[closed] Suburbs in Australia

Hi

I've been editing around the area, and noticed that the location of the suburb is not what I would have called a reference to West Pymble. I would have called West Pymble the shopping centre located here. I note the following with respect to Sydney:

a) Cities. There are few 'cities' in comparison, to , eg California, where I would have compared many cities to be 'suburbs'. It's probably a population thing. There seems to be a trend towards more cities, (eg Sydney, Parramatta, Bankstown, Penrith etc) but in general usage, most places are referred to principally as 'suburbs'.

b) Towns in general are referring to country centres. If I 'went to town' in Sydney, I would be going to Sydney City centre, eg Town Hall station. This is in contrast, eg to the UK, where many of the places I would have referred to as suburbs were referred to as towns.

These are probably a historical growth thing. Sydney has generally expanded organically from a central point.

c) As a general definition, if somebody referred to just the suburb, they would refer to the principal activity centre of that area. In most cases that is the main shopping or commercial area. Sometimes it might be a train station. Sometimes something else. But if you drive to the West Pymble located above, you are in the middle of a residential area. And here's where things extrapolate.

IMPORTANT Please refer to this recent article about Apple Maps in Australia. My West Pymble example is trivial. However, in Australia is not just a matter of inconvenience.

I'd welcome any other Aussies kicking in their opinions as well. As I said, my example is trivial, but it could turn wickedly wrong on some of the cattle stations that are 24000 square kms (6m acres). Centre of that (geographically) could see you 100s or 1000s of kms away from help, and be life or death.

I went looking at the definition of suburb and found that it refers to the 'centre of the suburb'. It is not clear if this is meant to be the geographic centre or some other type of centre. This need clarification.

Look. I'm new to this editing and everything. I am hoping to get some clarification on this to help with not just this suburb, but to provide valuable guidance for other suburbs as well. I would request an update to the wiki as well to help clarify this.

Appreciate your help.