Life in the ’burbs
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‘You’re from Caroline Springs? You must be rich, then’
We were waiting for the neighbourhood to build up around us. It didn’t take long for families who didn’t want to leave the west to flock to Caroline Springs.
- by Tracy-Kate Simambo
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No carpet, muddy roads and stinky outhouses: 1950s Clayton was the wild west
Winter rains transformed the unmade roads to mud, and we were miles from shops, while priests and nuns predicted my school would close by the year 2000.
- by Annemaree Hone
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It might be sketchy after dark, but there’s a reason why Tarneit is the happiest suburb
While some of my friends feel like they live under a curfew, I see a vibrant and diverse community emerging.
- by Aanchal Sharma
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How European migrants shaped Elwood’s beachside identity
The cars are snazzier, the dogs are fluffy, and the suburb is considered more salubrious these days, but Elwood was not the desired location for family life in the 1960s.
- by Lisa Jackson
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Hypercolor tees, Stussy pants and Knox City: ’90s Wantirna was a white-bread affair
Wantirna, in 1990s local nightclub terms, was a $12 taxi ride to Jooce in “Ringers”, or a free courtesy bus home from Stylus in Ferntree Gully, after too many illusion shakers.
- by Larissa Ham
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In Watsonia, not everyone could afford a TV, so neighbours shared
My old suburb is a place in flux as it waits to see what will happen under the Big Build. But Watsonia was once a piece of paradise; the epitome of stability, community and promise.
- by Di Websdale-Morrissey
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I’m from Vermont and no, they did not film Neighbours here
Vermont would be happy for you to think it was home to the iconic TV series. It’s telling that on reflection, none of my childhood memories of Vermont actually took place there.
- by Samantha Allemann
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My suburb was infamously dubbed Victoria’s ‘Bronx’, but I don’t want to leave
Braybrook certainly lived up to its nickname, with its high crime rate, unemployment and drug issues. My family enjoyed a great trade-off, despite our suburb’s reputation.
- by Najma Sambul
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My leafy suburb is a lovely place to live. Then I realised why it was nicknamed ‘Trashburton’
The south side of Ashburton is where you can buy a decrepit house for $2 million, then wake up with crude graffiti sprayed on the road out front.
- by Sarah Craze
You’re not from Armadale unless you’ve passed this test
It doesn’t matter how long you’ve lived in Armadale. If you didn’t go to one of the many neighbouring private schools and grow up here, you might as well be from Glen Iris.
- by David James
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Souped-up cars and cookie-cutter houses? South Morang is the real modern Melbourne
As a young man, I felt the sea of gums was keeping me from the rest of the world, naively believing suburbia was a place without culture.
- by Jake Vincenzo Kite