I am an actress and journalist who moved to the Eastern Suburbs in Sydney last year from Brisbane and I immediately noticed a very strange thing about the harbour city.
There is undeniably a major divide between the different suburbs of Sydney.
I have come across people who have lived in the Eastern Suburbs their whole lives and have never crossed the bridge.
Trends, culture and exclusive features: Sign up for 7LIFE newsletters
People act as though the North, South, Inner West and the Shire are different states rather than suburbs.
Over the Easter weekend, I shared my observations on TikTok, asking Sydneysiders to please explain why there is such a divide.
I was shocked by the outpouring of responses I received — with over 23,000 people and counting having watched one of the videos.
Many people blamed the traffic, tolls and “people not leaving their bubbles” for the reasons why Sydney-siders don’t get around.
My video received over 100 comments, with people getting very heated in the comments and offering many different reasons for the divide.
“There are bridges in between. We don’t like crossing bridges, if at all possible,” said one.
“That 20-minute drive will cost us and arm and a leg in tolls, almost a ticket overseas anyway,” added another.
“Totally segregated in many ways. People don’t leave their bubbles,” added a third.
What I found even more surprising is the vast differences that exist even within the same suburb.
I ventured to South Bondi on Easter Sunday to try a famous iced strawberry matcha that’s recently gone viral on the platform.
I couldn’t help but notice the insane differences between North Bondi and South Bondi.
They seem worlds apart.
While North Bondi is the commercial type of Bondi, the “tourist version”, and very trendy and “cool”, South Bondi is wild, more rugged, slightly hipster and rather rogue.
I found many people in the comments shared similar views about the divide between North and South of Bondi.
“This is the truest thing I’ve seen today between north and south,” said one.
“This is so real,” agreed another.
“I grew up in Bondi and there has always been a divide between the two. South was always way rougher. Not much difference these days though.” said a third.
This comes off the back of a national survey into how Australians rank the liveability of their suburbs which found the best performing local areas tend to be older, more established suburbs with retail centres and mature trees.
Place Score’s 2023 Liveability survey of more than 25,000 people named Perth’s inner-western suburb of Subiaco as being the most liveable.
Subiaco has an exciting mix of galleries, restaurants and shops, all about 4km from Perth CBD.
In second and third place were Lane Cove followed by Hunters Hill, both in Sydney’s Lower North Shore with an average property price above $3 million.
Boroondara in Melbourne’s east was ranked fourth, while Surf Coast in Victoria’s southwest was fifth.
Top 10 most liveable local government areas
1. Subiaco, WA
2. Lane Cove, NSW
3. Hunters Hill, NSW
4. Boroondara, VIC
5. Surf Coast, VIC
6. Vincent, WA
7. North Sydney, NSW
8. Cambridge, WA
9. Port Phillip, VIC
10. Noosa, QLD
For more engaging lifestyle content, visit 7Life on Facebook.