Latte line not all hot air and froth

I AM writing this column from Sydney, recently voted the world’s best city to live in and fifth best overall.

Sydney is the place I grew up before heading west to raise a family and further my career.

My Sydney, the places I am most familiar with, are the city and its eastern suburbs. Home to some of the most expensive real estate in the country: the iconic Bondi Beach, the Opera House, and Sydney Harbour Bridge.

There are other parts of Sydney that I don’t know as well and others I have simply never heard of. In reality, Sydney is a metropolis of 5.2 million people according to the 2021 Census. Sydneysiders reside in about 650 suburbs sprawled but contained by the national parks to the south, west and north.

The Inaugural Brand Finance City Index, yet another world’s best ranking system, placed Sydney fifth overall on a measure out of 100 with a score of 77.9.

First-placed London scored 84.6, with Melbourne placed at 16th (72.1) and Perth 52nd (64.4).

I would hazard a guess that not everyone would accord with the results of the survey of 15,000 people residing in 20 countries on their perceptions of other/better places to live.

The truth is that cities are a complex melting point of people and circumstance. In Sydney’s case, geography divides those who are thriving from those surviving, according to researchers from the University of New South Wales.

The ‘latte line’ between the haves and have-nots runs from Sydney airport in the south-east to the outer suburbs in the north-west. One of my constant criticisms of these ranking indices is that the geography they are rating is rarely defined.

So it’s an open question whether it is the city proper being rated or the city plus its surrounding suburbs.

Or does it include the entire metropolis or the metropolis and beyond?

The frailty of an undefined geography is highlighted in an interview at the time of the launch of the research on the latte line with UNSW Associate Professor Chyi Lin Lee.

“Sydney is too big to look at as a whole,” he said.

“If you look closer at the socioeconomics, the income and median housing prices, you will see a lot of differences across Sydney, which is where the line comes from.

There are a lot of inequalities. It’s a different story depending on which side of the line you live on.”

During my week-long return to Sydney, I undertook the on-theground observational research that I am known for.

That included taking a bus to visit Woollahra in Sydney’s eastern suburbs with its tree-lined streets, trendy cafes, and median house price of $5.1 million ($1.437 million for an apartment).

Next day I caught the train to Wolli Creek adjacent to Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport. It’s a suburb with a vibrant community of races and faiths and the eateries that come with that.

Wolli Creek is notable for the low number of detached houses for sale (six in the past 12 months), while 237 units or apartments have been sold in the past year giving a median price of $737,000.

Woollahra and Wolli Creek are just 18 kilometres from each other but they could be worlds apart.

Perth is one of the world’s most liveable cities (in the top 20 according to the Economist Intelligence Unit) and my research over the past two decades has taken me to a number of others in this upper echelon.

Every city that has been named as the world’s most liveable has been quick to get its marketing machine into overdrive, claiming the long-desired accolade with fervour.

Most ratings come out once a year so, once won, it becomes a fight to maintain the top ranking.

When lost, as is always the case, a period of depression sets in ahead of a regroup to figure out what that a particular city is if it is no longer the world’s most liveable.

For those middleweights like Perth, it becomes a race to the top.

More than 2 million people have chosen to stay or live in Perth for its quality of life and natural beauty, among other things.

As the population grows, the inherent challenge is not to exacerbate our own form of the latte line of west versus east.

• Marion Fulker is an adjunct associate professor at UWA and was the inaugural CEO of the Committee for Perth