Congratulations to Mount Druitt on being voted New South Wales’ Shittest Suburb for 2021! Mounty County will take on Armadale, Caboolture, Capital Hill, Elizabeth and Frankston in the poll for Australia’s Shittest Suburb next week. Here are the full NSW results:
Mount Druitt: 14%
Bondi: 11%
Blacktown: 6%
Cronulla: 5%
Redfern: 5%
Punchbowl: 5%
Liverpool: 5%
Bankstown: 4%
Airds: 4%
Penrith: 4%
Dapto: 4%
Engadine: 3%
Windale: 3%
Gosford: 3%
Campbelltown: 3%
Woy Woy: 3%
Wyong: 3%
Kings Cross: 2%
Parramatta: 2%
Fairfield: 2%
Mosman: 2%
Manly: 2%
Doonside: 2%
Newtown: 2%
Mayfield: 1%
Scroll down to read about Mount Druitt as part of our review of the City of Blacktown. Also this week: a brand new write-up for Sydney’s Inner West, a sneak peek at our other new book, and your weekly shit town power rankings.
Don’t miss next week’s newsletter to vote for Australia’s Shittest Suburb! If you know anyone who’d want in on this vote, get them to sign up at this link: shittownsofaustralia.substack.com/subscribe
Shit Town: Inner West
Infested by well-heeled hipsters inexplicably fixated on drinking trendy coffee outside scummy cafes with crumbling cladding, gorging on expensive brunch at graffiti-coated eateries and buying daggy clothes from mouldy vintage stores, Sydney’s Inner West is a loathsome region where carefully curated Third-World squalor masquerades as culture. The Inner West could equally be described as a shit version of London’s East End or a war-torn ISIS enclave if terrorists had fedoras and flesh tunnels.
Less chardonnay socialists and more craft beer Bolsheviks, the residents of the Inner West are obsessed with the obscure—obscure cuisine, obscure facial hair and obscure sexual manoeuvres that they learned from their last Pornhub binge. If you wake up next to a young lady sporting a handlebar moustache chafed red raw from performing a ‘Reverse Tasmanian Devil’, then chances are you’re in Newtown.
The standard-issue uniform of an Inner Westie includes some purely cosmetic eyewear, an ironic tattoo of a childhood cartoon character and a dodgy mo that looks like it belongs on a rock spider rather than a barista. Popular activities include complaining about white privilege while letting your parents pay your rent, claiming to be a ‘male feminist’ while maxing out your credit card on OnlyFans subscriptions, and foisting petitions to ban microagressions against little people on unsuspecting middle-class types.
Inevitably, the hipsters of Marrickville and Newtown will continue living lives of bourgeois excess until they settle down, move to a suburb full of people who do actual jobs, and have kids with old-fashioned names that sound like people who died while exploring the Congo.
From our new book Shit Towns of Australia: The Great Aussie Road Trip, available to pre-order now.
Throwback: City of Blacktown
Sporting a racist name, an abundance of empty schools and hordes of housos, the City of Blacktown is a veritable smorgasbord of shit. The Western Sydney LGA is crammed with crap suburbs including Mount Druitt (commonly called Mount Druggitt), Shalvey (Shankvey), Doonside (Goonside) and Rooty Hill (Shagger’s Ridge, Humpy Hump or Fucky Mound). Thanks to its rougher bits—locally referred to in hushed tones as ‘the areas’—Blacktown is Australia’s murder, gun crime and ‘fleeing the cops on a stolen unregistered dirt bike’ capital. Blacktown’s rugby league team is called the Workers, which is ironic because no one there has a job. Aside from unemployment, the most popular occupations in ‘Slacktown’ are trying to crack the NRL (even though you are 32), working on your mixtape and stealing each other’s stuff. On the plus side, housing in Blacktown is cheap by Sydney standards because no one wants to live there.
Of all the lumps that make up the Blacktown turd, the worst is objectively Mount Druitt. Despite its name, Mount Druitt is not a mountain, adding false advertising to its long list of common local crimes that also includes urban warfare, wanton vandalism and having a rat’s tail. Mount Druitt is actually a hole, which is the opposite of a mountain.
‘Mounty County’ is also the proud hometown of OneFour, a try-hard gangsta rap group so shit they were banned from touring in Australia. OneFour are popular with people who consider hoodies formal attire, punching strangers a fun activity and a box of Woodstock breakfast. The only positive of Mount Druitt’s youth is that unlike the population of Melbourne during a pandemic, they have no problem with wearing face masks in public.
There have been several attempts to rename Blacktown something less overtly racist, but despite the suggestion of several fitting alternatives—Cracktown, Gronkville, Sydney’s Anus—the efforts failed as the majority of residents are illiterate and couldn’t spell any of the proposed names.
From our new book Shit Towns of Australia: The Great Aussie Road Trip, available to pre-order now.
Shit Holidays: Milford Sound / Piopiotahi
New Zealand’s Milford Sound is named after a harbour in Wales that some guy went to some time. Aside from being entirely unimaginative, the English name is perhaps one of the most blatant cases of false advertising ever committed — it is neither a sound (rather a fiord) and is not home to a bevy of attractive older women (there are zero MILFs on offer).
Situated in Fiordland (which sounds like a particularly boring Scandinavian theme park), Milford Sound sports the sort of excessive natural beauty that is almost stomach-churning — it’s a little bit like a professional model who complains about ‘getting fat’ after eating half a sandwich so you are forced to tell her how skinny she looks in those jeans. Indeed, the wild and remote landscape is so awe-inspiring that it will force you to gaze into the inky black water, admit that the only thing blacker than the sea is your soul and finally confront the fact that you are a complete waste of meat and spunk.
The picturesque vistas of Milford Sound, however, come at a price. The fiord is not the most accessible, being a couple hours from a proper town and over three hours from a proper airport. Over a million visitors make the punishing pilgrimage each year, so you will invariably be crammed arsehole-to-ankles with a bevy of German hikers and gormless American travel bloggers trying to tick another ‘must-do’ off their Lonely Planet checklist. Milford Sound is also one of the wettest places on Earth — topped only by your auntie’s knickers after a Michael Bolton concert — so is great fun if you enjoy taking cold showers with your clothes on. It is home to two permanent waterfalls, which are fantastic if you ever wondered what happens when water meets gravity.
From our new book Shit Towns of New Zealand: The Great Kiwi Tiki Tour, available to pre-order now.
Shit Town Power Rankings
Mount Gambier, SA — Covid-positive woman who sparked lockdown has her car set on fire
Mildura, VIC — Maniac charged with kidnapping his mum; bloke gets two days’ jail for filling building with smoke while trying to cook sausage over pile of burning rubbish
Dandenong, VIC — Woman allegedly carjacked while driving stolen car
Townsville, QLD — Woman allegedly carjacked by knife-wielding teens outside school; creep fined for spying on bloke taking a shit
Launceston, TAS — 13-year-old faces charges including armed robbery and attempted carjacking after knife rampage; 13-year-old charged after allegedly lighting fire in Cotton On store
Albury, NSW — Brawler beats up cop
Brisbane, QLD — Woman jailed after burning down own house for insurance payout
Shepparton, VIC — Burglar busted after leaving his DNA on Zooper Dooper packets
Canterbury-Bankstown, NSW — P-plater fined after accidentally showing cops video of him doing 173km/h
Port Pirie, SA — Still shit
New Book
Pre-order Shit Towns of Australia: The Great Aussie Road Trip:
Booktopia (Australia)
Mighty Ape (New Zealand)
Book Depository (worldwide)
Please check out The Entrance on the central coast. As it’s become a nautical mount Druitt
With fake homeless. Shit council and shit police
Please investigate my town of origin and surely the shittest town in the southwest Manjimup. In my experience worse even than Bunbury which at least has the beach.