An early contender for this week’s most pointless news article and even more pointless research has emerged from the crowd.
Disparities in social advantage within Sydney suburbs have been revealed by data that shows a pocket of about 80 households in the northern suburb of Frenchs Forest is the city’s most well-off locality.
Six of the 10 most advantaged suburban enclaves are located in the city’s north-west, but none are in the east, the Australian Bureau of Statistics new Index of Household Advantage and Disadvantage (IHAD) shows.
The second most advantaged neighbourhood was a cluster of just over 100 homes not far from Taronga Zoo within the harbourside suburb of Mosman.
Or put another way, “areas everyone already knew were affluent, are affluent“.
No, seriously.
If you have five minutes spare and fancy a chuckle, read the methodology here.
According to the calculation, if your mortgage payment exceeds $2,800 a month, you are “advantaged”. Lucky you!
In total, there are over 50 variables that have been shaken together in this advantaged/disadvantaged cocktail to provide the lovely colour-coded map reproduced in the news article.
When all the data has been crunched, what did we learn?
The people living in expensive areas with new German cars on the driveways of large houses with swimming pools are, in the main, “advantaged”.
Bill’s Opinion
When the employees of the Australian Bureau of Statistics go home on a Friday evening, do you think they tell themselves they’ve moved the human condition forward at all?
The same question applies to “churnalists” such Matt Wade and Nigel Gladstone.