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From Bewitched to Desperate Housewives, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off to Muriel’s Wedding, popular culture has linked the suburbs to conformity, tedium, weird goings on and the disaffection of youth. At some point, this might be expected to lead to drink. But are the drinking habits of young people living in city suburbs different from those of their downtown peers? Apparently so – in Melbourne, at least.
A team of Australian researchers compared four urban and six suburban local government areas of Melbourne to establish how far a location can affect how much 16- to 24-year-olds drink.
Jason Ferris at the University of Queensland, Michael Livingston from the University of New South Wales and project leader Sarah MacLean from the University of Melbourne combined data from the Victorian youth alcohol and drug survey with their own interviews as part of a project looking at views and use of alcohol by young adults in central and suburban Melbourne. (The suburban districts used in the study were Casey, Cardinia, Melton, Whittlesea, Wyndham and Mitchell; the city-centre wards comprised the City of Melbourne, Port Phillip, Stonnington and Yarra.)
Their paper, published in the journal Urban Policy and Research last year, found marked differences between drinking culture in the suburbs and the city. While the legal drinking age in the state of Victoria is 18, underage drinking is widespread – but significantly higher among teens living in the city centre. For example, the study found 94% of urban 16- and 17-year-olds said they had drunk alcohol in the last year, compared to 82% of those living in the suburbs. And of the young urban drinkers, 23% said they were drinking in licensed bars – suggesting that either Melbourne has a successful market in fake IDs, or bouncers and bartenders aren’t asking to see them.
Youth drinking brings problems for the city and the drinkers themselves, according to official figures. For example, between 2001 and 2005, the Victorian Department of Health recorded that, across the state, on average about 30 people aged between 16 and 24 were assaulted in incidents involving alcohol each week. In addition, about 25 teenagers a week were admitted to hospital for alcohol-related issues; 10 young adults (18-24) a week were involved in alcohol-related car crashes; and alcohol was cited as a contributing factor in the death of one 15- to 24-year-old a week.
The statistics are state-wide, but the new research on urban versus suburban alcohol consumption found a marked difference in drinking culture in the suburbs. Here, teenagers are more likely to be drinking at home – their own home, their friends’ homes, and private parties because, well, there’s nowhere else to go. “There are just such a lot of bottle shops [in the suburbs],” MacLean said. “This really encourages people in [these] areas to buy cheap alcohol and consume it in private homes, where there might not be someone around who is legally required to refuse them another drink if they are visibly intoxicated.”
In Casey, one of the growth areas south-east of the city, while the population grew by 42% between 2000 and 2009, the number of licensed alcohol stores grew by more than double that rate (89%). This, the report argues, is a result of weak licensing legislation and “large supermarket chains with deep pockets” challenging licence refusals in the appeals courts, and winning.
Nevertheless, Melbourne’s city centre offers more of an enticement to drink. There are 50% more places to buy alcohol downtown than in the suburbs, with “17 times as many pubs and 25 times as many bars and licensed restaurants”.
Interestingly, according to MacLean, while young city-centre residents drink more alcohol overall, for young adults from outer-suburbs: “Going to the city is an event marked out as different from everyday life. Their sense of being hyped up in the inner city made different sets of practices possible, particularly in relation to drinking and being open to new engagements with friends and sexual partners.”
At which point the city teenagers can crawl home, with or without their new best friend/girl/boyfriend – but it’s not that straightforward for the suburbanites. Finding your way to your home miles away in the early hours when public transport is either shut or on a skeleton schedule is no fun. Young women felt particularly unsafe, and some would spend up to A$100 (£55) on a taxi home rather than use Melbourne’s night bus system, which has a reputation for being unsafe.
Last month, the Dalgarno Institute – which describes itself as a coalition to increase awareness on alcohol and drugs – launched a campaign to raise the drinking age in Australia to 21. Victoria would lead the charge, said its supporters. “Ridiculous,” responded former premier Jeff Kennett. “Un-Australian,” shouted others.
Certainly, existing government campaigns warning of the harm caused by underage drinking appear to have made little impact on either study group, suggesting that the main challenge remains changing cultural attitudes towards alcohol. And nor does MacLean, Ferris and Livingstone’s research support raising the drinking age, concluding instead that stricter licensing and planning policies would be more effective – together with an improved late-night transport strategy for the city. A complete report will be published soon by VicHealth.
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