ronanj

I've lived in Banksia for about 5 years now. It's certainly not the inner west, but it's probably a bit like the inner west was 10-15 years ago. It's a really small suburb, with a quiet cosy feel, and I've noticed more young families moving into the area in that time.

The housing is much more affordable than the inner west, and the train to town hall is bang on 20 minutes. In peak hour they come every ten minutes, and since they only come from Hurstville, they're not too crowded.

About a year or so ago a cafe opened which is great, and the Banksia Hotel opened up a new restaurant by some guy off My Kitchen Rules. It's pretty good. It also has some great friendly little shops - a chemist, small supermarket, butcher, doctor and post office. It even has Sydney's best train station manager! (There was a story on Steve in one of the major papers....a great guy who says hello and helps everyone).

There's quite a bit of development happening at the moment on the highway. It will mean more apartments, but as long as you don't live on the highway it doesn't have a negative impact. I'm hoping it will generate more cafes and spruce up the highway a bit as well.

I noticed some comments about noise but we don't experience that. It really depends where in the suburb you are. As we're so close to the airport, the flight path doesn't deviate much, and the western side of the railway doesn't really get too much noise at all.

If you are a young family it's great and I think it will keep getting better.