Watsonia holds its collective breath for this year’s list of the Top 100 most liveable Melbourne suburbs

Residents of Watsonia are said to be currently holding their collective breath as they wait for the annual announcement of Melbourne’s Top 100 most liveable suburbs, after an apparently torrid run of form has left us out of favour in recent years. In last year’s rankings, Watsonia placed 119th, and Watsonia North was 214th, both regions clearly suffering due to their distance from the coast – which seems to be a key criteria for success in the list despite Melbourne being absolutely freezing for over half of the year, and most of our beaches being shit.

That punishment for being so far from a body of salt water led one group of Watsonia residents to make a long-term plan for moving up the rankings, waiting until the year 2120 when global warming will have run its course and made Watsonia a seaside location. At the time, one resident said, “We always seem to lose points for being too far from the beach. Well, by the time global warming does its thing, Watsonia will be a beachside suburb. Imagine how many fish and chips shops we’ll have then?!”

But not all of us can wait that long. In fact, sadly, the vast majority of us will be dead. Considering that the rankings are usually announced in mid-November each year, what can we expect from this year’s results?

Local real estate expert Callum Nelson believes that unless the criteria is changed significantly, Watsonia and Watsonia North shouldn’t expect a major increase in their standings. He said, “The problem with the metric they use for supposed ‘liveability’ is that it’s skewed towards suburbs that are a) close to a beach, and b) have multiple retail options. Obviously there’s not much we can do about the beach thing, and Watsy North is always going to struggle with the retail part. I mean, that one milk bar is alright, but it’s hardly enough to carry the whole suburb through. Essentially what you’re asking for is the entire ranking system to pull its head out of its arse, and I can’t see that happening any time soon.”

If the seemingly inevitable happens and we land outside of the top 100 again, at least we can console ourselves with our strong performance in other click-baity suburb ranking lists, including that time Watsonia North was crowned the coolest and most bestest suburb in all of Melbourne, and Watsonia’s placing in the Top 5 hottest suburbs in Melbourne.