'Australia's underwhelming capital'

Moved here from Brisbane a few years ago and have not looked back! Yes a great place for the kids with lots of options for entertainment all within a nice easy drive / cycle. When we go back to Brisbane to visit the family the traffic alone is enough to make me glad we moved. It sometimes take me longer to get out of Brisbane Airport and through that damned roundabout then it does to take the kids to Tidbinbilla!

Agreed deezagood, don’t think you could beat it for a city to raise small kids.

ant said :

Maybe tourists miss the good stuff, while people who are shown around by a friend “get” Canberra. It’s not like bloody Sydney, it has no main street or laid-on entertainment. We did an Ikea run to Sydney today and fair dinkum, you’d have to be mad to live there. What a miserable existence! It’s just way too big, way too full.

I can’t wait for Canberra to get an Ikea though!

I’m a Melbourne girl (born in Brisbane, but lived in Melbourne for more than half of my life), but as a mother with smallish kids, I wouldn’t want to live in any other major Australian city. Honestly; name another capital city where if your kids have a school concert during the day you can whip away from work, go to the concert, go back to work (and find a parking spot) within a one hour timeframe? In Melbourne I worked in the city and lived about 15 kms out of the city, but it took a good 40 minutes to commute either way (by car or rail) – what a waste of precious time that could be spent with your kids. This city is so livable and convenient, I really can’t imagine anybody not appreciating the lifestyle here – especially if you have smallish kids. And Canberra is really pretty. I do miss having a close beach, but the proximity of the snowfields more than makes up for that and we have taken up waterskiing (lake life) to replace the beach life that we had in Melbourne. I absolutely love living here.

Canberra is a late 90’s beige Toyota Camry. Bland and with an asthmatic engine but most of it works and it’ll get you from a to b.

Pommy bastard, Canberra is pretty much unknown in the UK. I had a friend whose young niece gave Canberra as the answer to ‘what is the capital city of Australia’ in a school quiz. Her teacher said no, Sydney is the capital.

Trunking symbols said :

Sydney – a nice place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there.

Used to hear that a lot until getting to know a lot of Sydneysiders and they love it there and most I know wouldn’t leave in any hurry.

They say the same thing about here anyhow.

I’ve had more than a dozen friends from the UK come to stay with me since I’ve been living here. Without fail, they have gone away stating that Canberra is a little known gem of Australia, and should be promoted better.

I’ll be perfectly honest here, and admit that, before my courting days, I had no idea what or where Canberra was. I considered myself a worldly and well travelled Pom, and I know that I would not be alone in any group of well educated people from the UK in this lack of knowledge.

Thing is, do we want it promoted better? I’m happy to have all the advantages of living in what I consider one of the world great little cities, without having to share it with millions of grockles and emmets.

I have to agree Trunking symbols, I do like to visit Sydney for a weekend, but any longer and I start to itch for my home among the hills. I think Canberra is like a Suburu Liberty, good for the whole family, comfortable on road with a good ride off the beaten track too, plenty of space but not a mega flashy 4 wheel drive.

Sydney – a nice place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there.

Canberra is an ACTION bus.

Maybe tourists miss the good stuff, while people who are shown around by a friend “get” Canberra. It’s not like bloody Sydney, it has no main street or laid-on entertainment. We did an Ikea run to Sydney today and fair dinkum, you’d have to be mad to live there. What a miserable existence! It’s just way too big, way too full.

I don’t think Canberra is worth being compared to other large international cities. Just as Old Canberran said, everything about our city is young but more importantly extremely unique.

I grew up in Canberra and there’s one thing here most other cities don’t have. I’ve lived in a few spots around the world, visited more, made frequent weekend trips to Sydney etc. What we have is unparalleled access to open green/wooded spaces as Deezagood explained. Sure, if you’re on the perpetual search for the perfect cafe latte, catching trams, buying expensive pieces of cloth is your thing the bush wont do much for you. But if you get out of suburbia, a maximum whopping 30min drive, there’s so much to see and do here. If you go even further (Bungonia, Alpes, Budawangs etc.) there’s even more spectacular things to discover.

I started bushwalking with my school. Where else can you be a 30-60min drive away from home, but in the middle of nowhere. As teens, go out on a trip with a few mates . I still bushwalk today. It also got me into mountain biking and consequently just riding on road for fun/commuting. This city is unique in the sense that it’s not a metropolis- nor was it ever designed to be a sky-scraper city.

Take a shot of the Brindabella’s. That’s Canberra.

A Pom criticising a city for being able to do better?

Deary me, pot this is kettle…………over

What a lot of these blow-in critics tend to overlook is that Canberra is a very young city which has been sculptured from an empty limestone plain. It does not have the history and age of Sydney or Melbourne and it has yet to develop its own character. It is also the National Capital which makes it unique in this country. This means the emphasis is on the National Capital aspects of the city first and the urban infrastructure second.
If Mr Bryant thinks Canberra can do better then he should be told that it’s been under the control of amateur politicians for the past 21 years and perhaps he could use his journalistic influence to have this situation rectified.

Canberra could do a lot better…but it would lose some of its other charms as a result.

I’m with deeza, but I think it’s better to live in than to visit. Especially if you’re a philistine and don’t like galleries, museums and water features that are purely cosmetic in nature.

Nonetheless, I really can’t agree with the Skoda comparison. Far too modern. We’re more like an old 70s muscle car that’s been converted to LPG and has comfy woolen seat covers and an MP3 player.

Helps to have a friend here too sometimes and seeing I’m doing another stupid double post I think I shall fix accommodating*

Sounds like an awesome week Deezagood and still sooooo much more anyone could do, so i reckon we’re accomodating, just got to think outside of the square.

My Canadian friends just left after being here for a week. They toured the visitor hot-spots (galleries, museums, memorial etc.. ) by renting a bike, we hiked up around Tidbinbilla (where we saw wombat, emus, wallabies and a real live platypus!), we took photos from Mount Ainslie and Black Mountain, had brekky in Kingston, dinner in Manuka, had beer and trivia at the Durham and they oohed and ahhed each morning over the thousands of kangaroos that live in the Mcarthur horse paddocks. They also came to school for the cross country, met some of our friends and just hung out with us in the suburbs. Conclusion; they think Canberra is one of the most beautiful, accessable places they have ever visited (and they have literally been all over the world) and can’t believe how under-rated it is as a tourist destination. They have decided to come back through on their way back to Sydney. So there.

Volvo.

In this month’s Open Road the Skoda Superb is described as ‘a genuine class act’

Canberra’s like a soft-roader SUV. It looks the part, but is ultimately heavy, slow, and can’t do what the styling suggests.

Commentary like that in the OP smacks of someone who spent 3 days in the city and knows nothing of its culture, like most people who haven’t lived here.

Canberra is an easy target, unfortunately.

Canberra is a Lada Niva. It’s designed, sure, but it’s been designed badly. It’s not like much anything else of its vintage. It’s old, not especially shapely, and while it has its charms they are few and far between.

I’d say an old Valiant station-wagon, with the original driver. Don’t like change, even if it may be of some benefit.

Who exactly would need to “do better”?

I’m sick of people holding Canberran’s responsible for the city somehow not meeting their expectations. I had an uncle visit here some time ago. He and my auntie went for a walk, presumably around the flats near the city. Their comment to me was “we saw some parts that need work” … as if I or others are somehow the responsible custodians of the city. We just live here!