Gentrification is a polarising topic. Take Kings Cross as an example.
Some people love the fact it is being transformed with luxury apartments, safe, clean streets and posh boutiques. Others wish it was still the place where you could dance until dawn and negotiate an obstacle course of pizza vomit.
But love it or hate it, gentrification is as much a part of Sydney life as fireworks, a permanent peak-hour and humidity.
Suspect your own little suburb is being gentrified? Here are 10 steps to identify how far down the road it has already travelled:
Step 1: Struggling artists:
Always the first wave in the gentrification process, think of artists as the canary in the coal mine of real estate; if they survive for 12 months ... it's time to consider investing in a soon-to-be built "lifestyle" apartment.
Take Marrickville as an example. This once sleepy 'burb was known only as a place with more Greeks than Athens. Matter of fact, the only reason you'd have for visiting Marrickville was for the baklava and fetta.
Then the artists moved in with their hoodies and spray paint, taking up residence in abandoned factories and above grungy old pubs. They paved the way for the next step ???
Step 2: Menfolk sporting beards
Is your local barber shop trendy and thriving? That may be a sign of gentrification.
Notice an influx of hirsute individuals in your once-quiet little suburb? If yes, it could be a fully fledged hipster invasion.
One way to tell, is to check out your local barber shop. Is it now some hyper-real version of how it looked in 1976, except the old Aussie Post magazines have been replaced by Treadlie, Frankie and Mad? And does the Brylcream now cost $22 a tub? Does the proprietor offer a dram of single-malt with every short-back-and-sides?
If the answer is yes the invasion is on, and it may already be too late to turn back the hairy boats.
Step 3: Cold press coffee
The aforementioned hipsters bring much baggage with them and among that baggage - apart from flannelette shirts, a fixie and an obsession with uncomfortable Japanese selvedge denim - will be a slow-drip coffee thingy that looks like something out of Fritz Lang's Metropolis.
If you see one of these on the counter in your local cafe (formerly a Gloria Jeans, but renamed CoffeeSmith) next to a tray of expensive tortes from Black Star Pastry, it's time to call the removalists ??? you just got priced out of existence.
Step 4: A craft beer brewery:
Craft beers are a dead giveaway. Photo: Alana Dimou
The halfway point in the gentrification process is always the establishment of a craft beer brewery. It will be run by people with sleeve tattoos, old American cars and a Staffordshire terrier.
The brewery will produce myriad beers, but all of them will taste like a bucket of hops and set you back $15 a schooner.
Step 5: Families arrive:
The young families who can't afford so much as a backyard garden shed in Bondi, inexplicably see the financial value in an old worker's cottage in Dulwich Hill that needs a $500,000 renovation to bring it kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
The cottage will be draughty, dark and have so much rising damp the furniture floats around the living room. But at least it will have a concrete backyard the children will never use.
Step 6: The struggling artists depart:
Finding themselves unable to afford their factory home - which has since been turned into fashionable warehouse apartments with exposed beams and authentic graffiti - the artists will head west to the Blue Mountains.
Those who managed to sell their works to a few clueless middle-class families may be able to stump-up for a freezing cold cottage in Blackheath.
Step 7: Barefoot bowling:
Barefoot bowls.
No longer a place where octogenarians hang out in white, the bowling club becomes a haunt for thirtysomethings to get drunk on craft beer and listen to awful indie bands, or worse ??? folk music.
The greens themselves will be turned over to a jumping castle and packs of screaming infants named Finn and Hugo, who have never heard the word "no".
Step 8: A farmer's market:
Pumpkins at at farmers market in Sydney.
The advent of a farmer's market means the gentrification process is almost complete.
An "organic" farmer's market - where a bunch of Dutch carrots will cost you a second mortgage - is a sign that if you haven't bought a house in the area by now, you have probably missed your opportunity.
The presence of a chai tent, organic dog-treats stall or Kylie Kwong making dumplings, suggests average house prices are well north of the million-dollar mark.
Step 9: North Shore people buy in:
The kids have flown the nest, the nine-bedroom, 12-bathroom home in Pymble is getting too large, and Macquarie Bank is offering a generous retirement package.
What better time to sell the family pile, donate the wardrobe of Trenery polo shirts to Vinnies at Gordo, and move to somewhere, dare we say it ??? a little bit edgy?
Okay, so maybe Summer Hill isn't all that edgy, but there is some street art on one of the railway underpasses.
Step 10: Lifestyle boutiques:
If you've noticed lifestyle stores selling expensive soy candles, it's too late. Photo: Matej Leskovsek for The New York Times
The final stage of gentrification is the appearance of those eye-bleeding-expensive shops that sells $75 soy candles (infused with burnt fig and cinnamon) along with $32 bottles of body wash and $129 toddler dresses.
And if they also sell those useless, drippy, Alessi citrus squeezers designed by Philippe Starck, well ??? Katoomba is looking better than ever.
