True to a point but I think there are some choices...all of these (obviously) help:

- live in Brisbane rather than redlands (bayside), pine rivers, ipswich, logan, gold coast
- live along, or in a feeder suburb to, a transport corridor eg busway, train, citycat or bikepath
- buy a smaller house

A lot of the larger houses in the suburbs cost just as much as, or more than, the smaller one's closer in. I wish all the people living in the first 10km from Brisbane were loaded A lot have just sacrificed something else as they consider good access a higher priority.

For a transport corridor example; you can live 13km out at Macgregor and catch the bus from garden city to the cbd in 19 mins. Or you can live 13km out at Mansfield, which is not along a transport corridor, and the same distance on the bus takes 35 mins+.

I live in a small house but can cycle to work in 10 mins

Yup, when I lived in Mount Gravatt East I could get a 180 (starts at Garden City and goes on the busway from Greenslopes) to the city in 20 mins at morning peak. Although I'd often have to wait bloody ages for one to show up so it depends if you include that in the travel time.

Yeah, that 180 is the same crap bus route I was talking about in my Mansfield example....in the Macgregor example you have a bus every 2 minutes or so....being on the busway corridor really pays off.....second best is on a corridor that gets multiple routes passing like parts of Logan Rd or thirdly be on a buz route that are every 10 minutes during peak and every 15 minutes off peak. A distant 4th is the 180

Fair points one and all ... I like my elbow room so I'm out Tamborine way (the house isn't much but the land is great) ... it means I have to get a visa every day and change some cash into local currency but it's worth it.

Sure as hell beats living in Kent and commuting to London

West End is nice but its like poor Melbourne Toorak cousin.

Mt Cotton and Cornubia are rural, but a bit of a way out - also Springfield is a new area / suburb thats open but its smaller blocks

i wouldn't have thought Toorak was Melbourne's West End equivalent. Toorak is old money....west end is all grungy alternative culture....Ascot, Hamilton would be more the same demographic as Toorak.

I think the OP is looking at rural options as well.

hence the poor cousin - the buildings are very similar to south yarra - with the exception of the queenslanders outside the main strip.

Nope - I still don't see it - West End & Toorak (or even South Yarra) are still chalk n cheese. The commercial centre of West End is more like Fitzroy or St Kilda maybe.

I guess it doesn't really matter to the OP....bu they are just totally different types of area's.....can't call something the poor cousin when it is not remotely the same demographic.....maybe I'm thinking about the suburb and you the shopping strip or something but it is just so totally different...the Toorak equivalent in Brisbane is Hamilton/Ascot area (still probably the poor cousin to Toorak) - which is absolutely totally different to grungy West End.