If there exists a “New York of Australia”, is it Sydney or Melbourne?
07.06.2025 03:56
Part of what makes a big city are huge old grand buildings from the 19th or early 20th Century, though in both Sydney, Melbourne & NYC some have been lost. Like Pen Station. Anthony Hordons Emporium in Sydney, though Queen Victoria Building was saved. Flinders Street Station facade, would have to be the longest old building in Australia.
Born in Melbourne, lived in Adelaide from 12. Working in 1981 & took the train to Melbourne. I thought I was in NYC. How can people live here, throngs of people & traffic everywhere.
It’s still like that a bit today, but far more new heavy industry, Dozens upon dozens of shipping containers cranes for them, making Melbourne seem thriving rather than a place in decline. Along with new apartment hi rise in the inner suburbs, like Footscray. With few exeptions hi rise outside the small downtown arias of Australia’s cities was rare in the 1970s.
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The character of all 3 cities & climate is quite different. The only city a bit similar in feel is Adelaide, a bit like a small Melbourne.
So now when I see 70s & 80s movies showing the crowds in NYC, I think how quant, it’s now like that here. In reality, even a 1.4 million people city like Adelaide can have crowds & traffic jams at times.
Along with Sydney high capacity double deck trains + the new single deck driverless metro train service & the light rail, heavily used, after decades of no trams, shows Sydney is not stagnating, far from it.
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Adelaide was a reasonable sized place in the early 1900s. But go to Melbourne & look at the many big old buildings, it was much bigger. Sydney a bit bigger still, but big cities like NY or London were something else. like 6 million people lived there in 1920 (which was the case).
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Despite Melbourne’s high population growth & several new skyscrapers much taller than Sydney’s on a recent trip to Sydney I saw crowds on the trains, trams & streets I have never seen before in Australia, not even during the Sydney Olympic Games of 2000. The Sydney Vivid festival was on & places like Circular Quay was shoulder to shoulder. They even stopped the trains as with no platform screen doors, the risk of people falling onto the tracks was too great (trains hurt in any country).
But back then these Australian cities had less than that together.
However in the last 30 years, especially the last 20. Sydney and Melbourne have grown very rapidly.
Big World Cities like NYC, London, Moscow etc still have a higher population far more intensive urban rail systems & are considerably more intensive, but in say, 1980 or even 1990, Melbourne & Sydney were not in the same league. 1980 about 3 million people in Melbourne, 3.5 in Sydney. Today both would have well over 5 million marching around stuffing their faces. (“Mmm, great stuffing too”)
I don’t think any of these cities is that much like each other. Sydney CBD is long and narrow, like Manhattan & there isn’t space to spare. Yet just 20 years ago there were fast empty lots where development never went ahead & the lot remained empty for many years, sometimes 20 years. Unfortunatly Anthony Hordon’s was one of them. A huge 1906 building, that would have been gigantic even by London or NYC standards, replaced by a hole in the ground for 20 years. Now you have anonymous looking hi rise there. But there are great shops restaurants & cafes in the complex & THAT REALLY SHOWS HOW AUSTRALIA HAS CHANGED! From a 1906 department store, very rundown & converted to government offices (why did the carpets in these poorly converted government offices usually stink?).
Moved back to Melbourne years ago, if I went back to the 1980s now. Melbourne would seem quiet, where is everybody & far less cultually diverse, almost every face white European back then.
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& today NYC or any other really big city has far more people in a smaller aria & the whole urban, suburban arias of the biggest cities (inc NYC) has close to or even more than Australia’s entire population. There is nothing even close to the size Co Op City or Styvasant Town in Australia, let alone many miles from a city’s downtown.
Only Melbourne & Sydney have anything like the intensity of big World city.
OH & the old movies & NYC. I love the original Taking Of Pelham 123, very grotty & very different to today (in any city). Australian cities too were also a bit grotty (though generally safe). In fact when I first took the train back to Melbourne in 1981 aged 18, I was shocked, MY GOD IS THIS WHERE I’M FROM? Heavy industry, huge old run down red brick (almost black, with grime) wherehouses, station signs streaked with rust & the station covered in soot & brake dust, miles of weed infested rail yards with freight & passenger rolling stock looking ready for the scrap yards, train wheels, brake blocks sleepers, rails everywhere as we made our way in.
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The people of Sydney seem more rush rush then Melbourne & often less friendly (but in all cities inc NYC, once you are a regular customer & they know you, friendly).
Now, when I look back at the silly (but funny) Crocodile Dundee movie it seems so quant & dated. 7 million in NYC? WOW! not much more than Melbourne & Sydney today.
So a train journey into Melbourne from the west would look much tidier & more up to date than the 1980s.