Suburb Ratings Criteria

How do we determine our final ratings we assign to each suburb for each category – which result in the suburb’s overall ranking?

Perhaps the first thing to remember is:

5/10 IS AVERAGE, NOT A “BAD” SCORE.

This is not a “modern, skewed” review structure where anything under 7/10 is considered garbage; only once we get around the 4/10 mark are things getting towards the negative side of things.

Other than that, here’s a breakdown of some of the factors we consider, category by category.

Nature

Very few people will ever be truly happy living in a complete concrete jungle, no matter how convenient the suburb is.

Even a little slice of greenery can go a long way to making a suburb more pleasant than its similar peers, and green spaces provide a place for pleasant walking and exercise, a spot to clear one’s head, and for families and pets to play.

Factors include:

• Does the suburb have a single, or multiple, parks, and good green coverage per square metre?
• Does it have greenery on the curbs or median strips?
• If you saw it, would you define the suburb as “leafy”?
• Is it adjacent to a national park?
• Does it have a beach, or beaches?
• Are there any other outstanding natural features such as water views, bays, wildlife, waterfalls, botanic gardens, or other aspects that add to its greenery?

Affordability

This was one of the most important factors we wanted to add that nearly all other “liveability rankings” type sites out there don’t seem to consider. What’s the good of a gorgeous suburb if the average person can never hope to afford to live there?

We also divided this into two separate categories: buying and renting, as there are often great disparities between both of these within a single suburb.

Factors include:

• How much does it cost to rent an apartment in this suburb, versus the median for the whole city?
• How much is the median purchase price of detached housing over the past year(s) in the suburb, versus the median for the whole city?
• Are there toll roads to get in/out of the suburb? Does it have other significant ‘lifestyle fees’, such as exclusively paid parking?
• Does the distance of the suburb from the city/job hubs add substantial extra costs either due to petrol or public transport costing greater than average?

Pet-friendliness

Like children, both enjoying pets and ensuring our furry friends have a high quality of life is just as important to many people as their own lives.

And, like children, pets have needs that must be considered when selecting a place to live lest they become stressed, overweight, or simply unhappy given the surroundings on offer.

For pet-friendliness, factors include:

• Does the suburb have a vet?
• Does it have a pet supplies store?
• Is there grass along the footpaths for pets to do their business (which we of course will then immediately pick up, won’t we dog owners?)
• Are there pet-friendly parks, preferably ones that allow dogs to go off-leash?
• Is there a range of pet-friendly housing, including apartments?
• Are there any pet-friendly cafes in the suburb?
• Is there a general “pet friendly atmosphere” with a high amount of pet owners in the suburb in total?

Family-friendliness

Perhaps more than any other non-work-related factor, a suburb’s ability to cater for children will likely be the biggest determining item for whether or not a family will find it viable.

Suburbs that are otherwise ideal for single professionals and couples may become completely crossed off the list once a child is thrown in the mix, and thus its ability to provide a safe and open enough environment for kids to grow and enjoy themselves ranks as highly important for many.

Factors include:

• Does the suburb have school(s), and are they of a decent quality? Do they also not have ridiculous exclusivity or affordability issues that may hinder the average child from being able to attend?
• Does it have public spaces and amenities suited to kids, e.g: playgrounds, bicycle tracks, kindergartens, childrens’ doctors and similar?
• Is there the possibility for an average family to own or rent a home that offers at least some space for kids to play?
• Does the suburb offer reasonable commute times so parents can actually spend time with their kids? E.g: not submitting to a 2 hour commute in return for having a backyard?
• Is the suburb generally safe, especially at night?

Safety

Like it or not, for a range of reasons – including location, demographics, government issues & zoning, historical factors and more – some suburbs of Australia are simply more safe than others for the average person.

In an ideal world, no one should ever have to feel unsafe when walking the streets of their own neighbourhood; however unfortunately as with most other big cities, despite being safe on the whole, parts of Australia are just as prone to these issues as any other large international urban and suburban area.

For safety, factors include:

• Our aggregate data compiled from the averages of publicly-available government crime statistics, plus subjective criteria such as;
• Would you feel safe walking through (Suburb X)’s main park at night time?
• Does it have a police station?
• What are its recent violent crime statistics?
• Does it have a high density of pubs and/or drunken behaviour?
• Is there much graffiti? And if it’s cleaned up, does it almost immediately reappear?
• Does it have a propensity towards drugs, homelessness or similar “ugly” factors?
• Are the roads safe to cross and/or does a high volume of traffic drive at high speeds?

Public Transport

One of the highest priorities for any current or aspiring resident is keeping work commute times within a manageable level. As a result, choosing a suburb that has good, frequent and reliable public transport is often the main starting point for many when even starting to consider a suburb to live in in general.

Each part of Australia has an array of public transport modes including train/heavy rail, light rail, a burgeoning metro network, buses, and ferries both regular and high-speed – however not all suburbs touch all of these, and few are fortunate enough to touch multiple.

Factors include:

• Does the suburb have a train station that connects to the city?
• If not, does it have a light rail station that connects (or provides nearby access) to the heavy rail system?
• Does it have a ferry terminal, and if so, does the ferry come at least reasonably frequently?
  If the suburb does not have rail, does it have easy access to bus stops from most residential areas?
• If the suburb does have buses, do they often run late? Do the buses have to grapple with some terrible road chokepoints?
• Could you adequately live in this suburb without a car?

Traffic

Australia is a country with many positives and negatives, however few of the downsides are ever quite as maligned as one: its roads.

The country has ballooned in population and growth far faster than most authorities ever expected, and much of its road system was planned and expanded quite haphazardly, leading to a current state of affairs in which driving ranges anywhere from “hassle” to “nightmare” for the average resident.

Particularly for those suburbs that don’t have access to quality public transport, traffic and driving becomes another key factor that has spillover effects to daily quality of life.

Factors include:

• Does the suburb require most residents to drive to their workplace on a daily basis?
• Does it have any renowned or significant sections that frequently lead to total traffic gridlock?
• Are there toll roads one must cross to access the city?
• Is the suburb statistically a high traffic accident area?

Noise

Few people like to live in a home where external noise disrupts their lives; particularly when trying to get a good night’s sleep after a hard day at work.

Noise can come from many sources, and until a person fully moves in to a suburb they may discover noise factors that they’d never even considered beforehand – especially a pain if you’ve just purchased a house or locked yourself into a 1-year rental contract.

Factors include:

• Are there main roads that cross by/near many residential areas of the suburb?
• Does the suburb (or part of it) fall under an airline flight path?
• Is there street noise from nightlife, drunken behaviour, club music, or similar?
• Is there frequent construction or road work that continually happens in the suburb?

Things to See/Do

Whether or not people would label your suburb “boring” can be either a positive or negative depending on what you’re looking for in a place to live, however it’s undeniably nice to have stuff to do nearby on a weekend.

This criteria looks at all forms of options for entertainment, activities, attractions and landmarks that help make a suburb worth experiencing – both for yourselves, or when you’re having friends or family over.

Factors include:

• Does the suburb have a decent array of dining, shopping, entertainment, etc.?
• Do residents have to go to another suburb in order to not be bored of a weekend?
• Does the suburb have a standout feature, whether it be a unique family attraction, an unusually high proportion of good restaurants or pubs, or a quirky activity or public work, or similar that can only be enjoyed there?
• Do people from other suburbs go out of their way to visit this suburb for what it offers – at least once?