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America - it really depends a lot on local regulations or if the neighborhood has an HOA mandating fences (or no fences). My HOA mandates no fences. (I live in Michigan) However, in the inner ring suburbs, you'll find that backyards are fenced in. Usually, these neighborhoods don't have HOA's and the houses/neighborhoods were built before 1980.
I always through the fences in Australia were more designed as boundary markers, so you know where the block you own and are responsible for starts and ends.
I always through the fences in Australia were more designed as boundary markers, so you know where the block you own and are responsible for starts and ends.
Pretty much. The normal 1.2m wooden fence doesn't offer that much by way of privacy, but a lot of folk do go for 1.8m (or higher) colorbond metal.
Privacy comes with a set of unwritten rules, according to the British social anthropologist Kate Fox, and she writes about the different rules for the use of front and back gardens in England, which of course are defined by their fences. So the back garden is a private space and the more formal front garden is rarely used for any more than gardening. However it is more public and it is acceptable to approach your neighbour when they are in the front but certainly not when they are enjoying privacy in the back.
This is pretty much how it is anywhere I have lived in Australia. But the fences also keep pets and children in.
Sydney and Melbourne are such vast sprawling cities that the aim of the councils and government in general is to encourage urban consolidation, especially medium density housing and along public transport corridors, high density. The quarter acre block is becoming a thing of the past as children have scheduled childhoods and parents are both generally working. Not to mention the role of devices to keep kids inside. Where I live the old houses on big blocks are constantly being torn down and replaced by a couple of upmarket townhouses. I can probably hear the building racket of about half a dozen projects at time.
Where I live the old houses on big blocks are constantly being torn down and replaced by a couple of upmarket townhouses.
I find this really sad and disappointing. Australia's suburban housing is already hotchpotch, some kind of legislation or council regulation should be put in place to keep a detached rule for certain older neighbourhoods with this big, old homes.
The spacious, spread out lack of fencing kind of suburb can still be found in some parts of Australia particularly in rural towns and older suburbs. The North Shore of Sydney, for example, has a lot of this kind of housing. Fencing for privacy is not as necessary there (unless it's the backyard), as the tree canopies and greenery provide sufficient privacy.
I understand that suburb means something slightly different in Australia?
That you would call a certain part of the city ,say within Sydney, a suburb, since it's not in the centre or CBD, even though it's within the cities limits?
What do you call outlying towns and cities that are attached to the city, but come under a different local government?
In Canada, neighbourhoods outside of the centre, may have names, but are still within the boundaries of the city, and it's laws, are just called neighbourhoods, or by their name.
A town, like Burnaby, Coquitlam, Maple Ridge etc all with their own governments, but physically close to the city of Vancouver and are usually driving distance for work, are called suburbs here.
I understand that suburb means something slightly different in Australia?
That you would call a certain part of the city ,say within Sydney, a suburb, since it's not in the centre or CBD, even though it's within the cities limits?
What do you call outlying towns and cities that are attached to the city, but come under a different local government?
In Canada, neighbourhoods outside of the centre, may have names, but are still within the boundaries of the city, and it's laws, are just called neighbourhoods, or by their name.
A town, like Burnaby, Coquitlam, Maple Ridge etc all with their own governments, but physically close to the city of Vancouver and are usually driving distance for work, are called suburbs here.
You are correct, somewhere like Haymarket, which borders the CBD/Downtown of Sydney and has a population density of almost 20,000 per square km, would be considered a suburb of Sydney.
We do not really have city limits etc.
Metropolitan Sydney is actually collection, of 30 city and town councils. The city of Sydney itself is only 25km's and is no where near the biggest of these 30 councils by population. As to what they are reffered to that really depends on who you are talking to, though most would just refer to the entrie area as Sydney.
All other Australian Cities are exactly like this except Metropolitan Brisbane, which is a collection of 5 city and one regional governments. The City of Brisbane is the Biggest local Government Authority in Australia by a big Margin.
You are correct, somewhere like Haymarket, which borders the CBD/Downtown of Sydney and has a population density of almost 20,000 per square km, would be considered a suburb of Sydney.
So, here in the Vancouver area, some of our suburbs, ( suburbs in the Canadian sense ), have centres, CBD's, that aren't " suburban", but with high rise towers, some as much as 60 stories.
So now the question is, when is a suburb, not suburban?
If we discount urban suburbs, ( a contradictory term if ever there was one ), then that takes away what makes some of, at least Vancouver's suburbs, different than others. The urbanity of them.
You are correct, somewhere like Haymarket, which borders the CBD/Downtown of Sydney and has a population density of almost 20,000 per square km, would be considered a suburb of Sydney.
We do not really have city limits etc.
Metropolitan Sydney is actually collection, of 30 city and town councils. The city of Sydney itself is only 25km's and is no where near the biggest of these 30 councils by population. As to what they are reffered to that really depends on who you are talking to, though most would just refer to the entrie area as Sydney.
All other Australian Cities are exactly like this except Metropolitan Brisbane, which is a collection of 5 city and one regional governments. The City of Brisbane is the Biggest local Government Authority in Australia by a big Margin.
Thank you
I have friends in Sydney, and I remember having this conversation with them, but it was a long time ago.
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