It depends primarily on where you work. Choose your location for sake of convenience. If it was me, I'd pick Seven Hills or one of the nearby suburbs with access to M2. I'd avoid the Rhodes/Olympic Park in the homebush bay area where beautiful buildings are built on former heavy industrial area. But people only see the appealing view of the bay and the river and tend to forget the toxic industrial materials buried underneath. I don't like heavily populated areas either, so Ryde won't be my choice either.