Sydney is many things. A city, a village - and suburbia.
Buying a house is deeply ingrained into the Australian psyche. If the Australia of the 19th century was radical, then, according to historian Humphrey McQueen, this radicalism was of an aggressively aspiring petty-bourgeois kind.
Tuesday, February 15. 2011
Going Local – Neighbourhood, Kiez and Suburb in my city – Sydney
The prevalent bourgeois ethos opposed the values of the bush, permitting the coming together of the egalitarian deference-free Australian worker with an English-influenced, deferential gentry. Those who came to Australia to better themselves wanted to show off their success. A house marked the upward mobility of migrants in the new society.
The common man not voting for the New Order but his suburban quarter-acre bloc shaped the Australian cityscape. Even more so after WWII.
Australia has always been one of the most urbanised countries in the world, a trend that was accelerated by improving material circumstances with technologies, suburbia and consumerism increasingly shaping landscapes and dreamscapes
The car-house-electrical appliance-steel complex stood at the ‘white hot centre’ of the American-fueled Australian dream; urban sprawl was the result – Sydney is divided into 649 suburbs and administered as 40 local government areas.
But Sydney is also a "city of villages." I chose to live in one of these villages.
Erskenville comes close to the notion of "Kiez", another one of those elusive German concepts. It's its own little organic cosmos, a local social framework; it offers the necessary sites, the cafes, bars, urbanity.
It does not give you much reasons to leave. And yet sometimes the beach calls. Or your friends. Interestingly, in contrast to Berlin, friends in Sydney are scattered all over the city (mine at least).
Let's face it, if you're a member of the urban self-actualisation milieu in Berlin, there are only so many places you end up living. Most of them are just some train stops away from your friends.
In Sydney visiting some of your friends can easily take an hour or degenerate into a sophisticated planing process. Want to stay for a party? Better plan ahead and bring something for a sleepover.
This is true all the more when you have to rely on public transport.
Also in this respect – and not only in respect to suburbia – freedom is a full tank of petrol.
-Jens (follow me on Twitter for more Sydney adventures)
The common man not voting for the New Order but his suburban quarter-acre bloc shaped the Australian cityscape. Even more so after WWII.
Australia has always been one of the most urbanised countries in the world, a trend that was accelerated by improving material circumstances with technologies, suburbia and consumerism increasingly shaping landscapes and dreamscapes
The car-house-electrical appliance-steel complex stood at the ‘white hot centre’ of the American-fueled Australian dream; urban sprawl was the result – Sydney is divided into 649 suburbs and administered as 40 local government areas.
But Sydney is also a "city of villages." I chose to live in one of these villages.
Erskenville comes close to the notion of "Kiez", another one of those elusive German concepts. It's its own little organic cosmos, a local social framework; it offers the necessary sites, the cafes, bars, urbanity.
It does not give you much reasons to leave. And yet sometimes the beach calls. Or your friends. Interestingly, in contrast to Berlin, friends in Sydney are scattered all over the city (mine at least).
Let's face it, if you're a member of the urban self-actualisation milieu in Berlin, there are only so many places you end up living. Most of them are just some train stops away from your friends.
In Sydney visiting some of your friends can easily take an hour or degenerate into a sophisticated planing process. Want to stay for a party? Better plan ahead and bring something for a sleepover.
This is true all the more when you have to rely on public transport.
Also in this respect – and not only in respect to suburbia – freedom is a full tank of petrol.
-Jens (follow me on Twitter for more Sydney adventures)
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