Thought I would try to stir things up a bit with a non-racing topic - Where is the best place to live? Looking at things like climate, work opportunities, housing, kids stuff (education, etc), travel (both within the city/location and getting to other parts of the country), fun stuff.

I will start with Canberra:

CLIMATE 5/10
Too cold in winter and quite hot in summer - would be OK if the nearest beach wasn't over 2 hours drive! But on the positive side it is a "dry" heat in summer (so 35 in Canberra only feels like 30 in Sydney) and the spring and autumn weather is beautiful - mostly sunny dry days. No pollution.

WORK - 9/10
Lowest unemployment rate in the country and highest average wage.

HOUSING - 7/10
Housing prices have gone through the roof here in last 5 years - still cheaper than Sydney/Melbourne though. Most suburbs are really nice to live in with no industrial areas close to houses, heaps of green space (well brownish-green in the drought), bike paths, etc. Majority of houses are no more than 30 years old so generally OK to live in without major renovations.

KIDS STUFF - 8/10
The public schools are without doubt the best in the country. Year 11 & 12 go to seperate "colleges" which means they can offer better courses than available in the traditional high schools in other places. Also no HSC to stress the kids out (continuous assessment over the 2 years). Things to keep kids entertained during holidays/weekends are a bit lacking though.

TRAVEL - 8/10
Best roads in the country means commuting by car is a breeze compared to other cities - I travel 25km each way to and from work in around 20 minutes at peak time. Bus service OK but much slower than car so most people use their cars. When I lived in Sydney 20km often took well over an hour. Freeway to Sydney means trip there is just over 2 hours until you hit the Sydney traffic - then it depends where you are going as to how long it takes! Since Virgin started up we now have decent air travel service at reasonable prices with direct flights to Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide (also Perth but this is Qantas route only so not so cheap).

FUN STUFF - 4/10
This is what really lets Canberra down. If you like skiing it is good in Winter with the ski fields a couple of hours away. In summer closest beach is over 2 hours drive (South Coast). Most decent live shows don't make it here. No decent "fun parks", etc. Some great tourist attractions but most of them are more educational than fun (eg. War Memorial, National Gallery, etc) so not the sort of place you want to go back to every single year.

Overall about 7 out of 10. Anyone else care to comment on their city/town?


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[ This Message was edited by: becareful on 2004-02-29 10:45 ]