My suburb sits where city meets country. But locals are clear on which they’d prefer

You can always tell when someone’s from Camden – because they’ll tell you. “This is God’s country” is constantly muttered at the pubs on the main street, and that’s before locals have even touched their beers.In an ever-changing world, it seems Camden has learnt to stay still. It’s a relic from the past, standing firm as developers bulldoze right up to its doorstep with factory-produced blobs of homes and their matching letterboxes. It’s easy to see why Camden locals love it so much. Most swear they’ll never leave, and they’ll do everything to protect its charm while they’re here.Drinkers at the Plough & Harrow pub on Argyle Street, Camden.Janie BarrettCamden’s historic buildings add to its character.Janie BarrettIt’s one of those towns where each building on the main street (Argyle Street) is a different size and shape, a massive game of Tetris. The post office still looks like a post office, as if it might have a postmaster who lives upstairs. The library still looks like one, not a failed tech start-up. There’s a sign above a shop on the main street that reads “Internet Café” even though it closed down two decades ago. Perhaps they left the sign for the laugh. The pubs still look like places beer is meant to be drunk, not ski lodges six hours from snow.The original post office in Camden is still operating on Argyle Street. Janie BarrettHistoric buildings in Camden, a place where pubs still look like pubs.Janie BarrettThere’s a hum of small planes overhead. They’ve taken off from our own tiny airport but no one really knows where those planes end up. The air smells of cut grass and jacaranda trees. Neighbourhoods sound like neighbourhoods – kids still play without having to check the weather app for permission, mowers still choke on petrol, barbecues still hiss, birds still sing to each other across streets. Bintang singlets are still worn as acceptable attire.Old people shuffle along in the sun, hands behind their backs, overseeing society as they walk, killing two birds with one stone. They nod at each other in wonder that they aren’t yet forced into dark nursing homes. There are as many walking frames as BMX bikes. The white earbuds everyone wears all over Sydney, which helps them pretend they’re invisible, haven’t taken off in this part of the world. People still ask, “How ‘ya goin’?” and they wait for the answer.Goats graze on a small plot in Camden, but are well fed by local children.Janie BarrettAndrew Smith at D&R Stockfeeds.Janie BarrettIf there are still suburbs in the sprawling metropolis of Sydney that can call themselves a “country town”, then Camden is one of them. We have a yearly country show and its slogan is “Still a country show”, for God’s sake. We’re the birthplace of Australia’s agricultural industry.The town has repelled development, but developers have surrounded the town, like a pack of wolves encircling their prey. Any change is typically “bad” in country towns. New is scary and scary is bad. Whole suburbs like Spring Farm and Oran Park and industrial monstrosities like Smeaton Grange have popped up on the old farms all around the town. Rows of corn and lettuce are now rows of rooftops. Old dirt lanes are now clogged arteries leading to Sydney’s heart.One of the first things visitors notice when driving into town is the variety of small one-off businesses down Argyle Street. There’s a lack of chain stores compared with other Sydney suburbs. Family owned and operated businesses are cherished. There are at least 20 shops along the main street that sell coffee, some of them great. Most serve character-building experiences, but ask five different locals and you’ll get five different favourites.It’s a town where McDonald’s was nearly forbidden. When it was finally approved, it wasn’t allowed to put up its iconic big sign, so the famous golden arches look more like a lower-case “m”, a whisper instead of a shout.Melissa Daniels, in Symphony’s on Argyle, brings style to the main street. Janie BarrettRev Matt Stedman at Camden’s St John’s Anglican Church, consecrated in 1849. Janie BarrettThe cemetery at St John’s Anglican Church.Janie BarrettThe major grocery stores are here, but they’re tucked away, off the main road. Everyone shops there, but we’re not confronted by their usual cruise-ship-in-a-row-of-dinghies presence.The Green Seed florist brings colour and beautiful blooms to Argyle Street.Janie BarrettTildsley’s Butchery, one of the signature small businesses that line Argyle Street. Janie BarrettWe’re not without our blemishes. There’s no public transport, so everyone has to drive everywhere. If there’s ever anything happening in town, there’s never enough parking for all the cars. There’s a hospital, but everything serious is sent to Campbelltown Hospital, including births. I was born in Camden Hospital, but a baby hasn’t taken its first breath there since 2005, although the population has tripled since then. (Work that one out, state government!)Our bridges flood with a few days’ rain. We’re constantly on the news for being Sydney’s coldest temperature in winter and hottest in summer. We might be known as not overly friendly to outsiders, and we might have a habit of walking with our noses in the air, according to other residents of south-west Sydney.But we just like this place. Some locals don’t just live in Camden. Camden lives in them.That was the case for Christine Boardman. For 46 years, she smiled above the counter of the deli and sandwich shop she owned on the main street. Why does it take someone not being there any more to realise they’d always been there?Chris, as she was known to most, died in June last year while riding the motorcycle she bought herself for her upcoming retirement. Forty-six years of making sandwiches for the town she loved. She planned to make her last the following November. Sometimes, not even the best-made plans make it to the table. She’d spent her adult life serving Camden’s grown-ups and slapping rainbow ice cream into cones and weighing lolly bags for the not-yet-grown-ups. Many of those kids became grown-ups, and she did the same for their kids.If it’s possible for a sadness to rest over a whole community, that’s how it felt after her death. Most shops had a white ribbon on their door in her memory. Chris’ humble deli resembled a florist’s shop.There’s a Facebook group called “You know you’re from Camden if ...” Usually, it’s full of posts wondering where that loud music was coming from or who left rubbish down the bike track. It was suddenly full of posts about Chris and what she meant to the community. That week, you knew you were from Camden if you bit into a sandwich, and it just didn’t taste the same.When I first moved to Camden, I realised few people really knew where it was. “Oh, near Campbelltown?” they’d ask, and I’d say: “Well, kind of, but we’re God’s country.”Author Scott Dougherty outside the Camden Hotel.Scott Dougherty is a writer from Camden.