

Oh I forgot, Melbourne does have an inferiority complex.....

hey our buildings are bigger than yours *cough*

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/51/157846730_e185b7c4b7.jpg

[Ruffnut]

Say no more.....

[mindstar]

Say no more.....

ours are just slighly less phallic though :P

[Ruffnut]

But ya know what? I luv's our city of Melbourne, it's such a breath of fresh air from Sydney. And yes the peoples are a lot friendlier down there too.

[ecclipse83]

oi i live there

[Travis de Jonk]

Melbourne has the mind of a big city, but a heart of a country town. It's pros and cons come from that fact. Each day, this city becomes more international and culturally open, and it's why I love it more each day. There's hope for this lovely lady yet!

[mindstar]

Melbourne has the mind of a big city, but a heart of a country town.

sounds like you got lost in Brisbane...

[Travis de Jonk]

Nope I'm definitely talking about Melbourne. Melbourne is a big country town. You can tell, cos all it does is bags the other states. If that's not insecurity, then I don't know what is. Your comment just proves my point.

[mindstar]

Nope I'm definitely talking about Melbourne. Melbourne is a big country town. You can tell, cos all it does is bags the other states. If that's not insecurity, then I don't know what is. Your comment just proves my point.

I have never felt that melbourne feels like a big country town and I don't bag the other states. I grew up in Brisbane (and that was a big country town).

I was making a joke... I wasn't actually being serious... I should have placed a ":P" at the end of my remark I guess

[mikee]

Nope I'm definitely talking about Melbourne. Melbourne is a big country town. You can tell, cos all it does is bags the other states. If that's not insecurity, then I don't know what is. Your comment just proves my point.

Having come from a 'big country town' I think you're misreading Melbourne.

It's about as far from country town as you can get in Australia...

[philandering]

i agree with melbourne being a bigger country town... i mean brisbane is too... but brissy lacks a cultural past, which it is trying to build now... i mean i live about 6 train stations from the city and every day i feel like im catching train from a rural train town station. Its just that melbourne looks so quaint and country like, thus little things like this influence our moods and habits... its not rocket science really.

So really melbourne is just a farm town that grew big, has a crap Public trans system, (as cute as the trams are they're bloody slow), has a unique urban character (even though the locals are hell bent on preventing change, cough, cough, fed square opposition... now they love it - again a country town mentality + sydney can't talk... as many people opposed the opera house...) Really its just the Australian condition, we are young, we are farmers + prisoners + soldiers + immigrants and only have a few hundred years history here... of cause we have a naive "rural" mentality...

gees that was a rant and a half.

[philandering]

ps i'm from a "country town"

lived in brissy, played in sydney and now call melbourne home + i love it... each city is as good as the other, and realistically are so close together anyone can enjoy the best aspects of all three whenever they feel.

[Ruffnut]

Melbourne must be a bit like a big country town. Cause ya drive 30 minutes from the city centre and you are in the sticks. Whereas here in Sydney ya drive for an hour and a half from the city and you are still in suburbia.

[philandering]

thats called urban sprawl honey... :P

[Marshy]

Comparing Melbourne to a country town is like comparing doughnuts to fruit, it just doesn't work.

[jackie87]

Melbourne must be a bit like a big country town. Cause ya drive 30 minutes from the city centre and you are in the sticks. Whereas here in Sydney ya drive for an hour and a half from the city and you are still in suburbia.

no! you drive for an hour and a half and you are in Penrith or Campbelltown! which is worse than anything Melbourne could offer

[ecclipse83]

Comparing Melbourne to a country town is like comparing doughnuts to fruit, it just doesn't work.

i think they are referring to the sense of community and mateship that Melbourne has.

The same cultural as a country town mindset

[taylor-dayne]

melbourne has cutting edge architecture, leafy parks, wide open spaces, culture, fashion, good looking people, a lively gay scene... it's also not the obvious choice, like sydney is... sydney's house values may have gone up and we may have more people moving to the inner city etc - but all that's done is fill our inner city locations with boring rich people.

sydney's lost it's heart because the interesting and vibrant people can't afford to live where they used to. i hope melbourne manages to hang onto it's substance... and doesn't become a parody of itself...

i think melbourne does have everything! and i'd almost live there... (but sydney feels too much like home unfortunately).

[mindstar]

melbourne has cutting edge architecture, leafy parks, wide open spaces, culture, fashion, good looking people, a lively gay scene... it's also not the obvious choice, like sydney is... sydney's house values may have gone up and we may have more people moving to the inner city etc - but all that's done is fill our inner city locations with boring rich people.

this made me think of this in the paper today...

IN HER ode to Melbourne two years ago, Sydney architect and author Elizabeth Farrelly encapsulated the traits of a good city. "Good cities," she wrote, are "richly textured, intensely energised and minutely explorable.

Designed to engage our imaginations as well as our feet and wallets, they offer secrets and surprises, dungeons and attics, mystery and risk. Cities give shelter to eccentricities of all kinds, cloaking the difference in the protection of anonymity; they offer the magic of unimagined worlds and the adventure of discovery."

Sydney, Farrelly argued, once had such texture and character, but had managed in the past 50 years to "Botox" much of it away.

Is Melbourne's heart also in danger of losing its beguiling, idiosyncratic features to become yet another bland commercial precinct devoid of secrets and surprises? The answer, according to artists working at the coalface, is a resounding yes. In the inner city, the critical needs are affordable spaces for independent artists to work, perform, and exhibit in, better targeted State Government funding and more private philanthropists.

In the outer suburbs (which Dr Farrelly overlooked, so enthralled was she by inner Melbourne's vitality) there is little risk of erasing character - there's not much to begin with. In the vast tracts that are the city's growth corridors, with their super-sized homes and car-dependent lifestyles, the prime source of entertainment, when it's not the home-theatre system, is the shopping mall. The pressing needs here are investment in cultural hubs that encourage local residents to engage in the arts, convenient and reliable public transport that can take residents to the cultural riches of the city centre, and a built environment that stimulates the imagination, not dulls it with acres of cheaply built, environmentally challenged McMansions. Often, when artists can no longer afford to live in the inner city, it's not these outer suburbs that benefit, but charming and historic regional towns, such as Castlemaine, which already have a sense of community and traditional town centres that artists can engage with.

At this juncture in Melbourne's history there is no room for complacency in the inner city and a critical need for continued improvement in the outer.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/a-more-lively-city/2008/05/05/1209839519532.html
a rather interesting read (i've only read the first little bit - i'm a bit pressed for time today)

I <3 Melbourne
although I'm probably one of those boring inner urbanites...

[ecclipse83]

I <3 Melbourne
although I'm probably one of those boring inner urbanites...

Funny that me too ... i live in the city .... on southbank ;p

[miss flutterby]

Comparing Melbourne to a country town is like comparing doughnuts to fruit, it just doesn't work.

This doughnut has purple on it... purple is a fruit.
Lol.
I know, a tad lame.
Well, see here's the thing... I think cities are all the same.
Congestion, pedestrians who pay no attention to lights... ;P
And most of all, shops that are close together and you STILL don't manage to find the right something!
<3
I don't reckon you can compare *any* city to another, they all have their own unique feel that comes from their creation (theres a better word for that but I'm a tad braindead today, do forgive me) and the past of a city.
+ the people in it!
Melbourne is teh bomb, but then again I've only ever been to Sydney and Canberra besides.
(Btw does Seddon count as part of Melbourne? Lol, cause I *swear* that place is a ghosttown. Not that I can speak however, I come from like *wayyyy* out Pakky end haha)
^^

[honest]

Nope I'm definitely talking about Melbourne. Melbourne is a big country town. You can tell, cos all it does is bags the other states. If that's not insecurity, then I don't know what is. Your comment just proves my point.

What a load of garbage. Melbourne is a great city with a whole lot more class than Sydney. Sydney has become an anal, boring and politically correct nutcase. Melbourne on the other hand is stylish, friendly and has far more (and better) cafes. Oh and I'm yet to walk up the main street of Melbourne and feel threatened by anyone as opposed to Sydney where you wouldn't go out to certain parts on a Friday or Saturday night unless you wanted your face punched in.

As for the gay community, well Sydney's is under the control of ACON and Clover Moore... oh hang on that's a minus :rolleyes:

[dreadcircus]

Both Sydney and Melbourne are amazing cities! Yes they are different but that doesn't mean one is better than the other. Being born and raised in Melbourne I admit to loving the place. I'm a musician tho so Melbs is perfect for me as Art and music dominates the culture. Sydney actually used to be the Music mecca back in the 80's and now is merely a ghost of those days no matter how hard it tries to re create a music scene. Sydney has always been a great place to just slip into the crowd. The place is so vast and congested with other humans trying to make something of themselves I find it really easy to just blend in. Melbs is more laid back no doubt.

I think Sydney is a great place to really test oneself. I mean if you can survive a few years in Sydney doing it tough then living in Melbs would be a cakewalk. Violence is prevalent in both cities. Melbs gay strip is right on the doorstep of yobbo central Chapel st which every week is bumper to bumper assholes. I know as I have been bashed in this area whilst going out as a transgender woman several times. Sydney's gay strip is loaded with the same crap.

I guess the right city depends on what you want from your life at that point in time. I visit Melbs a few times a year to perform with my band and always don't want to return to Sydney. Once back in Sydney tho the story changes, this is why I love both equally and hate both equally as no matter where you live it's what you make of the space and time there that is important and shapes your concept of the surroundings.

I feel that the people who bitch endlessly about the 2 cities on which is better are time wasters who neglect to look at the overall picture. They are both awesome and I feel so lucky to only have 1000 clicks between them.

[sneakos]

Does Melbourne Really Have Everything ?

A friend of mine visiting from the US, posed this question to me today, i sat and pondered this whilst working away at some project at my desk, i honestly cannot answer this, is there anything Melbourne does not have, ummm not really we have it pretty sweet!

Can you think of any thing ? (and don't say Mardi gras):D

Sydney beaches, the Blue Mountains and a capacity ANZ Stadium on Sate of Origin night

hahaha!

oh - and good weather too

[danny corvini]

Sydney has become an anal, boring and politically correct nutcase. :
Hmm walking up Oxford St at almost any time of the night or day I would have to differ.. Looking at all of the strains of humanity that you see in Sydney, I think it is hard to find it that boring.

[mindstar]

a capacity ANZ Stadium on Sate of Origin night

not quite sure just how desirable this is...

[Ruffnut]

Give me Melbourne any day, Just not today......

And I come from Sydney....

[sTaRiA]

Well... I just visited Melbourne and I loved it so much I'm moving there in a few months. The welcoming atmosphere and the friendliness and helpfullness of total strangers just overwhelmed me! I can see why people love Sydney but I think Melb is just a better fit, for me :).... Oh and I think the trams are fabulous! Didnt have a problem the whole time I was down there and we were on em every day!

[gandolf69]

Another person giving Melbourne the thumbs up , most of us are here to stay for life.

[ecclipse83]

Any opinions on the plans to create a beach on the Yarra in summer months?