One thing that pains me about living in small cities is that you can't get anything done... there aren't enough service providers and prices are high as there is no competition.. In Geneva I would've had to go to Bern to do many things, in Lyon I had to go to Paris like a billion times to do certain things (and pay like 3x price for our translations as there just aren't many translators in Lyon/no competition) and now in Melbourne.. a city that is hardly small with over 4 million people.. but compared to Sydney feels like a small place. In Sydney we have multiple CBDs where you can get everything done as you could in the actual CBD. In Melbourne there is only ONE CBD.. and even then...
Let me give you an example.. In Sydney if you want to go to the ATO you can go to either CBD (Martin Place), Chatswood (north), Parramatta (west), Rockdale (south) or Penrith (outer west). In Melbourne there are NO offices in the CBD (wtf?), the closest is Docklands which is next to the CBD but still kinda in the middle of nowhere with crap public transport, then you have Dandenong (which is like Melbourne's version of Penrith-outer south) and a million miles away, and Geelong, which is not even in Melbourne. There is nothing in no other suburb in the east/south-east or north where probably 80% of people live. Stuff like that pisses me off about Melbourne and it's not just the ATO but looking for other services/suppliers too.. everything is everywhere and nothing is in a convenient location. I had to go to 4 different suburbs before I could even find ONE decent GP which bulkbilled and I finally found a good one but it's nowhere near where we live. In Sydney I just go to Chatswood and I can find every single thing I need, EVERY single one. In Parramatta you would never even have to leave the suburb, it literally has everything, even has its own courts. Here I have to go to 4 different suburbs to find the same things. What's even worse is that I have to waste so much time travelling around town and the transport is crap as heck.. Grr...
Oh and if hubby and/or I need to go to the French consulate - despite the fact that Melbourne has an office - guess where we'll have to go to actually get anything done? Sydney (at at minimum of $300-500/trip per person not including accommodation)
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