I love living in my suburb. I shop locally, just so I can run across friends and neighbours on a Saturday morning, and be greeted with a smile – even a name – by shopkeepers who know me.

I figure the best ways to get to know people in your suburb are to own a dog – you get to talk to other dog owners as you stand around in the local park – and send your kids to the local school. You can't help getting to know the other parents in your kids' classes.

But all that was some years ago, and times change. The local school isn't the institution it used to be.

Perhaps it won't surprise you to be told that, over the years, our capital cities have become more stratified, with a greater tendency for better-off people to live in better-off suburbs – the ones with water and views and, these days, those closest to the centre – and for the less well-off to live in less well-off suburbs far from the centre.