Sustainable Shopping Streets - Melbourne

Melbourne’s urban villages (innercity suburbs) make this city one of the most livable on the planet, and they’re easy to reach by tram, on foot or by bicycle. These precincts have vibrant streets and Melbourne’s best eco-living businesses.

Lygon Street in Carlton is Melbourne’s Little Italy, dominated by Italian restaurants, pizza places and coffee shops, most of which have sidewalk seating. The northern section of Lygon Street has a wide leafy boulevard lined with book shops, cafés and other specialty retailers. Carlton is also the home of the University of Melbourne.

Brunswick Street in Fitzroy and Smith Street in Collingwood are located to the northeast corner of Melbourne and are home to everything alternative — vintage clothing shops, fair-trade coffee shops, organic and natural food eateries — intermingled with pubs, bars and music venues. Just a few kilometres further north of Carlton and Fitzroy are the older innercity suburbs of Brunswick, Brunswick East and Northcote. These culturally rich suburbs have become revitalised in recent years, especially attracting new sustainable business.

Some say pretentious, others say chic, Chapel Street — the main street in South Yarra, southeast of central Melbourne — is where the rich and famous supposedly shop. If you keep walking south along Chapel Street you hit the more down-to-earth clothing markets in Greville Street (for vintage clothes) and the Prahran Food Markets in Commercial Street (for organic and natural fresh food).

Richmond, directly east of central Melbourne and north of Prahran, has two very distinct parts: The bargain factory outlets on Bridge Street and Swan Street (avoid these — unsustainable clothes at unethical prices!), and the Vietnamese and Asian eateries and markets in North Richmond on Victoria Street, which offer a much more authentic experience.

St Kilda, the closest city beach about 7 kilometres south of the CBD, has always been Melbourne’s favourite playground. Even Luna Park still operates, with its famous big dipper still rolling up and down those old wooden tracks. Although St Kilda always had a slight rough edge to it, the St Kilda of today is quite trendy, especially on Acland Street with its mixture of bars, pubs, restaurants, movie theatres and music venues.

Between the city and St Kilda is Albert Park and the quaint historical area of South Melbourne, lined with grand old terraces. The district also has a mix of organic produce and fair-trade coffee shops adjacent to another great Melbourne marketplace, the South Melbourne Market on York Street.

Residential development over the last five to ten years has given Central Melbourne a lift. With more residents has come a revitalised café and restaurant culture in the heart of the city. Some of Melbourne’s laneways are vibrant, trendy eat streets, similar to those in any great European city.

(from Sustainable Australian Travel For Dummies, Wiley Publishing Australia, 2009)