So we have a great little neighbourhood – in some ways it’s like something out of a New Urbanism lifestyle brochure: Two good pubs (one good, the other great – I’ll let you decide which way the dice fall), a odd little café that sells kitchenware & sharpens your knives, and from which I’m am drinking a very decent takeaway café latte as I write this. And a corner store which seems to always be open and sells the staples plus a random assortment of items including fresh(ish) veg and baking powder, toothpaste and cat food.
We have interesting and active footpaths; there’s always someone walking along the street, and as a result the streets & and our houses feel safe. There's a little pocket park with play equipment a block away, across the road from a childcare centre.

It's a pretty typical Melbourne inner urban suburb. It's not green suburbia, and it's not the inner city; it's a fairly densely built combination of terraces, flats, older warehouse buildings with the occasional freestanding house.

It's already doing comparitively well in terms of sustainability: there are no McMansions, few driveways for people to water, and hardly any lawn. According to 2006 Australian Census Data, there's 1.1 person per bedroom and I calculate that the density is about 50 people per hectare. Ok, so that is only about 10% of the density of the centre of Paris - so it's no metropolis, but it's not sprawling suburbia either.
This part of Collingwood is well provided for in terms of public transport, and judging from the cars left parked on the street, and ABS, only about 40-50% travel to work by car. Most people on public transport probably don't use the train - but catch the bus on Johnston or the tram on Smith.

It's about a 10 minute walk to the shops and the supermarket on Smith Street, 10 minutes to a decent sized park, and about 20-30 minutes to the city on public transport in peak hour (door-to-door), and maybe about 15-20 minutes on a bike.

About 320-350 people live 'the block' (if you include the area from Mater to Alexander Pde) most of us are Australian citizens and speak English at home. The most common languages apart from English spoken at home are Greek, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Mandarin and Macedonian. About 10 residents are aboriginal or Torres Strait islanders, and 90 are born overseas (a pretty even mix of people from Viet Nam, New Zealand, China, England, Greece).

There are about 20 kids under 12 living in the neighbourhood, 60 or so teenagers or young adults, 25 families with children and about 24 retirees.

About half of us have university qualifications, 20% are high income ($2500 or more a week), about 15% are low income (less than $500 a week) and general we earn about $650 a week each, and $1500 per family - which is more than the average Australian, but I imagine pretty typical for the inner northern suburbs.

(click on images for larger view)

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