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What constitutes a bad neighbourhood?


SA2SA

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Hi all

New to the forum and to the visa application process. I've been enjoying reading all the posts on this forum, thanks to those who take their time to answer and help others :)

I'm not sure if this has come up before or not, but what would be considered an "undesirable" area in Aus? Would it be the same elements that we'd use in SA - crime, service delivery, noise levels, aesthetics etc.

Times are tough in SA at the moment, and even on my husband's good salary, the family will probably arrive in Aus on the bones of our :censored: 's! We might not be able to settle in what would be considered a desirable area, and I worry about the repercussions as we've been burned so badly by the "wrong" areas in the past.

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I'm not sure if this has come up before or not, but what would be considered an "undesirable" area in Aus?

Well, anywhere the Bogan Hunters would go.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogan_Hunters

But seriously, a bad neighborhood in the Sydney Metro is Mount Druitt. The shops close around 4pm and haven't been renovated in 20 years. Also, kids throw stones at cars... so be careful where you park or which bridges you drive under.

Basically, Mount Druitt has a high Aborigine population. Aborigines and Torres Straight Islanders get really good government payouts. So some of them don't work and spend all day getting drunk or high. This means their kids run around wild.

Another neighborhood that was bad is Cabramatta. Basically, the government moved a lot of refugees there after the Vietnam war. A lot of refugee fathers turned to drinking; so the kids joined gangs. Thus the neighborhood got a bad reputation. But that neighborhood is improving.

There is a nice documentary on the failure of the VISA system in Cabramatta... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_in_Cabramatta

That's a good watch if you want to understand the history of the Aus VISA system...

Oh and Kings Cross is a great suburb by day... but after hours the clubs fill up and a few people have been killed.

Cheers

Edited by monsta
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Exactly where are you planning on heading in Australia? Then you will get more targeted replies......When we arrived in Perth in December 2005 we had zip cash, enough for the bond and two weeks rent, also it was December so there wasn't much available.....we ended up in a fairly dodgy part of south Perth, but, apart from one family it was fine.......the funny thing is that even the nicest suburbs can have one bad street.

Make google your best friend and google the areas you are looking at................"What are the best areas of xyz" and "Where should I avoid in ABC", it is subjective though.

Crime, noisy neigbours, might make a certain street or couple of blocks undesirable........service delivery should be pretty constant......aesthetics.....this one surprised me, you can be in a lovely area, an expensive area, and there may be run down, unpainted houses, with scruffy yards, and stuff all over the patio......(get used to seeing strange things on peoples patios, because they spend a lot of time out there.......

Another thing that surprised me is to never judge a home by the outside....you will see pretty mediocre looking houses, particularly the Queenslander type, and inside they are absolutely beautiful..............people don't do things for show here.

Let us know where you are thinking of heading.

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Before you sign a rental agreement.......

- Go drink a few cups of coffee at the MacDonalds and check out the locals.

- Pop in at the local school at knock-off time and check out the local kids. Observe how they behave, talk and dress.

- Spend some time at the local shopping mall, Thursday evening is late night shopping and the less desirable areas will have groups of kids that just look a bit rough....if you know what I mean.

- Drive around and check out kids who are playing or hanging around the streets/parks etc. Some neighbourhoods with a high ratio of welfare (government homes) to owner occupied/rentals homes can be the not so good neighbourhoods.

- Oh, and my all time favourite (sorry Bronwyn) but if you see lots of skid marks on the roads, pimped up Holdens in the driveways and basically shitty looking gardens......run!!!!!

Edited by Johnno
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Johnno, How do you know if a neighborhood has a high ratio of welfare homes?

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Well, anywhere the Bogan Hunters would go.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogan_Hunters

Okay, now THIS I have to track down and watch! :D

Exactly where are you planning on heading in Australia?

Hi AndreaL. At this stage, Melbourne is sponsoring my husband's occupation, but apparently this might change? Truthfully, we will take sponsorship from anywhere, just to get ourselves over there!

Thanks to all who've replied so far. Some very interesting and surprising information coming out :P

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These "Who lives where" city reports by the Grattan Institute are really interesting:

http://grattan.edu.au/report/productive-cities-opportunity-in-a-changing-economy/

They are full of very informative maps overlaying all sorts of stats over a map of the city. Here's a Brisbane example:

14930236369_2a317d4dd5_o.jpgWho Lives Where - Disconnected Youth by fish.2, on Flickr

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Thanks to all who've replied so far. Some very interesting and surprising information coming out :P

Another option , if you have an idea of what you will earn and some possible suburbs in mind.. you can use http://www.peoplelikeu.com.au/. You can use it to see what people in various suburbs spend. If they spend roughly what you will earn then the suburb is a good fit financially.

You should always move into the best suburb that you can comfortably afford.

Another good way to identify a *good* suburb is by how far away it is from things. Let me give you an example from Sydney. Chatswood has two private schools, a major train station, a buss interchange and three shopping centers all in walking distance. That makes it a very desirable place to live. Go to google maps and look up "Chatswood, NSW". Then search for shops, schools, train, hospital, etc.. Google also points out its 13 mins by car to Sydney CBD.

If you look at Mount Druitt for example, there are mostly public schools, no major shopping centers (like east gate, west gate, etc.) .... Its also 43 minutes to the city.

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.... At this stage, Melbourne is sponsoring my husband's occupation, but apparently this might change? Truthfully, we will take sponsorship from anywhere, just to get ourselves over there!

Same boat as us... I am sponsored by a company in Richmond, Melbourne. I have been on 2 trips to Melbourne this year. First one in Feb was for interviews and LSD, and second in June was to sign contract, check out the work place and another LSD.

I don't know if this will help answer your question, as I don't know all the "bad spots" around Melbourne.. Maybe there are a couple of Melbournians here to help us on the right track.

We started looking at places close to my work. And there are a lot of really nice suburbs etc. all around Melbourne. Lovely place to live it seems. But the more you move away from the CBD the cheaper it becomes. We had a look at something similar in a couple of different suburbs and towns (3 bed, 2 bath, 1 garage plus or minus...) In Doncaster or Balwyn North (20 mins commute) about Au$480 per week, a bit more away like Epping or Campbellfield or Thomastown (35 to 40 mins commute) about Au$400 per week, a little bit more is Craigieburn (maybe about 1 hour commute) where the same type place goes for about Au$350 per week. We even went as far as a town called Wallan (about 1.5 hr commute) where we will most probably end up as my missus don't really like the idea of "city" living, and there is nice schools etc. That same kind of house there is about Au$300 to 320 per week.

So for me the difference between Au$480 and Au$350 means a few dollars a week more for groceries etc. And as I said, didn't seem like the undesirable kind of areas you are trying to avoid... :ilikeit:

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I'll second Monsta on King's Cross! Back in 2003 I visited Aus, I was supposed to be staying with someone who dropped me at the last minute as they had to fly off to Cleveland, USA to deal with a family crisis.

I arrived there learning of this a day or 2 before my flight, sat at the airport till around midnight calling all the local backpackers and finally found a place to take me in.

The name should have been a dead giveaway (I'll leave it anonymous), I arrived and as we pulled in the police were zipping up a body bag... I was checked in by the receptionist, who was also in a stripper in the club next door, so she was a bit miffed I didn't get there sooner because she was due on stage.

My dorm mates were quite nice, a pair of guys from Denmark, but the next day we took in a Brit who had been backpacking through Nepal for a year and had the hygiene of a mangy dog. I thought we were all going to get bed lice.

We ventured out in the streets and were threatened by bouncers, accosted by prostitutes, offered drugs, the works.

The next morning though, it was a completely different place, buzzing, no criminal element to be seen, a couple places to grab a nice breakfast and coffee. Spent the days in the botanical gardens, local museums, circular quays, Tarronga Zoo, loved those parts of it!

After 3 days I vowed I'd not return to Sydney, but on Thursday our house is being packed up and in 2-months we land in Sydney.

So that worked out, Ha Ha!

Cheers

Matt

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Same boat as us... I am sponsored by a company in Richmond, Melbourne.

Well, Neels, if we do end up in Melbourne, my husband will be relieved there's at least one other Afrikaaner in the area :lol:

After 3 days I vowed I'd not return to Sydney, but on Thursday our house is being packed up and in 2-months we land in Sydney.

Awesome! All the best for the move across. Wish we had started when we first had the idea, we'd be in the same situation as you are. Everything in it's time, though, we'll just have to be patient now. Patient and frugal! :P

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Well, Neels, if we do end up in Melbourne, my husband will be relieved there's at least one other Afrikaaner in the area :lol:

Well, let me tell you something...

Apart from a cousin of mine and his family close to where we will be. One Sunday morning, I went to a local Community Church, and I met 9 other Afrikaans families there. We have even been on a 4X4 trip together in the Cobaw State forsest.

So hy sal dalk 'n surprise kry, daar is 'n klomp Afrikaners reeds daar, en ek is seker daar is nog 'n paar opad. :ilikeit:

Ons sal in kontak bly.

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I'd be cautious of a commute longer than 1 hr. Remember it's another hour in the evening. If you want a bit of country living I think Sunbury should suit you fine and it is an hour commute. Mara can comment. Looking up Wallan it is really far from the city.

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Yep, Wallan would be a huge commute if you worked in the city, and there is little infrastructure there. Also, if you see a place has a 40 minute commute (Epping in the example above) then add at least 15 to 20 minutes to that because that 40 minutes is spent with your bum on a train seat (or standing for that matter) You still have to get from home to the station, and from the station to your workplace, which adds more time.

Just personally, not a fan of Epping. Lots of telltale signs light the ones Johno was talking about above ;)

Also, before you decide to move somewhere, try doing a mock commute on a week morning during rush hour to see if it's bearable. If you think. "Gee, this is a bit of a pain, but I can probably get used to it" -RUN!! You won't get used to it. You will hate it :)

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Johnno, How do you know if a neighborhood has a high ratio of welfare homes?

I know that in WA (no reason why other states should be different) the government houses are not concentrated in any one area, that way they do not create massive welfare estates like you have in UK. I have heard that they try and integrate the welfare houses into even some of the better areas. I know this because a family fiends of ours is s councillor for Cotteloe Council (very upmarket but old area) and the state owns houses in the area that are worth at least a million dollars for a run down 3x2 with a welfare family living in it. The council tried to convince Homes West (the government welfare home owners) to sell the properties as they could build 5 smaller units and house 5 families instead of one. The answer was as above, integration of all types in all communities.

One of my work colleagues unknowingly rented a house next to a Homes West property and his life was a nightmare! Same thing happened to an engineer that we placed in Karratha. We specifically asked the rental agent if there were welfare houses in the street and she lied, there were three, one right opposite the property we signed a 2 year rental for @ $1,650pw!!! The stories from our engineer and his family were horrific. We broke the lease and paid heavy penalties!

It's not always the case but just do your homework. I do not think there is any way of finding out who owns the property but there's nothing wrong with knocking on the neighbours door ans asking them how they like the neighbourhood. You'll get to meet the neighbour and check them out for yourself and if they are the decent sort you'll get the facts.

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Melbourne is pretty big, My wife and i have been here for 2.5 years now so have gotten to know a lot of the areas, we stay in the east in Heidelberg Heights which i would peg as a great middle class area, 28 minutes out of town by train & pay 430 pw for a good condition 3 bedroom house (It was a great find)

It really does depend on where you end up working, schools and their catchment areas, and how much traveling you are prepared to do.

What the guys say above is true, as you head out on our train line you get a good area, then a bad, then a good, you can tell from the distance out of town, it is mixed

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Usually low rent (across the majority of houses) constitutes a bad neighbourhood.

Edited by Bronwyn&Co
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If you want a sense check from South Africa do google maps of the area. The vehicle that takes the pics travels through the neighbourhood without warning and shoots it as is. If everything is neat and orderly it should be ok. You can also google community housing and your chosen suburb and you will get a list of the community housing in the area. I wouldn't knock a suburb out purely on community housing, but would probably choose not to live next door to it. Homes West is only in WA I think.

I also googled the neighbourhoods we were thinking about and read about them on Wikipedia. I then also read about the neighbouring neighbourhoods and I think I got a pretty good sense of the neighbourhood from that. For fun I also used City Hobo and did the shoe test (not sure if they still do it) that identifies neighbourhoods of similarly minded people and then tells you a bit about schools etc in each neighbourhood.

So what am I saying - Google, Google, Google. We all have such different expectations for the neighbourhood we want to live in, and my dump may be your perfection and vice versa.

I had a look at the Grattan Institute report for Melbourne that Fish posted the link for, and that is really interesting and worth referring back to once you have an idea of where you want to move to.

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Based in Sydney, I occasionally check the Bureau of Crime statistics tool - http://crimetool.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/bocsar/ - especailly helpful is the the hotspot option - though you will notice that crime is generally concentrated around heavily traffic areas (train stations, shopping districts etc)

Shocking(really, should I be surprised?) to see that the most prevalent issue is domestic crime.

Edit: Like Sunnyskies - google, or more specifically streetview, if I see tyre marks in a road I mark it as a area to avoid settling in.

Edited by riaanbre
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Another important dynamic is the multicultural situation. In Sydney for instance Rhodes, West Ryde, Epping etc has a very big Chinese population. So you need to understand the area and cultural mix of it to decide if that's works for you. Also keep in mind if you have kids, the areas culture will become part of them, so if you live in an area of xyz culture then that going to be part of what will define them. It really is quite complex subject and something one needs to consider from more then just a cost view. Cheap or living on the edges of the city are one thing but the society of that area is another.

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