ahsmith

The residential part of this suburb is relatively small - everything west of the Cooks River is industrial. This is the south-west corner - and one of the most affordable bits - of the Inner West.
Pros:
- decent primary school (physically in neighbouring Strathfield)
- quiet, low density streets
- parks and playgrounds
- good price-to-lifestyle ratio
Cons:
- the public high school is much worse than others nearby
- noise pollution
- bit too close to Belfield and Greenacre

Did you know you can't actually get from the northern side of Wentworth Point to the southern side without going out of the suburb? It's true - the only connection between the north and south of the suburb is via Hill Road, which lies in the next door suburb of Olympic Park. And that's the only road connection between the northern side of the suburb to the rest of the world. (There's a bridge to Rhodes but you can't drive on it.) The southern side has one additional road: Bennelong Parkway. Yet somehow the suburb is full of cars and the streets are surprisingly narrow (for a new estate out west) and you can't find parking anywhere. Bottom line is, Wentworth Point is great if you can commute by ferry (there's a wharf nearby in Olympic Park). if you need to go anywhere else for work or shopping or whatever, you are buying into massive congestion and a situation where it's almost impossible to use a car, even though you are living in the western suburbs and so can't get anywhere without one.

If you are looking to live in Strathfield, it is helpful to know that there are two very different markets here. Strathfield station is one of Sydney's biggest transport hubs, with express trains to the City every few minutes and regional trains too. Like many transport hubs in Sydney, the area around the station is busy, heavily built up, and has problems like noise and higher-than-background crime rates. That said, the area around the station offer very good value for money, especially the 80s-90s high rises on Churchill Avenue and Albert Road which are spacious and well-built in an era when flats were designed for living. However, there are also a few very run-down lowrise blocks and heavily subdivided share houses next to the station that are just begging to be redeveloped in the next slum clearance drive - don't be fooled by the low rents. The commercial side of the centre is however quite vibrant, including a Woolworths and an extraordinary concentration of Korean restaurants.

The part of the suburb further from the station is quite different. It's safe, quiet and gorgeous - beautiful heritage and modern houses on large blocks and leafy streets, surrounded by large and small parks and some of the best public and private schools in Sydney. Even the parts of the suburb that are not walkable to the station are still well connected with frequent buses to the station. There is a diverse but settled demographic mix of retirees, families with working professionals (lots of lawyers, doctors and accountants) and business owners. Culturally, in this part there is a fairly even balance between Anglo-Celtic, Chinese/Korean and Mediterranean ethnic backgrounds. It's easy to see why Strathfield was at one time the most expensive suburb in Sydney and still regularly achieves the weekly top auction prices in Sydney. It's still one of the most family friendly prestige suburbs in Sydney. If you can afford the prices commanded by these houses (~$2.5m median), you will find quality houses in the "Golden Mile" of course, but also in the surrounding area further northwest into southern Homebush (don't go past the railway line), further west (but don't go too close to Homebush Bay Drive) and south (down to the Hume Highway).

It's got a Westfield AND a lively mains street with all four Big Four banks. It's got a well-connected train station and lots of buses. It's got two arterial roads at the northern and southern ends. It's got a really nice big park (Burwood Park) and little green spaces here and there. It's got some of the best schools in Sydney. In terms of physical specs, Burwood is a really great suburb to live - no wonder that it's attracting a huge amount of apartment developments, and the beautiful Federation houses further from the centre command ridiculous price tags. But Burwood is so hectic - the main streets are crammed full of people at all hours, the roads are full of cars and buses. The mains street is full of tiny stores with garishly loud posters that adds to the hectic atmosphere and also speak to its increasingly monocultural character. You will find 20 restaurants serving Ma La Tang - individual food morsels boiled in a spicy Chinese broth, a relatively recent invention in mainland China - before you find a single restaurant serving even a different kind of Asian food. If Chatswood is Hong Kong, then Burwood is its sister city somewhere in an interior Chinese province. This has gotten worse dramatically in the last few years, and it's only likely to get even worse as new high rises attract more students and recent arrivals. It's great if you love Ma La Tang. If not, do you really want to pay what you have to pay to live here?

Homebush West is the official extremity of the Inner West - which for some people means the western-most habitable point of Sydney. But it's still perfectly liveable. Homebush West village, south of Flemington station, is really great. It's one of those slow paced but vibrant, colourful and most importantly useful little villages you'd think are everywhere in Sydney, but are actually really hard to find. Admittedly it's very heavily Southeast and South Asian focussed, but if you are after Asian groceries, dim sums or some fresh seafood to take home, or just to have a tasty meal, it's got all of that, without being too hectic like Burwood or Hurstville. And of course nothing in Sydney beats Flemington markets for produce. For residents, there are plenty of services in and around the village as well. The housing immediately around the village tends to be older style unit blocks - but solidly built. There are some nicer houses towards the border with Homebush and Strathfield in the east and south - also plenty of nice green spaces and playgrounds that straddle those borders. Be aware though that there is a weird corner of Homebush West around Courallie Avenue which is west of Homebush Bay Drive and north of the railway line. It's miles away from the rest of the residential suburb and cut off by highways, railways and the market. Courallie Avenue is (or used to be) fine, but somehow approval has been given to build a giant development in the most inaccessible corner of this patch, called Centenary Park, which is surrounded by railways and industrial land. If you are thinking of buying or renting in Centenary Park, beware and do your research. Don't be fooled by the post code - Centenary Park is basically in Lidcombe and you will get more for your money in actual Lidcombe.

This is a really weird street. It's cut off from the rest of the suburb - and any other residential areas for miles - by highways in two directions and parks in the third. Most of the street is commercial (including DFO) and industrial - which is fine, but if you live in one of the apartment blocks you are just being a human air filter for all the car fumes. There is literally a massive smoke vent from the M4 tunnel on the road itself. And you can't really get anywhere without crossing either an arterial road or a huge expanse of grass. Unless you are driving to DFO, It's really just a very long on-ramp from Parramatta Road to Homebush Bay Drive. Very odd place to live.

A village square with a fountain (and a large car park behind), a "Supa IGA" that stocks a huge variety of cheeses and imported hams, excellent independent butcher and fruit shop, Italian restaurants spilling out onto the footpath - Summer Hill is the epitome of gentrified inner west. There are enough reminders of the time when it was rougher to make it interesting, like the hulking industrial buildings facing onto the same village square. It's surrounded on three sides by less genteel suburbs (and a giant, cheap high rise development on the eastern edge), but for the most part is established enough that it does not feel under threat from them. The northern boundary with Haberfield is marked by Parramatta Road. Tiny semis, older unit blocks and new-build townhouses built on the grounds of old mansions makes it a somewhat accessible market to buy into for young families, but if you want a full sized suburban house with a yard you will need serious money.

This is the best street in the southern part of Homebush. It's got the green, tree lined appeal of the best avenues of Strathfield and Burwood, lined with well kept, pretty houses - mostly federation/Edwardian, but some modernist and Victorian houses too - only one block of units on the whole street. If you like a pretty established street, then it has the added advantage that the whole street is a heritage conservation area so your neighbour would not be allowed to knock down their federation house to build a concrete box. Very quiet despite being sub 10 minutes to the station and the village shopping centre, and surrounded by good public and private schools.

If you are moving to the suburb, you really need to be aware of the contrast between the two halves of the suburb. South Homebush, south of the railway line, has a garden suburb feel, tree lined avenues with beautiful heritage houses and a few mansions, and mostly solidly built low to medium rise apartment blocks around the station. There is a lively and multicultural village centre with great cafes as well as Chinese, Indian and Korean restaurants. Strathfield central library is here, as are several parks, including a picket fenced village cricket green. Surrounded by some of the best private and public schools in Sydney.

North Homebush, around Parramatta Road / M4 and further north, is a completely different story. It's the typical story of over development and bad planning - not enough parking so lots of cars, noisy, dirty, flimsy high rise blocks that are already looking grubby and cracking. It's astonishing what developers have gotten away with here. Plus, this part of the suburb is bisected by a giant motorway with pollution spewing from the tunnel smoke stacks (aka the Underwood Road Ventilation Facility) at one end, and a spaghetti junction at the other end.