Flashermac Posted March 29, 2012 Report Share Posted March 29, 2012 Sydney doesn't sound like the friendly little city I remember from years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobbledonk Posted March 29, 2012 Report Share Posted March 29, 2012 Sydney doesn't sound like the friendly little city I remember from years ago. You know the story - no matter how nice the maze or how happy the original rat population, add enough rats and eventually you will have problems. Its a vicious cycle - the majority of the jobs are in 3 cities on the Eastern Seaboard, and everyone seems attracted to those cities like moths to a flame. They've talked about 'incentives' to lure new arrivals and longterm unemployed to places like the Pilbara, but its a pipedream. Suits in Canberra like to fantasize about the 50s, when men got off the boats ready to do anything, and I mean anything, for a wage - they ccnveniently forget that there were no rules around workplace safety and that 121 workers died building the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric 'miracle'. In short, I'd be very surprised if the Sydney of 2012 resembles the Sydney of your recollection. It had its share of problems when I left in 85, but the last time I went back the CBD looked more like Singapore than Sydney, if Singapore had more Indians and Lebanese. Imagine getting onto the Skytrain and being surrounded by Farang - disconcerting, to say the least. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted March 29, 2012 Report Share Posted March 29, 2012 All I have to do is compare the Bangkok of the 1970s and '80s with the megalopolis of today. Bangkok wasn't more than 3 million when I got here. Now there are an estimated 12 million people, maybe more. That was the total population of Oz for decades! The "ethnics" when I was in Sydney were Greeks or Italians. The Greeks drove the taxis or owned restaurants. The Italians all seemed to be decorators. Thailand's populations has increased 50% since I've been here. (No, I am not responsible for that.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobbledonk Posted March 29, 2012 Report Share Posted March 29, 2012 I posed the question a couple of years back - outside of BKK, the size of each city/town drops off sharply, but there are just so many towns with >10,000 people. Rounding up the numbers I've seen (Wikipedia - happy to get links to better sources), Chiang Mai has 2 million people and Chiang Rai no more than 500,000 - both easily dwarfed by our second and third biggest cities - Melbourne and Brisbane - but we just don't have as many provincial capitals in our 22-million total. If you came back today, I think you'd find that most Greeks and Italians in Sydney/Melbourne are doing a lot better financially than they were on your last visit. Plenty of media reports of queues outside the Australian Embassy in Athens, and Greek Australians coming back to Oz with a newfound appreciation for what they have here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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