Hornsby is the fifth best place to live in Australia, apparently.
At least, according to a study SGS Economics and Planning:
"Sydney's Northern beaches ranks as the highest in the nation for wellbeing, with only one Queensland city making it to the top 10, the annual index revealed today.
"The Australian Capital Territory came in second due to its low gender wage gaps, climate change risks and the division of wealth."
The study assessed 518 local council areas on seven indicators:
wtf? Hornsby is a shithole isn’t it? At least it was when I lived in the hills ~10 years ago. you have to drive most places, the Westfield is a nightmare that ate the old arcades and small businesses, basically nothing to do except shop, crap food.
Its redeeming characteristics were being close to Eastwood and Epping for some actual stuff going on. Also trains into the city were clean.
Idk what this list is though, the northern beaches is also peak, cultureless, suburban hell.
Just sydney in general is a bit how’s it going but like compared to chatswood, paramatta, the inner west etc which are similar in terms of degree of builtuppedness Hornsby is worse in all metrics except maybe quality of schools?
you can’t get around, there’s no culture, no sense of community, no… anything. It’s the beige blandness that appeals only to bougie people afraid of anything unexpected that think the height of living is ordering your life out of a catalogue.
The Westfield has most major chains you'd want, including a David Jones and a cinema.
There are some good local restaurants.
For a satellite city/outer suburb/exburb, the area around the Hornsby CBD is surprisingly dense. Three-storey blocks of flats and apartment buildings, for the most part.
Very multicultural these days.
Walking distance to national parks.
Multiple train lines to most of northern Sydney, as well as the Central Coast, Newcastle, and beyond.
You can comfortably live without a car there.
I've had the misfortune of visiting the local hospital. It's clean and modern.
Good public and private schools.
It's close to the Macquarie Park business precinct, as well as the university.
It's reasonably affordable (at least by Sydney standards).
But.
There's little in the way of live music. Or arts and culture.
It's a long way from many of the places you'd want to visit in Sydney.
No local beaches.
While there are good restaurants there, it doesn't hold a candle to somewhere like Newtown, or Surry Hills, or Church Street in Parramatta.
So it's a good place.
But it's a long, long way off top five place in all of Australia.
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