Posers
Bondi’s finally done it. The powers that be that run Australia’s most famous beach have put up the metaphorical “closed for business” sign and jacked up parking fees to deter the Westies.
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The local council is not even pretending there’s another good reason for the latest fee hike to $5 an hour, with Waverly Mayor Sally Betts saying she wants to “protect residents from visitors.”
“We don’t want people from western Sydney coming here and parking - we want them to take public transport. But I don’t think the 50c is a disincentive,” Ms Betts told yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph.
Standing outside the Unity Hall Hotel, in Darling Street Balmain, Jan doesn’t hold back. She stands for everything that Old Balmain was, working class, down to earth, unpretentious and with a village atmosphere.
Jan doesn’t like how the place has changed. To her Balmain used to be a “kooky” place, with a sense of community but now “we call it Yuppieville… it’s the people moving in that can afford the extravagant rents and the house prices.”
Further down the road at the London Hotel, you can still see the vestiges of the Balmain of yesteryear. It is buildings such as the London Hotel (built in 1870) hold an important place in Australia’s political and social history.
Continue reading "Poor to pretentious in one generation: Balmain" »
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alana says:
I’ve lived in balmain all my life, I wouldn’t live anywhere else. However, I wish other people would live elsewhere (I’m talking about Leanne who likened Balmain to Melbourne. How dare you?!) I remember a simpler time when I didn’t have to jump off the sidewalk and into oncoming traffic… Read more »
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Al says:
Dawn Fraser, most people’s idea of a Balmain resident, ended this argument on ABC radio’s Grandstand last weekend. In the crowd for a league game, Dawn harked back to the Balmain of her childhood, then ran through the basket-weaver years and gentrification. She signed off by saying Balmain had come… Read more »
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