An urbanist's guide to Melbourne: ‘It’s as hard to find a laneway without street art as a barista without a beard’

I’m a novelist, essayist and blogger, and Melbourne comes into just about everything I write. Like many people, I have one foot in the city, and one in the suburbs. My day job is in the city, and this photo was taken in Blender Lane, which has some of the best street art in Melbourne.

I live in Yarraville, a suburb in the inner west. We’ve seen a lot of development in the last 20 years – factories closing to be replaced by cafes and bars, and the conversion of former industrial sites into apartments. Fortunately, not everything has changed – our neighbours include a Greek couple who grow and press their own olives, and a bouzouki-playing veteran of the Greek social club scene. So Yarraville is a suburb of contradictions, which makes it interesting. But like most of the west, it’s still a more economical place to live than the east – though even here, houses are becoming unaffordable.

At weekends I roam the suburbs looking for places to photograph and write about. I’m interested in lost histories, old buildings, ghost signs and street art. My current project, Melbourne Circle, involves walking around the city clockwise in a big circle, writing about places that trigger my interest and imagination.

The best introduction to Melbourne is to stand opposite Flinders Street station and watch the crowds spilling out of the entrance under the clocks. This is the one place that every Melburnian passes through at some stage, and many of us do so every day. Depending on the time and season you’ll see flag-waving footy fans, head-down commuters, suburban families, tourists, students, hipsters, ratbags, teetering drunken racegoers, and many more cultures and sub-cultures.

Melbourne is … cyclists with spikes on their helmets to deter swooping magpies; possums in the lemon trees, and lost cat signs taped to telegraph poles; it’s African cafes in Footscray, Vietnamese soup in Richmond, and shisha in Brunswick; cake decoration competitions and overpriced showbags at the Royal Melbourne Show; footy scarves fluttering out of car windows; it’s that ubiquitous female voice that instructs you ‘when travelling with Myki, remember to touch on and touch off.’

In the CBD you find a mix of architecture, from ornate Victorian edifices to modern skyscrapers and an explosion of brand new apartment blocks of dubious merit. For most Melburnians, though, their actual experience of daily life is suburban. While the city sprouts vertically at the centre, it expands horizontally at the margins. Many people hardly go into ‘the city’ at all. They study and work in their suburbs, shop at mega shopping centres, socialise and play sport at their local oval or sports centre.

What’s intriguing about the city?

Because of the rampant development in and around the city, as places are demolished vestiges of the past unexpectedly reappear. When a building came down on Russell Street last year, it revealed a painted ghost sign advertising Dr King, a ‘celebrated specialist’ who turned out to be a medical clairvoyant from Victorian times. The sign was only visible for a few months before the new building went up and the sign disappeared again. These windows into the past can be detected in many parts of the city when you start looking for them.

What’s Melbourne’s best building?

My choice for best building is Southern Cross, the station for regional and interstate trains. I love the amazing undulating roof, reminiscent of the ocean. I find it uplifting, though it’s not universally loved.

For a great old building, though, I’d say the State Library of Victoria, built in the mid-19^th century. Around a hundred years ago they added the domed LaTrobe Reading Room, my favourite room in the city. Here, generations of students, researchers and writers have pored over books under the old green lamps. These days, of course, you can plug your laptop in there too, but there’s something reassuring about the presence of all those books.

And the biggest white elephant?

The Melbourne Star is an observation wheel, opened with much fanfare in 2008 at a cost of $100m (£54m). A few weeks after opening, the wheel was closed when someone noticed a big crack in it, blamed on the heatwave. The wheel was promptly removed and broken up for scrap, to be replaced by a new one that didn’t open for five years. I think there are already many good places from which to get a view of the city for free so I won’t be taking a ride, but I must grudgingly admit that it adds a certain something to the night skyline when the lights are on. It’s an expensive bauble though.

How clean is the city?

Melbourne is generally clean, except for a strange plague of abandoned sofas in the suburbs. Those little street-cleaning machines like golf buggies with moustaches shuttle around sweeping the gutters, and there are cleaners on the trains and stations. This is not surprising, as Melbourne has long been highly regulated. Over the years we’ve had all kinds of social controls – rules against drinking after 6pm (aka the ‘six o’clock swill’, now abolished), spitting, jaywalking, animals, signage, ‘public nuisance’. We once had a rule that you had to cross the street at an angle of exactly 90 degrees to the pavement. Cricket Australia even banned the Mexican wave at the MCG, “as a measure to improve customer comfort and safety”. I hear that Mexican wave-related injuries have plummeted, which is a huge relief.

For years, graffiti and street art were banned by zealous local councils. Then someone realised that street art had become a drawcard for Melbourne, so these days it’s as hard to find a laneway without street art as a barista without a beard. The art is of variable quality, but you’ve got to love a city where you can turn a corner and come across a piece by an artist such as Baby Guerrilla, whose paste-ups adorn many obscure corners. This one is on the back of a derelict suburban cinema.

What’s the best way to get around?

The city centre was built on a grid in the 1830s. They did this so they could parcel it up into blocks and sell it more easily, so Melbourne’s original town planning was driven by real estate agents. The result today is that it’s straightforward to find your way from A to B on foot. It’s also easy to get around using the City Loop train line and the trams. But the suburbs are so spread out that most people regard a car, or several, as essential, generally including at least one show-off 4WD. The great majority of Melburnians drive to work or school. Only 17% use public transport – trains, buses and trams. For a more unconventional commute, you can take a ferry across the bay.

Cycling is growing more popular but only 2-3% ride to work or study, and bikes have to share the space with cars, buses and trams. Things can get scary, as the relationship between drivers and cyclists is tense and sometimes hostile. It’s obvious that the city needs long-term transport solutions, but infrastructure projects are debated on a party political basis – there’s not enough consensus-building or long-term vision. Instead, we have a big shouting match about new roads and tunnels versus public transport five minutes before every state election.

Melbourne road-users observe some quixotic road rules. You have to turn right from the left lane (a ‘hook turn’), and you’re not allowed to pass a tram when it’s at a stop, to avoid taking out disembarking passengers. Bike riders have to wear helmets. Melburnians are a somewhat conformist lot, so most people follow these rules, most of the time.

What does your city sound like?

The soundtrack of Melbourne includes the clanging of tram bells, the hiss of espresso machines, traders calling the prices at Victoria Market, and the Japanese bluesman George performing a kick-arse version of ‘Shake Your Money Maker’ in Bourke Street mall. The suburbs are about shouts of players at footy and netball training on frosty nights; wattle birds and parrots brawling in the trees in spring; dogs going nuts in parks; water sprinklers hissing on parched lawns; pub bands every night of the week; unexpected beauties like the chiming of bells from Buddhist temples; and the annoying bleep of electronic devices – like that bloody iPhone whistle – substituting for conversation in eerily silent commuter trains.

What’s the best place for a conversation?

Melbourne has a vast number of writers and readers (insert compulsory mention of ‘Unesco City of Literature’), and I have had some great conversations at the Wheeler Centre, which is where literary activities are concentrated. But there’s such a strong cafe and bar culture that you can always find somewhere good. Everyone has their own favourites, but since I am writing this piece, here is a shout out to the Cup and Bean, aka ‘Tim’s cafe’ in Yarraville.

What one thing is indispensable for life in your city?

A day that begins with hail can end with hot sun, or vice versa, so prepare for that as you will – with an umbrella, sunscreen, or a change of clothes – or just embrace the unpredictability and dive into a cafe when the heavens open.

Are you optimistic about your city’s future?

There are things to be negative about – our addiction to poker machines for public revenue, our inability to debate transport solutions without partisanship, and our compulsive property speculation that results in dozens of mediocre apartment blocks. On the other hand, since I’ve been walking the suburbs I’ve come across all kinds of grassroots projects – volunteers regenerating creeks, restoring buildings and trains, setting up community gardens and local festivals and literacy projects, doing street art, working with refugees and asylum seekers – that my sense of optimism returns. Ultimately the people of the city are the reason that I’m positive about the future.