Sydney and Melbourne are Australia’s two biggest cities, and like the two largest cities of many countries, they have built up a rivalry over the years which has become the stuff of legends. I lived in Sydney for the first 23 years of my life, then moved to Melbourne, so it’s definitely something I’ve thought about over the years.

For those who aren’t familiar, the two cities are thought of by many as having very different ‘personalities’, at least within the Australian psyche. Sydney is considered by many as being bigger, richer, bolder; beachy and brassy. Melbourne was once larger than Sydney, fell behind in the population stakes, but is rapidly catching up. It is characterised as being moody, stylish, cultured; refined and sophisticated.

Whether there’s anything in it, Sydney’s sister city is San Francisco, while Melbourne has Milan, among others.

Melbourne is stylish, Sydney is sexy.

Melbourne has class, Sydney has arse…

Ok, so maybe there’s really nothing in it. After all, Sydney and Melbourne are still more like each other than any other pair of cities in the world. That, however, doesn’t stop the rivalry from sparking every now and then, especially when an article is published which stokes the fire.

This article is not going to do that. It’s not a piece to elect a favourite city between the two – God knows I might get chased out of either city by torch-weilding villagers if I did. It’s simply a collection of observations of my domestic culture shock in a city just an hour’s flight from my birthplace.

1. Does winter go forever?

My birthday on the 1st October in Sydney was often a great day to do something outdoors – I even remember it being too hot to go for a picnic, some years.

In Melbourne, on the first of October I’m still at least two months from the end of what I’d consider to be winter. When there is a day which is clear (without the threat of rain, or some gale blowing), Melburnians run outside like they haven’t seen the sun in months. Which isn’t true because Melbourne does see the sun between April and December, it just doesn’t usually last longer than an hour.

2. The weird half-lane on roads with trams and parked cars

I don’t have an issue driving with trams, but roads which feature tram lines and parked cars, particularly in inner suburbs, seem to feature this weird half-lane between the parked cars and the tram lines.

Can someone explain this to me? It’s not really wide enough to get a car through… but a bike perhaps? Is it a lane?

3. AFL is religion

Everyone in Sydney seems to think that AFL is like Melbourne’s version of the NRL – a game draws people every week, and colleagues tip their teams every Friday in the office.

It’s so much more than that – it’s religion. A large number of people arrange their weekly schedules around football matches, which team you support is an inquiry about your place in society (sort of like when a Sydneysider asks which suburb you live in), and I’ve heard of at least one case of someone having major issues with their daughter’s choice of husband because of the football team he supported. They weren’t even joking.

4. Small city? Or big village?

I grew up in a city where something could be happening in one part of the city and we, in another part, wouldn’t even know about it, much less care.

In Melbourne, everyone knows what’s going on, and everyone goes to see it. There’s an exhibition on at the NGV? A lot of Melburnians would know what it was, and whether they wanted to go or not.

It could be a sign of Melburnians being more involved in their “liveable” city than Sydneysiders, or it could be a certain tribalism from being a smaller city. There’s a public holiday for a football final, and a parade of horses for a horse race. As the horses and jockeys make their ways down a Swanston Street lined with cheering crowds, squint for a minute and it almost looks like race day at a country town, and everyone has frocked up and come out to say hi. Quaint or cosmopolitan? I’ll let you be the judge.

5. Pub culture

I’m not one for the pub anyway, but I was really surprised by Melbourne’s pub culture when I arrived.

Some days it feels like everyone in Melbourne has “a local” (especially in the northern suburbs), and they might even know the publican, or have gone to school with his children. Or maybe that’s just who I started associating with when I arrived in a new city?

6. Shabby chic

At least until the rise of hipster chic, I knew a lot of people who would squirm or roll their eyes if they ended up sitting next to someone on the train who was wearing 70s or 80s op shop fashion.

Enter Melbourne, where rocking op shop wear is vintage fashion, and being ironic is the norm.

7. That’s not a beach

It’s not that Melbourne doesn’t have beaches…

…but if you’re from Sydney, 30 metres of damp sand do not a beach make.

8. Everything looks grungy

I know that’s the Melbourne cliche, but it’s true. Even heading out into the suburbs, I’m yet to find anywhere that matches the white sandstone spectacle of Sydney eastern suburbs, or the palatial leafy boulevards of the north shore.

Part of this is due to geography, which can’t be avoided, but part of it is also architecture. There are neighbourhoods like Toorak and Brighton, but they still seem to err on the side of faded Victorian grandeur rather than plush grange estate.

9. Concrete jungle in the city

For the capital of a place which used to call itself “the Garden State”, Melbourne’s CBD is conspicuously devoid of green spaces.

Yes, there are stately gardens around the CBD, but if you work in the city centre there simply aren’t that many gardens in the city centre where you can take a sandwich to have for lunch.

10. Where is the ________ area?

Sydney is a city divided by money, class, ethnicity, religion and train lines. Where you live probably says a lot about you, in a lot of people’s eyes. Therefore, if you are looking for a suburb with a particular social make-up, it’s easily identified and found.

Melbourne, on the other hand, is much more integrated. When I first arrived in Melbourne I asked someone where the Arabic area of the city was (I was looking for a grocery store), and got told that “there are a lot of Arabic shops on Sydney Road… or anywhere…” Ethnic enclaves, in Melbourne, don’t seem to exist in the way they do in Sydney.

11. The rivalry matters

Call it arrogance, call it ignorance, living in Sydney I never used to think about Melbourne or the supposed rivalry that much.

From my first day in Melbourne, I was told that “I had made the right move” and that “Sydney is a great place to come from“. Some were less jovial about it; in one conversation with colleagues about where to find quality coffee, I was told that being from Sydney I probably wouldn’t know what they were talking about. It’s not that I minded that much, it’s just that I never realised being from Sydney meant so much, and that the rivalry matters as much as it does to some.

…and if you’re worried that this might be totally one-sided, fear not – here is my Melburnian in Sydney post!

What is your favourite thing about Melbourne? What about your least favourite? Comment below!