I live (and own a little apartment) in inner city Melbourne, Australia. Some kind chap tried to put together a combined metro/light rail map here: http://www.m

I live (and own a little apartment) in inner city Melbourne, Australia. Some kind chap tried to put together a combined metro/light rail map here: http://www.mappery.com/maps/Melbourne-Train-and-Tram-Map.png http://www.mappery.com/maps/Melbourne-Train-and-Tram-Map.png I can't find a map that overlays the rapid or regular bus services on the same map, presumably because it would be a godforsaken near un-interpretable dense mess. We own a car parking space under our building that I rent out to someone else for roughly $250 a month. Good for them, good for me. I wouldn't ever fill a car trunk with groceries because a supermarket and several specialty stores are just around the corner if i need them, and meals and ingredients are delivered to my door each week. I don't have to bother about the price of petrol, petrol stations, finding a park, walking from a park, servicing, registration or maintenance. I gain in health and fitness due to my walking, plus I meet my neighbours. When I do need to travel around, i catch one of the several trams all within 5 minutes walk. And when I do I get to read. My community gets to fill in many of those areas that would be taken up by car parks with actual facilities and amenities. I have 5 libraries within half an hour walk of my front door. A university, acres of parkland and gardens, a public swimming pool, doctors, schools, several theaters, galleries, tennis courts, ovals, cricket nets, a couple of playgrounds, and several hundred cafes. We're also members of a car share, so in those odd times where we need/desire a car (which by my bank records, is about 4 times in the last year, and some of those were probably in moving/helping others move) we pick ones from the neighbourhood. Property prices here are pretty good measures of desirability. And those prices are immensely higher the closer you get to the core of the historical city, or indeed the arteries and density of the public transport network. Now don't get me wrong, I actually love rural living/driving as well. We have some older stuck-up neighbourhoods where wealthy people live with cars relatively close in, and the outer ring of the metropolis is pretty much car territory. But the poorer you are here, the more likely you are to live further out, away from public transport, and the wealthy want to cram into the inner, older, historical suburbs built before the age of the automobile and serviced by the network. And lets not also pretend that you haven't given up things...many things, as well as gained things, by preferencing to use an automobile, and choosing to live around others who also preference such. Lets not also kid ourselves: one of the reasons some of the wealthy choose to be driven everywhere is because they have (real, justified or imagined) fear of mingling with the poor...