KlaraB

After living in the Burnside council area for nearly 2 years, I was a bit hesitant about moving here - Burnside is just beautiful, after all. But now that we're settled in, I'm very happy, though it has only been 8 months now. We decided on Paradise because it seemed a nice, quiet suburb, with excellent transport due to the O-Bahn interchange. That is a serious boon - we live about 4 minutes walk from the interchange, and then it's about 12 minutes into the city, so I just leave the car at home if I need to do anything in the city. And with the future upgrades to the O-Bahn just announced, it should be even faster. For some people, there just won't be enough going on in Paradise. There isn't a supermarket, cafe, restaurant or even a corner shop within walking distance from my place, but that doesn't bother me. I do think that the area next to the interchange should be developed with some higher-density housing and cafe's, shops, restaurants etc - it's crazy that this potential hub is wasted while Adelaide is allowed to continue sprawling - so inefficient! But I'm sure not everyone would agree with me.
As for shopping, I do a lot online but Woolies is a 5 minute drive away in Gilles Plains, Coles is 7 minutes away in Dernancourt, there is a well-priced IGA at the Campbelltown shops on Lower North East Road, and Drake's Newton is also very close - and is surprising in the breadth of its range (bacala, anyone?).
In terms of schools, one of the best primary schools in the state is East Marden, but you need to live in the right zone, and I believe that means west of Darley road (on the same side as the O-Bahn interchange). I'm not sure about high schools, as I haven't looked into that yet.
In the end, the only thing I really miss about Burnside is the glorious public spaces - there are so many wonderful parks there, and I miss being able to take my little girl and our dog to the same park, and let our little doggie run around freely. Here, Thorndon Park doesn't allow dogs at all, and Linear Park enforces a dogs-on-lead policy. But Burnside is only 15 minutes away!
I will respond to one person's comment about the architecture in the area - it's not beautiful, sure, but it's not that bad either. It certainly doesn't inspire disgust - maybe ennui for some. There are lots of cream brick houses from the 1960's, and some gardens are quite boring, but at least the houses are solid. The people who live around us are polite and friendly without being intrusive, many from an Italian background. Anyhow, the location and value for money outweighed our aesthetic concerns.