Living in Melbourne

The Docklands is primarily a waterfront area centred around the Yarra River

Whisper it when you’re near Sydneysiders, but multicultural Melbourne is often seen as the coolest metropolis in Australia.

Defining a term as nebulous as ‘cool’, isn’t easy of course, but used in reference to a city it usually means it’s well regarded in the spheres of art, music, fashion, culture and nightlife, and this is certainly the case with Australia’s second biggest city. Melbourne is widely perceived to have the edge over Sydney in these areas, making it a bigger draw for a younger demographic.

Three times the city has jointly topped the Economist’s liveability index, while in 2010 it achieved third place in the rankings, which assess cities according to stability, healthcare, culture, environment, education and infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Monocle Magazine’s index of liveability, which judge restaurants, green space per head of population, response time for emergency services, local entertainment and the ease of starting businesses, has Victoria’s state capital in a lofty ninth position.

It’s easy to see the influence of substantial immigration from both Europe and Asia in Melbourne’s cuisine, entertainment and in the arts. More than a third (34.8%) of the city’s population is foreign-born, with 233 nationalities and 180 languages represented. Britain accounts for the largest overseas-born contingent (4.7%), followed by Italy (2.4%), Greece (1.9 %) and then China (1.3 %).

It’s easy to see the influence of substantial immigration from both Europe and Asia in Melbourne’s cuisine, entertainment and in the arts

Entertainment and culture

Melbourne hosts an abundance of cultural events, notably the Melbourne International Arts Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival, Melbourne International Comedy Festival and the Melbourne Fringe Festival.

The city is also well catered for in terms of art, theatre, opera and ballet. Melbourne boasts Australia’s oldest and largest gallery, the National Gallery of Victoria and more than 100 galleries in total.

The city also has a number of notable theatres, such as the Victorian Arts Centre (which hosts Opera Australia for four months of the year), the Melbourne Recital Centre and the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. And it is home to the Australian Ballet, the foremost ballet company in the country, and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

The richness of Melbourne’s cultural life extends well beyond the sphere of high culture. The distinctive work of its street artists, for example, bears comparison with their vaunted counterparts in New York and Berlin.

The home of the Australian Open (tennis), Melbourne Cup (horse racing) and Australian Grand Prix more than holds its own in the sporting sphere. In 2008 the city was awarded the accolade ‘World’s Ultimate Sport’s City’ for the second time by consultancy and research company ArkSports Ltd, confirming what many Melburnians already knew.

Melbourne is cricket-mad and the standard bearer for Australian Rules football. The Melbourne cricket ground is the world’s largest cricket ground while the Docklands Stadium is the national stadium of ‘Aussie rules’.

Cityscape and property

Melburnian architecture, a blend of modern and classic styles, is widely admired. Representing modernity, for example, you have the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, which has been likened to a Sandcrawler vehicle from Star Wars, or the lattice-like Webb Bridge in the Docklands area, which is particularly striking at night. Both structures have scooped architectural awards.

Meanwhile, the beautiful Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne Town Hall and Parliament House have been standing in the one-time nation’s capital since the 19th century. And Melbourne is known for its network of historic lanes and arcades, hiding a diverse range of eateries, bars and boutiques.

Dubbed Australia’s ‘garden city’ and Victoria its ‘garden state’, Melbourne also boasts an abundance of well manicured parks and gardens.

The businesses for sale Melbourne and property market remained strong even when the 2007-2010 financial crisis curtailed house-price inflation elsewhere in the Western World. It is the third most expensive city in Australia to buy residential property, and is fast closing in on Sydney in second place (Darwin is the most expensive, incidentally).

As of April 2010, the median house price in Melbourne was $549,980, a huge 27% jump on the year before, not far behind the Sydney average of $609,300 and even beating the capital, Canberra.

The median weekly rent for houses in Melbourne’s metropolitan area reached $340 in March 2010, up 5% on the previous year, behind Darwin ($520), Canberra ($495) and Sydney ($450). The median weekly rents for a one-bedroom flat, a two-bedroom house and a four-bedroom house are $280, $350 and $380, respectively.

With house prices and rents rising rapidly, it’s no wonder then that Melburnians are increasingly moving further out from the city centre. Country rail upgrades and the construction of big traffic arteries such as CityLink, the Western Ring Road and the recently opened Hallam Bypass have helped persuade many that a more bucolic existence is possible without having an unmanageable commute.

Commercial property

As of April 2010, retail property on Melbourne’s famous Bourke Street averaged an annual rent of AU$4,500 per square metre, as revealed by Cushman and Wakefield in its Main Streets Across the World Report. This represented a 1.8% rise on 2009, which was broadly in line with inflation. The only main streets in Australia where average retail rents were higher were Sydney’s Pit Street Mall (AU$6,000) and Brisbane’s Queen Street Mall (AU$5,000).

Average annual office rents in the Melbourne Central Business District, meanwhile, were AU$350 per square metre, the same as a year before.

Cushman and Wakefield reported that rents on industrial property in Melbourne fell 22% between 2009 and 2010, to AU$90 per square metre. The city is considerably cheaper for industrial premises than Sydney, which averaged AU$149.

Melbourne is home to Australia’s largest and busiest seaport, handling more than $75bn worth of trade every year and 39% of the country’s container trade. It also boasts the world’s largest tram network and four airports.

Substantial investment in conference facilities and other business-related infrastructure, in particular a $1bn, 5,000-seat international convention centre, the Hilton Hotel and a commercial precinct adjacent to the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre, has made the city a major destination for exhibitions and events.

The Southbank precinct is home to a large number of office buildings, while another multi-billion dollar development has made the waterfront Docklands area a much coveted location for Melbourne's major industries.