Comparing Australia to the world

[Dimethyltryptamine]

you're thinking of Lismore!

[L2]

Originally Posted by Brisbane_Rulz

Yes Brisbane is a bit like San Diego all the way up to Sunshine and down to Tweed, generally. Melbourne is wonderful until you get to Laverton, Sunshine, Craigieburn and the City of Kingston, which all look like third world countries.

Why the specific & random hating of the City of Kingston after naming the two other dumps? Did you have a massive blue with an ex who lived in it or something?

The coastal strip within the City of Kingston can be pleasant enough albeit more lower-middle class than upmarket....

[mobus]

Comparing Sydney to NYC, is the same as comparing London to NYC, or Toronto to NYC. Most comparisons are superficial. I can see some similarities though.

Out of those three (London, Sydney and Toronto) I'm not sure which I'd say is the closest to New York City.

[Sky_Is_The_Limit]

Originally Posted by Dimethyltryptamine

Lol comparing Sydney to San Francisco is overselling Sydney.

I mean come on... Sydney is no New York! they're absolutely nothing alike - other than the largest city in their respective country. Comparing Melbourne to it is a stretch, but I would say physically they do have more in common.

This comment isn't directed at you, but I think we're selling both Melbourne and Sydney short by making comparisons to New York. International tourists wouldn't want to travel considerable distances to experience a mini anything when they can experience the real thing elsewhere.

Both cities have numerous exciting qualities that make them unique in a global context.

[redbaron_012]

I don't get this comparo thing..........every city in the world in different countries with different sytems, culture and architecture. The thing I don't get is we say we live in a global economy on a level playing field yet nothing is equal and nothing is fair.......Places like Australia get the rough side of the deal and we play dumb because we carry a guilt complex that we are not good enough or we have taken someones land.....Get over it people ! Australia is as good as anywhere...we have resources, technology and cheap energy, whether that be Coal or Uranium....make your bloody mind up and stop whimping out.............

[Skyrazer]

Originally Posted by redbaron_012

Places like Australia get the rough side of the deal

I'd have to disagree. For a country with a small population and is geographically fairly isolated, I'd say we hold up pretty damn well on the world stage.

[Dockside]

Originally Posted by Dimethyltryptamine

To be real with you, neither Sydney nor Melbourne are like New York

100% agree, what New York City has that Sydney and Melbourne dont is scale, upsize, supersized, it goes on forever.
Our two cities are nothing more than mere street corners in comparison.

[JayT]

If we are comparing with North America then:

Sydney = Boston (old and unplanned)
Hobart = Halifax, Nova Scotia (though one day we hope it will be a Vancouver)
Brisbane = Seattle (hilly and rainy however with a subtropical climate)
Perth = San Diego (lots of sunshine)
Melbourne = Piladelphia (well planned with lots of space, also served as capital for a while).
Adelaide = Indianapolis (well planned young city)
Darwin = Anchorage (except tropical)

I'm not even gonna talk about Canberra.

[ChrisJudd83]

LoL this has turned into a comparison with America thread.

Sydney = San Fransisco if you go by geography, crazy nightlife, mardi gras and not to mention the Golden Gate Bridge however climate is more humid than SF

Melbourne = Chicago with the bay/lake similarity and sleek corporate looking skyline minus the supertalls, the loop and river also and suburbs. Has a Boston influence also with the inner suburban architecture from the late 1800s although alot in boston is from the early 1800s and 1700s. Similar scale and population too albeit not as dense and consistently grey alot of the time

Brisbane = Houston with a fairly white skyline, lots of suburban and freeway sprawl. Hot and humid climate with heavy downpours in the summer.

Perth = Dallas with a modern skyline and dry climate. Well maintained freeway system like houston but with alot of sprawl. San Diego also being on the West Coast and a similar sized city bathed in sunshine although i do believe Perth is alot hotter.

Gold Coast = Definetely Miami with the massive skyline lining the beach, hot tanned babes on the beach, great party scene, haven for retirees but with a lack of corporate presence unlike Miami

Adelaide = Phoenix dry flat land with hills in the distance and a hot climate in summer also the basic skyline with both cities suffering similar issues of height restrictions

Canberra = Definetely Washington

Hobart = Don't know but possibly Nova Scotia after googling it with the snow capped mountains closeby, lots of scenery, small population set by the water

Darwin = No idea maybe a wealthy version in the Bahamas

Ballina?

[mw123]

Originally Posted by ooh

I'd compare: -

Sydney CBD: Birmingham in the UK, lots of 1 way streets & concrete 60's wonders.
Sydney generally: More like San Francisco with the bay, the bridge, structural attractions, climate.

Melbourne: Like a mini-NYC. Solid CBD or downtown, grid formation, lots of architecture in a similar style just scaled down (a lot), on a river. Similar levels of suburban rich and poorer pockets. Again climate as it does get cold and hot.

Brisbane: I like the Miami comparison, maybe more applicable to the Gold Coast though?

Canberra: Washington, best comparison of all.

Hahaha at this... Of all the places in the world you could possibly think of that had a similarity to Sydney's CBD you would choose Birmingham?
Melbourne must be like NY, it has a grid, a river and supposedly gets cold there

[eastadl]

Originally Posted by ChrisJudd83

Adelaide = Phoenix dry flat land with hills in the distance and a hot climate in summer also the basic skyline with both cities suffering similar issues of height restrictions

thats a strange one. Pheonix is a land locked city with a desert climate similar to Alice Springs (infact hotter than Alice). Adelaide is a green coastal city that sometimes gets a heatwave every few summers

[Cariad]

I'd say Melbourne is very much like Melbourne and Sydney is very much like Sydney case closed

[Cariad]

Joking aside, from how I "feel" when I'm in a city, I would say that Melbourne "feels" more like New York based on the climate, the general greyness, the culture, I think you are more easily lost in Melbourne, in it's laneway's and there is always a surprise lurking where you don't expect it, like a bar, shop, hotel etc and I "feel" like that in NYC. When in Melbourne if you squint your eyes and go down a laneway, or see a yellow cab, you could be in NYC. Two cities I really adore.

Sydney I'd compare I guess to LA in someways, but if LA, SF, San Diego and Atlanta had a baby, I think it would be Sydney. As soon as I hit the west coast, I feel instantly more at home because it "feels" like Sydney. Parts of LA (which I detest as a city) is very much like Alexandria which I compare with WeHO, both uninspiring in my opinion, but somewhat inoffensive.

[Mornnb]

Originally Posted by Dockside

100% agree, what New York City has that Sydney and Melbourne dont is scale, upsize, supersized, it goes on forever.

True, the scale of NYC is incomparable. But, our cities are not at all tiny, Sydney's CBD is the size of Lower Manhattan, and so is Melbourne, minus some of the density.
One of the fundamental aspect of NYC that makes it what it is, is the high density public transport and pedestrianised nature of the city, and in this way it is very comparable to Sydney's CBD and to a lesser degree Melbourne's CBD at least with commercial density. We have along way to go with residential density as our cities don't have anything that even slightly compares to the residential areas of Manhattan, such as the upper east and west sides.

Originally Posted by ChrisJudd83

Sydney = San Fransisco if you go by geography, crazy nightlife, mardi gras and not to mention the Golden Gate Bridge however climate is more humid than SF

Generally a good comparison, and San Francisco is Sydney's sister city, though the climate is totally different, San Francisco has mild summers and mild winters and is nothing like LA to the south. San Francisco weather is

Melbourne = Chicago with the bay/lake similarity and sleek corporate looking skyline minus the supertalls

In some ways. One thing that Chicago does right that I wish Melbourne did, is having density right up to the river banks. Melbourne's damn rail lines cut the city off from the river, and Chicago's canyon of buildings on the sides of a river shows what Melbourne has the potential to be like.

Brisbane = Houston with a fairly white skyline, lots of suburban and freeway sprawl. Hot and humid climate with heavy downpours in the summer.

I don't really see it, Brisbane is difficult to compare to any American city.
In a very superficial way, I'd compare it to Philadelphia, as that city embraces it's river in a way quite like Brisbane does.

Perth = Dallas with a modern skyline and dry climate. Well maintained freeway system like houston but with alot of sprawl. San Diego also being on the West Coast and a similar sized city bathed in sunshine although i do believe Perth is alot hotter.

Just because it has a modern skyline with highways? No your San Diego comparison was better.

Gold Coast = Definetely Miami with the massive skyline lining the beach, hot tanned babes on the beach, great party scene, haven for retirees but with a lack of corporate presence unlike Miami

Much smaller city than Miami with a much bigger skyline. Rather characterless compared to Miami. I'd sooner compare the Gold Coast to Las Vegas, in that it's a superficial city built around entertaining guests.

Adelaide = Phoenix dry flat land with hills in the distance and a hot climate in summer also the basic skyline with both cities suffering similar issues of height restrictions

Nah, Phoenix is Alice Springs turned into a big city.
Adelaide? I have no idea what to compare it to.

[BSD]

Ballina = New York (Large metro area with plenty 100m plus highrises on the island, plenty airports, massive freeway system and double decker highways, subway stations, 24/7 districts, broadway scenes and that etc).

[BSD]

Originally Posted by Dimethyltryptamine

you're thinking of Lismore!

= Tokyo (Very extremely large metro urban footprint in the universe, so many districts.....)

and ......

.......
.....?

[Dimethyltryptamine]

Originally Posted by Mornnb

In some ways. One thing that Chicago does right that I wish Melbourne did, is having density right up to the river banks. Melbourne's damn rail lines cut the city off from the river, and Chicago's canyon of buildings on the sides of a river shows what Melbourne has the potential to be like.

I think there's something about shadows and the Yarra River which too prevents this from happening.

Originally Posted by Mornnb

Much smaller city than Miami with a much bigger skyline. Rather characterless compared to Miami. I'd sooner compare the Gold Coast to Las Vegas, in that it's a superficial city built around entertaining guests.

Miami's skyline is longer, taller and consists of more buildings. It's certainly not smaller.

I also wouldn't say the Gold Coast is an entirely superficial/characterless city, and guarantee you it's nothing like Las Vegas. The whole 'superficial'/'soulless'/'without character' argument seems to be one constantly strung by people who've not lived on the Gold Coast, or simply visited once or twice for a few days and went to the theme parks and stayed in Surfers Paradise. Or people who believe they're on some cultural high-horse. Believe me, there's plenty more to the place than just those few parts. From the Hinterland, to dirty grimy Southport, hippy Miami/Burleigh, dodgy Coolangatta and run down lower Broadbeach... It's far from glitz and glam. It has boutique art galleries and coffee shops, thrift stores, worldly cuisine, etc

While there's no great big art galleries/exhibitions on the scale of Melbourne/Brisbane/Sydney, for a city of 600,000-odd it more than caters to every niche. What does Newcastle or Wollongong offer that the Gold Coast doesn't, make them neither 'superficial' nor 'characterless'?

[Mornnb]

Hmm. Okay I haven't been to Miami and was merely judging from photos and media. I've seen many photos of Miami, and it's skyline certainly isn't as long as the Gold Coast. Wider though.
Lets see, what are the numbers.
Gold Coast, 41 buildings over 100m.
Miami, 79 buildings over 100m.
But, Q1 and Soul are taller than Miami's tallest, the 240m Four Seasons Hotel.

[BSD]

I'll be going to Miami, FL next year as being on working holiday visa to US.



Miami is MUCH larger than Gold Coast, look at the scale, 34km wide and about 120km long strip of coastline. Plentiful of highrises along the coastline with focus core of downtown Miami where the real CBD business district of the city. It has population over 6million.

Compared to Gold Coast, CBDs is very intermittent. No focus core of downtown, i.e. confusion between Surfers Paradise, Robina and Southport.

[nealc]

I've never been impressed with Julia Gillard before but I do like what she had to say here.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard- Australia
Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia , as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks..

Separately, Gillard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying she supported spy agencies monitoring the nation's mosques. Quote:


'IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT.. Take It Or Leave It.
I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali , we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians. '

'This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom'

'We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society ... Learn the language!'

'Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.'

'We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us.'

'This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, 'THE RIGHT TO LEAVE'.'
'If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted.'