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Church Street is a quiet street where nothing much happens each day with the exception of 10 minute bursts of orderly activity near the school when the kids start and finish for the day and a few church activities. Very convenient for buses to Uni, Hospital and the City. Quick walk to Maitland Road for supermarkets, hardware, fast food etc. , and a short drive to nightlife centres. A few hundred metres to Industrial Drive if driving North or into Newcastle city. Friendly people.

We've owned a house in Mayfield for a couple of years now. It's up the hill a bit, a couple of hundred metres from the main road. We moved in from a "quiet" Sydney suburb to get closer to the University and hospitals, and have found the people friendly and the street really peaceful and quiet through the day and night.
Buses to Newcastle and the University go past the front door, but it's sometimes easier to walk down to Maitland Road where public transport abounds. Driving is easy in all directions.
We have plenty of shops nearby to cater for our daily needs, and prices are low, but you might need to head off to Kotara or even Charlestown for the big furniture or department stores.
You might need to travel outside your suburb for your ideal occupation (I'm sure most people in Sydney and Newcastle would), but there is still more retail, service, government and industry work within walking distance of our house in Mayfield than there would be in most suburbs. With the area going more upmarket the opportunities for trades and services catering to the renovating houseproud locals can only be getting even better.
In the summer, Mayfield gets cooler ocean breezes that make all the difference on hot days, and I understand the people further west often miss out on.
Although we don't have any young children ourselves, there are plenty of local schools and the kids seem quite well behaved to me.
I think Mayfield must have changed a lot over the last few years because we heard a few Newcastle residents with negative viewpoints about Mayfield they developed from the past or heard from others, and they still seem to be looking for things to criticise even when there isn't much there! Moving to Mayfield was a good decision for my family, and it seems to look better each year.