North vs South

I had an interesting conversation at work. I was talking about some of my experiences on my property search. I was speaking, in a favourable light, about the properties in the south of Canberra, and there was an overwhelming exclamation, “you don’t want to live down there.” As you might gather, I work in a northern suburb and most of the people who work there also live in the northern Canberra suburbs. There is an actual north-south divide between the people here. It reminded me of the Sydney – Melbourne rivalry. Certainly, with my job in the north of Canberra there is an incentive to live locally, for ease of travel.

Though, from my experience of Canberra so far I couldn’t really spot much difference between the north or south. There are posh districts as well as run-down trashy streets distributed all over Canberra. In my observations, the roads, streets, shops, and general appearance of the north seems much like the south. Canberra is pretty much the same where ever you go, but that’s only me.

The only mildly negative aspect I had noticed in the south of Canberra was that there appeared to be more young men hooning around in their hotted up cars; more than I have noticed in the northern suburbs, but that could be coincidence. I also noticed more burn out tyre mark circles in the middle of street intersections in the south, but you get them everywhere, and that too could have been coincidence. I definitely noticed a lot of bent street signs down there, that I haven’t spotted in the northern suburbs. This of course could be a phase. Perhaps the age group of youngsters prone to that kind of behaviour have predominance in the south, that they may have grown out of in the north.

Anyway, despite the pressure of their attempts at persuading me against the south, I won’t let up and will consider everywhere in my real estate hunt.