KIAMA residents have been left hot under the collar, defensive and bewildered by a bizarre story being shared online and radio stations including, 2day FM. that Kiama is among the top five worst suburbs to live in the state.
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The story on celebrity gossip website Scoopla purports to list the worst suburbs in Australia to live made up of the top five worst in each state - "based solely on crime statistics" from "myboot'' ,com
According to the "random" (as the kids would say) list, Kiama sits at number 5 (on the un-numbered list) alongside fellow Illawarra suburb Bulli.
Also on the list is the suburb Jenolan which we have on good authority doesn't exist - Jenloan Caves, yes but not Jenolan.
Places making the cut elsewhere in the country include the well-heeled suburb of Prahan in Victoria; the whole capital city of Hobart for Tassie and the Canberra CBD.
The statistics from "boot.com": "free suburb profile and crime statistic" site are "compiled from a variety of sources including the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2011 Census). Copyright in ABS Data resides with Commonwealth of Australia. Used with permission".
But as the graphs from the site below show, Kiama is far from the top in any crime category.
Reactions from residents on social media ranged from outrage, to being dismissive, urging peole to move to Gerringong and the cunning ploy of suggesting people agree with the representation to stop people from coming here.
We're not about to denigrate anywhere else in the state or in the country for that matter and we're not going to assist by playing into Scoopla's click-baiting hands by providing a link to the story.
We will just let these pictures speak for themselves. How could anywhere so beautiful be " described as a nightmare for residents who deal with crime and social problems."
What a load of rot.
Any publicity is good publicity, right?!