This, combined with ridiculous housing prices, overcrowded public transport, generally high prices for imported items, poor availability and high price of digital content, huge tax on wine .. I'm also seriously considering the move to another country, perhaps the US. As much as I love the culture, more and more I do not see Melbourne as a viable long term solution.
If you can't live in the second ranked city in the world, it may be time to look in the mirror and have a long talk with yourself.
Take it from a guy who moved to Sydney after 22 years in the states. There is nothing I've seen in the states[1] or even heard of which compares to the quality of life here. Not by a long shot.
[1]based on living in NYC, Miami, St. Louis, Chicago, San Fran and visiting countless points in between.
People told me the exact same thing when I moved from Montreal to Tokyo. I am glad I didn't listen to them. (Yes, even post-earthquake)
You don't understand his specific rationale or the social strata that he may be involved. Furthermore, how do rankings by old conservative institutions reflect on the preferred life balance of a hacker?
I love Melbourne (well, the inner north and city), I just think it's broken for the reasons I've outlined. Sure, the coffee is good and as I travel that is more and more obvious. But so is the fact that just about everything in life is more expensive there, especially housing. Even if I could buy a house in an area where the culture is about more than sport and violence, most of my friends wont be able to. I only see it getting worse as the population increases. My life is awesome and I live it to the fullest, this is just my conclusion about Melbourne & Australia.
I'd like to live overseas at some point, so I can't speak to global comparisons. I just think that if international folk put Sydney at #2, the other capitals I named ought to be coming in at places -3 through 1.
I've been in Sydney for just under a year, I'd say the big things in no particular order are:
the climate: Just amazing. look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney#Climate and marvel. Tons of sunlight, moderate temperatures but you still get seasons (so no San Diego syndrome of 70-degrees year round).
the people: unbelievably friendly and easy going. take small-town midwest hospitality and invert the xenophobia. common decency, they wait in lines for the buses, but if someone cuts in line (doesn't know or is just being a dick) everyone kind of just mutters and shakes their heads. In Chicago, someone would have gotten stabbed. But who am I kidding, no one would line up in the first place and they would just mob the entrance. I almost took a guy's eye out surfing, his response? "no worries mate, my fault" (it wasn't).
scenery / the outdoors: Sydney is the most naturally beautiful I've ever seen. I take a ferry ride for 30 minutes every morning through the harbor. This week there were whales breaching in the background and a couple of little penguins [1] swimming around screaming their heads off looking for their mother. It's like living in a Disney movie. I wouldn't be surprised one morning to look out and see a Koala riding a dolphin and giving me the thumbs up. It's just unreal. On the way home? sun setting behind the harbor bridge and opera house.
miscellaneous things:
-a lot less religious extremism, it's very european in regard to the general secularism.
-the mainstream brands of beer are really really good. you don't have to rely on microbrews like you do in the states.
-the proto Sydney girl is tall, fit, blonde, blue-eyed and can probably drink you under the table.
-coffee - this was the big surprise, my god they're crazy about good coffee here. in the states you had to hunt for a decent espresso and then fail-over to starbucks. here you can walk into any cafe and get an amazing espresso. I've never seen anything like it outside of Milan.
In summation I'd say, imagine an english speaking country with a mediteranean climate, lots of european influences in food and drink and midwest levels of decency but in a +4 million person city with a major economy. And then put it in the most amazing natural setting you can imagine.
I just moved to Sydney (from Vienna, Austria, which incidentally is also ranked high wrt. living conditions [1]) and my first impression after two weeks matches your list very well! Even though it's winter ;).
Rather off-topic, but do you or any other fellow HNers have suggestions for places to meet other hackers or like-minded people?
In Vienna there's Metalab [2], a very nice hackerspace populated by lots of creative people. I just found out about a place called Robodino [3] in Sydney. Are there any other meetups?
Welcome to Sydney! I haven't been to any meetups but there are quite a few Aussie hn'ers in Sydney and Melbourne. Shoot me an email (in my profile) if you need any help with settling in. It's a helluva town :)
I love your coffee line. Totally agree (except for a little relativism; Sydney coffee is generally pretty bad compared with the average quality at corner cafés in Melbourne).
I'm in northern europe now and while the espresso bug has hit them, it's all only just a bit better than Starbucks at this point.
The 'huge tax on wine' is because you can get four litres of cask wine for $4 - or sometimes less. Oh, how onerous! I actually find it amusing that wine-lovers are screaming bloody murder because their preferential treatment over other alcohol types is coming to an end. Wine isn't being 'super-taxed', it's being equalised.
High prices for imported items? Traditionally it was because we had a weak dollar, and prices haven't caught up to the strong dollar - but that's okay, because we can order online with ease now. Our dollar hasn't been strong for very long at all, only a couple of years. General pricing moves slowly.
Ridiculous house prices I'll give you (and no politician will sign their own resignation by doing anyhting about it), but moving to another country merely to avoid those things you list? You're cutting off your nose to spite your face. If you like US culture (or wherever), then sure, move there. I know a guy that moved to Canada and won't stop raving about it.
But be familiar with the culture before you jump ship - you may be suffering from 'grass is greener' syndrome. The US has plenty of problems as well; they may suit you better, they may suit you worse.
This isn't the most important factor by far, but alcohol is about 3x what people pay in the US across all products. I only said wine because that is what I drink.
To be honest housing prices have always been pretty crazy, especially in Sydney. Public transport is pretty bad, but only because of the prices. I will give credit where its due and admit that it has been MUCH better for the last year or so. Imported items are only expensive if you buy them from local retailers. Digital content is more expensive, but then again most isn't here anyway, so hello bittorrent. The wine taxes are indeed crazy but with the current AUD prices and the glut of Aussie wine you can get highly drinkable wines for $2-4 a bottle, as the producers are hurting.
I live in Sydney, have a reasonable, but not high salary and live a pretty comfortable life. I don't own my home, but will do in 7 years or so. I drink reasonable wines and have whatever toys (phones etc...) I want. I have a dependent partner but no children as yet.
When all you have to complain about is that the houses and wine are expensive, you cant get a seat on the train/bus, imported goods cost more then local and digital content isn't as cheap as other markets your life really isn't that bad.
I've always thought Australia to have pretty darned good public transport, relatively speaking. That is to say that the US has (generally) fucking terrible public transport, outside of NYC and some small commuter services.
Public transport is fine in Melbourne except for certain routes in the middle of peak hour. Living one of the slightly less busy rail lines and generally shifting my hours an hour or 2 later in the day from peak times I find it great.
Recently had my first trip to the US. Used lots of public transport in SF and Sacramento. It was really easy and efficient (with the exception of a aggressive and dodgy Sacramento taxi experience). We were impressed. Trains, taxi, ferry, tram, bus. Planes though... Wow we're not all crimals or terrorists.
SF is unusual in its love for public transport (cablecars! trains! trams! buses! trambuses! bustrams!), I don't know about Sacramento. But SF certainly isn't normal for PT in the US.
Sydney apparently has good public transport (I found it fine on holidays), and Melbourne's trams aren't bad, but Adelaide is terrible and none of the cities compare to European cities in terms of reliability, coverage or frequency in my experience.
Sydney's public transport isn't great. Usually dirty, and frequently late. However it is a lot better then it was 1 year ago. I take the train every day and rarely get a seat or clean carriage.
If it was cheaper I wouldn't mind, but $50 a week to stand in a non air-conditioned/non-heated dirty train isn't what I consider a good deal.
Adelaide is bad, but it is the cheapest as well. Each ticket lasts for 2 hours, on trains, trams or buses. The problem with Adelaide is that it is too spread out, as soon as you leave the 1 mile city center, you hit the suburbs with houses with front and back gardens, all low density housing. It will never be good.
Sydney public transport sucks, it is very expensive, each ticket counts for only one trip. The trains are ok, the buses are very bad. The roads are awful in Sydney, and too much congestion. The state governments response to this is to build more roads, because they are too scared to make proper decisions.
Melbourne has the best public transport, but as with all Australian cities, it is too spread out (not as bad as Adelaide).
I spent 3 months in Melbourne earlier this year. Compared to Australia, the US has cheaper goods, cheaper booze, and all the digital content you want. Unfortunately, there aren't any places in the USA with good public transport (by international standards) and non-ridiculous housing prices. You have to pick one or the other. I've lived in NYC, SF, Boston, Minneapolis and rural Minnesota. Melbourne was a more viable long term solution than any of those places, especially if one wants to live in an urban environment. Most Australians I know love the states, but all are happy they have the option of returning home.
That said, the internet in Australia was so slow and expensive I'm not sure censorship should be the primary worry.
