The inner North: most favoured by Urban.com.au readers
It appears the 'wrong side of the Yarra, right side of Maribyrnong' encompassing Fitzroy, Carlton, Brunswick, North Melbourne and Northcote has been chosen as the region where most Urban.com.au readers would like to live or own a property. The centre of the city and inner South round out the most popular regions of Melbourne respectively.
That's the conclusion drawn from our ongoing Effective Measure reader surveys that are now in their third month.
The large amount of investment - both in infrastructure and residential construction - currently being funneled into Footscray does not appear to sway Urban.com.au readers as only 15% of Urban.com.au's audience selected inner West. The inner East including Richmond - the suburb which lead the inner-city gentrification through the early 90s - appears to be off the boil with only 33% of the Urban.com.au audience selecting it in the multi-choice question.
We did attempt to correlate any kind of relationship with the number of projects we're tracking on our database with the survey responses however we came up empty.
The total projects we're tracking in Fitzroy, Carlton, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick and East Brunswick rounds out to 46. The inner South representing South Yarra, Prahran, St Kilda, South Melbourne and Port Melbourne totals 59.
The centre of the city - Melbourne (postcodes 3000 and 3004), Docklands and Southbank - totals a mammoth 77 projects.
The data provided by Effective Measure breaks down the responses in to gender categories - Urban.com.au's total audience gender breakdown is 75% male, 25% female.
Amongst males, the inner North again came out on top whilst female readers nominated the centre of the City as their most desirable place to live or own a property.
It mightn't come as any surprise that the outer suburbs barely registered on the survey and it appears Urban.com.au might have a small tree-changer following with 13% of audience share allocated to a rural area / other regional city in Victora.
So what is it that makes the inner North a favourite of Urban.com.au readers?
Truth be known, there was no specific purpose in asking the question on the survey - we thought we'd just throw it out there but it has given the editors some ideas for the next round of surveys which will be rolled out soon.
Perhaps this is a good time to disclaim that both Urban.com.au editors currently live on 'the wrong side of the Yarra, but right side of the Maribyrnong' - one is a native of the region, the other a 'migrant' from the outer South East.
We're very much interested in having a discussion on why the inner North has come up trumps, so feel free to leave a comment in the box provided below.
The question asked: Which of the following areas would you find most desirable to live, invest or own a property in (choose a maximum of 3)?
| Region | Audience Share | Male | Female |
| Inner North (Fitzroy, Carlton, Brunswick, Northcote, North Melbourne) | 57% | 60% | 43% |
| The Centre of the City (CBD, Southbank, Docklands) | 52% | 51% | 57% |
| Inner South (South Melbourne, Port Melbourne, South Yarra, St. Kilda, Fishermans Bend) | 45% | 46% | 43% |
| Inner East (Richmond, Hawthorn/Glenferrie) | 33% | 34% | 29% |
| Inner West (Footscray, Yarraville, Maribyrnong) | 15% | 15% | 14% |
| A rural area / other regional city or town in Victoria | 13% | 11% | 21% |
| Middle ring of suburbs - North or West of the Yarra (Coburg, Thornbury, Moonee Ponds, Essendon, Heidelberg, Williamstown) | 11% | 12% | 8% |
| Middle ring of suburbs - South or East of the Yarra (Sandringham, Elsternwick, Moorabbin, Caulfield, Oakleigh, Camberwell, Doncaster) | 10% | 9% | 14% |
| The urban heart of a regional city (Bendigo, Ballarat, Geelong) | 7% | 6% | 7% |
| Outer ring of Suburbs - South or East of the Yarra | 4% | 4% | 1% |
| Outer ring of Suburbs - North or West of the Yarra | 1% | 1% | 1% |
To see the rest of our demographic data captured through the user surveys, you can view it on our recently published Media Kit located here.
