Hawkesbury vs Penrith

Hawkesbury and Penrith are both located in New South Wales but offer very different living patterns. Penrith is very walkable, with 78.7% of homes in a 15-minute-city walkshed and a typical resident having access to 6.1 different amenities within a short walk. In contrast, Hawkesbury is mostly car-dependent, where only 29% of homes are within a 15-minute walk of groceries and only 3.6 amenities are typically nearby. Penrith also has a much larger First Nations population, with 10,987 people compared to 3,198 in Hawkesbury.

The gap in walkability is far higher in Penrith, reflecting a stark contrast in how the two areas are built. However, the two areas are almost identical in other ways, particularly among First Nations residents. They share the same typical age of 22, and the share of people who speak a First Nations language is exactly the same at 3.3% in both places.