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THE VIRUS 2020 - the good, the bad, and the ugly

Oh no. Apparently a lot of Victorians have moved up to Queensland. Quite wise.

A bunch of people with means did. Buying places sight unseen. However, it goes beyond the virus. People are also just getting over how crowded Melbourne is getting. The virus and remote work gave a lot of people the final push. People are also just fleeing into the country if they can.

People are/were wanting to leave because of lockdowns. As they've been building lots of small apartments which really aren't great for working from home and lockdowns. People rolling out of bed to spend a work day on a computer next to it. I didn't have to do that, but it'd be horrendous.
 
A bunch of people with means did. Buying places sight unseen. However, it goes beyond the virus. People are also just getting over how crowded Melbourne is getting. The virus and remote work gave a lot of people the final push. People are also just fleeing into the country if they can.

People are/were wanting to leave because of lockdowns. As they've been building lots of small apartments which really aren't great for working from home and lockdowns. People rolling out of bed to spend a work day on a computer next to it. I didn't have to do that, but it'd be horrendous.
Tell me about it! Our little town is bursting at the seams with an influx of people. Good luck getting a tradie to do anything...they're all busy on new builds and don't have time for 'smaller' jobs.
 
A bunch of people with means did. Buying places sight unseen. However, it goes beyond the virus. People are also just getting over how crowded Melbourne is getting. The virus and remote work gave a lot of people the final push. People are also just fleeing into the country if they can.

People are/were wanting to leave because of lockdowns. As they've been building lots of small apartments which really aren't great for working from home and lockdowns. People rolling out of bed to spend a work day on a computer next to it. I didn't have to do that, but it'd be horrendous.

How crowded is it in Melbourne?
 
How crowded is it in Melbourne?
It's hard to really say, I can just give my experiences. When I've said this before online. I've had people go, "that's not true" which is odd.

There are just too many people for the infrastructure we have. In the city, footpaths are too crowded. I say that as someone who lived in New York and found that a more pleasant city to walk around (except times square, downtown peak hour etc). Traffic can get horrendous here. Shopping centres resemble Christmas crowds on normal weekends. Beaches in summer are now packed. Even once peaceful national parks are now packed and noisy over summer. For some reason they think cutting two-lane roads down to one and adding a bike path will decrease traffic. Spoiler, it doesn't.
 
It's hard to really say, I can just give my experiences. When I've said this before online. I've had people go, "that's not true" which is odd.

There are just too many people for the infrastructure we have. In the city, footpaths are too crowded. I say that as someone who lived in New York and found that a more pleasant city to walk around (except times square, downtown peak hour etc). Traffic can get horrendous here. Shopping centres resemble Christmas crowds on normal weekends. Beaches in summer are now packed. Even once peaceful national parks are now packed and noisy over summer. For some reason they think cutting two-lane roads down to one and adding a bike path will decrease traffic. Spoiler, it doesn't.

Beaches crowded? Yuck, who on earth would want to go to beaches? Awful places, beaches. The devil's holiday destination is the beach. Soul crushing, heart breaking, mind numbing awfulness is the beach.
 
It's hard to really say, I can just give my experiences. When I've said this before online. I've had people go, "that's not true" which is odd.

There are just too many people for the infrastructure we have. In the city, footpaths are too crowded. I say that as someone who lived in New York and found that a more pleasant city to walk around (except times square, downtown peak hour etc). Traffic can get horrendous here. Shopping centres resemble Christmas crowds on normal weekends. Beaches in summer are now packed. Even once peaceful national parks are now packed and noisy over summer. For some reason they think cutting two-lane roads down to one and adding a bike path will decrease traffic. Spoiler, it doesn't.
Disagree that Melbourne is crowded. Also I find that the streets in the CBD are wider than Sydney and it gives it a less crowded feel. Melbourne is quiet compared to New York, London, Paris and Tokyo too. It's a good city but not truly at a global level yet and I still think there's enough space for more development.
 
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Disagree that Melbourne is crowded. Also I find that the streets in the CBD are wider than Sydney and it gives it a less crowded feel. Melbourne is quiet compared to New York, London, Paris and Tokyo too. It's a good city but not truly at a global level yet and I still think there's enough space for more development.
London and NY have the infrastructure to move people around. The large urban sprawl in Melbourne, which is getting denser as well as more spread out, requires a level of public transport that is too expensive to ever be built. So people will keep getting longer commutes, living further away, while the inner parts get more dense and crowded.

I honestly haven't noticed a footpath difference in size between Melbourne and Sydney, but I haven't been to Sydney much. I went to Uni and then worked in the City in Melbourne. Spent a lot of time walking around. It was far more pleasurable and easier to walk the streets of NY. Except for the main busy areas. If you're just doing tourist, Times Squares areas you might not get how pleasant and nice that city is to live in.

No idea where you've been in Melbourne if you don't think the traffic gets horrendous. When planning my transport for going out last time. I was given travel times for one part I was going to taxi/uber of between 7-26 minutes. Pretty big range for a short trip.
 
London and NY have the infrastructure to move people around. The large urban sprawl in Melbourne, which is getting denser as well as more spread out, requires a level of public transport that is too expensive to ever be built. So people will keep getting longer commutes, living further away, while the inner parts get more dense and crowded.

I honestly haven't noticed a footpath difference in size between Melbourne and Sydney, but I haven't been to Sydney much. I went to Uni and then worked in the City in Melbourne. Spent a lot of time walking around. It was far more pleasurable and easier to walk the streets of NY. Except for the main busy areas. If you're just doing tourist, Times Squares areas you might not get how pleasant and nice that city is to live in.

No idea where you've been in Melbourne if you don't think the traffic gets horrendous. When planning my transport for going out last time. I was given travel times for one part I was going to taxi/uber of between 7-26 minutes. Pretty big range for a short trip.

Have you ever seen the film Taxi Driver where they have these massive footpaths?

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I‘m from Melbourne, but I‘m in Germany now. Where I am there is a train every three minutes in peak hour. I‘m curious why you say the infrastructure for moving people around could never be built in Melbourne... what makes Melbourne so special?
 
I‘m from Melbourne, but I‘m in Germany now. Where I am there is a train every three minutes in peak hour. I‘m curious why you say the infrastructure for moving people around could never be built in Melbourne... what makes Melbourne so special?

It's the urban sprawl. Urban planning in cities like Melbourne grew into a massive sprawl because they were factoring in the invention of the car. A lot of the layout of European cities were set before the car was a transport option. Everything was based around roughly everything you need being roughly within 30 minutes walking from your residence. The design was around little hubs of settlement. Which then could later be easily connected via train lines and other transport.

Cities in Australia, like many in America, spread out post-WWII with cars in mind. It's a completely different type of urban planning. The problem is, it was designed around you driving places, not walking. Things got further apart. The urban sprawl expanded. The mix of commercial and residential got more separated. You don't walk home from work and pop into a deli on the ground floor of a nearby building to buy some food for that night. It's designed around driving to a supermarket weekly. Stuff like that. It's a different way of living.

The European design lends itself better to building transportation networks, you're linking the little hub people living in. Put one train station in Every suburb in Melbourne, it's still a massive area, too inconvenient for most people to walk to. Do European cities have a problem with not enough carparks at their stations in the cities? Not really, no, many don't have car parks because people can just walk to them. You have situations where you have to decide which of the many station options are near you?

Catch the train through the country side of Germany. It's lots of little towns connected via trains. Little settlements, radiating from the cities. This is because the urban design was pre car.

Post War, European cities rebuilt on the old urban planning designs, versus those that went with new designs, similar to the US and Australia don't have these problems. While the new layouts do. It's actually a really interesting subject. Yes you could build the infrastructure, but it'll cost too much money. Our countries leaders are too dumb to spend the money on quality of life projects. Instead focusing on profit, squandering things like the mining boom which could have been used from such transformative public infrastructure and public good projects. While countries like Norway didn't squander there's and are now building insane infrastructure projects.
 
It's the urban sprawl. Urban planning in cities like Melbourne grew into a massive sprawl because they were factoring in the invention of the car. A lot of the layout of European cities were set before the car was a transport option. Everything was based around roughly everything you need being roughly within 30 minutes walking from your residence. The design was around little hubs of settlement. Which then could later be easily connected via train lines and other transport.

Cities in Australia, like many in America, spread out post-WWII with cars in mind. It's a completely different type of urban planning. The problem is, it was designed around you driving places, not walking. Things got further apart. The urban sprawl expanded. The mix of commercial and residential got more separated. You don't walk home from work and pop into a deli on the ground floor of a nearby building to buy some food for that night. It's designed around driving to a supermarket weekly. Stuff like that. It's a different way of living.

The European design lends itself better to building transportation networks, you're linking the little hub people living in. Put one train station in Every suburb in Melbourne, it's still a massive area, too inconvenient for most people to walk to. Do European cities have a problem with not enough carparks at their stations in the cities? Not really, no, many don't have car parks because people can just walk to them. You have situations where you have to decide which of the many station options are near you?

Catch the train through the country side of Germany. It's lots of little towns connected via trains. Little settlements, radiating from the cities. This is because the urban design was pre car.

Post War, European cities rebuilt on the old urban planning designs, versus those that went with new designs, similar to the US and Australia don't have these problems. While the new layouts do. It's actually a really interesting subject. Yes you could build the infrastructure, but it'll cost too much money. Our countries leaders are too dumb to spend the money on quality of life projects. Instead focusing on profit, squandering things like the mining boom which could have been used from such transformative public infrastructure and public good projects. While countries like Norway didn't squander there's and are now building insane infrastructure projects.
It is a very interesting subject. Thanks for your comments. Now I am going to have to google infrastructure projects in Norway.
I have been talking to some of the engineers here about whether (truly) autonomous cars will ever really occur. They work in the industry but say no - because of the infrastructure cost. Definitely an interesting subject.
Meanwhile... we are STILL in lockdown....
 
Went to my GP last week and while there asked about the vaccine, he said they were still restricting it to over 70s due to lack of supply. So there’s my on the ground report.
 
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