Dear All,
I have lived in Surry Hills for about 8 months now, ever since I was offered a job and arrived in Sydney. One of the things that strikes me about Surry Hills, Darlinghurst and Paddington is the sheer number of British and American accents I hear - almost outnumbering the Australian accents! What amazed me was that the Brits and Americans I see in Surry Hills, Paddington and Darlinghurst don't look like the British, Irish and American teenage and early 20s backpackers seen in Bondi and Coogee but a different mix - very smart, older affluent types - the Brits often with crisp RP or posh London accents like you may find in London suburbs like Islington and Clapham. According to Wikipedia, 67% of the population of Paddington alone have roots in North-West Europe, mostly from the UK and Ireland.
I didn't give it much thought until I visited the suburbs of Cabramatta, Liverpool and Blacktown recently - all places I enjoyed with their interesting Vietnamese, Lebanese, Indian and Filipino ethnic shops and restaurants. According to others I have spoken to, they are seen by Australians as enclaves of certain ethic groups - especially Cabramatta with its Viet population. This got me pondering that if people can call Cabramatta and Blacktown enclaves then can one label the Eastern Suburbs (including the inner eastern suburbs) as a predominently British/Irish/American enclave?
