Maybe Clayton South’s bubble of irrelevancy is its appeal. You can leave the house looking as terrible as you please,without fear of retribution.
Even after the Brighton Empire’s annexation,my whole suburb has so far defied the worst of the growth-for-growth’s-sake mindset.
The Fitzroy of today – filled with bars,cafes,markets and designer boutiques – was unimaginable. But back then,locals loved the cheap rent and “anything goes” attitude.
Aspendale is a sleepy paradise from Monday to Friday,a blip on Nepean Highway on the way to Frankston. But my suburb is transformed on weekends.
After a fruitless search in cooler suburbs,my partner and I ended up in Glen Iris ourselves,thinking we wouldn’t stay in the area long. Twenty-five years and two extensions later,we’re still here.
Owning a piece of sky instead of land? Raising a family in an apartment? All these things are normal in Asia,and yet so strange to many Australians.
The shops are now bigger and brighter in Greensborough’s beehive of development – and no longer owned by people whose names I once knew.
Inseparable like two peas in a pod,my suburb and its twin are tight-knit communities where families intermingle across their Scouts and sports clubs without a second thought.
When I moved house,friends in the “Bayside Bubble” promised they would visit. But one thing turned out to be as much of a psychological barrier as a physical one.
We haven’t had a gangland funeral across the road for years,but North Melbourne has always been an in-between place – a suburb of two identities.
I’m proud to live in McKinnon now,but as a child,I was embarrassed by the suburb my grandparents called home. Why couldn’t they live in the more fashionable Caulfield South?