Are you a northsider, or a southsider?
There are some questions to which you must have a ready answer, and this is one of them.
And if someone asks you, there can be no hesitation, no faking it - you will know, factually and spiritually where you belong.
We have the inner north and inner south, of course - these are the original divisions, grouped close to the lake, and subject to century-old foundation myths and rivalries linked to cafe/population ratios, tree species and whether life is generally better or worse on either side.
Spreading out from each inner enclave, we have Belconnen and Gungahlin to the north, and Woden Valley, Weston Creek and Tuggeranong to the south.
More recently, the Molonglo Valley has sprung up in the wake of the 2003 bushfires, and, lying just beyond Weston Creek, must indisputably be considered south.
Where does Whitlam fit?
It's the northern-most suburb of Molonglo Valley, but, in terms of the all-important north-south axis, it lies on the other side of the Molonglo River, making it truly north.
A true Canberran shouldn't have any difficulty with this concept, although if we're getting really technical, the Molonglo Valley straddles the Molonglo River and lies west of Lake Burley Griffin.
But Canberra doesn't do "west". Canberra doesn't have "westies", unless it's the 1980s and we're talking people in flannies.
So that makes Whitlam part of north Canberra, and Whitlam dwellers are northsiders, despite their proximity to neighbouring Denman Prospect, which may well become its own town centre one day and is well and truly south.
What do the people say?
It's a blustery spring afternoon on a Monday, and there aren't many people about, unless you count all the construction workers coming and going from the coffee van that seems to be doing quite a brisk trade for a Monday, until you realise there's nothing much else around.
In a nearby park, Hani Ali is pushing her three-year-old daughter Haya on a swing. She currently lives in Conder, but has no true affiliations as she has also lived in Woden (outer-inner south) and Bonner (very north).
She'll be moving to Whitlam soon, and is just waiting for her house to be finished - it's months overdue.
Her sister already lives nearby - there's a sense that her move there will be a setting down of some kinds of roots.
"It's north - it has to be," she says.
"I work in Belconnen - it's only five minutes away!"
Over at the coffee van, Swing Coffee, Jayden Park, from Korea, and girlfriend Minnie Kiewsrikul, from Thailand, take a minute between serving all the tradies to give the question some thought.
Whitlam - north or south?
"It's north, definitely" Mr Park says.
Ms Kiewsrikul agrees; the couple currently live in Macquarie, which really doesn't feel very far away. Not compared to, say, Kingston, anyway.
The tradies, none of whom particularly want to be part of the story, take even less time to come to a conclusion: Whitlam is the centre. The dead centre, especially if you have no particular affiliation either way, in which case, what are you even doing here in the capital?
Building houses, that's what.
Construction worker Lannon Stetchford, who is working in the newer part of Whitlam, is a southerner through and through.
He lives all the way down in Gordon so as to be closer to his hometown of Bega.
For him, it's all a state of mind.
"Whitlam is right in the middle, it's not north or south," he says.
"Same goes for the whole of Molonglo Valley, actually."
Where your heart is
A few streets away, Jacinta Lo is tending to the garden of her new Whitlam home.
She recently had a baby, and was surprised to find that Whitlam is considered south when it comes to general catchment areas for school and family administration.
"When I was being placed in a mother's group, they wanted to put me with southside mums," she said.
"I had to explain that I don't live in the south - Whitlam is definitely north. They agreed to change it.
"I mean, Belconnen is barely five minutes' drive away. You just have to get over that farm."
She means the big green hill with grazing cows that is a feature of the landscape on these sparse and sloping streets, that have yet to develop their own treescapes.
We really are a long way from the lush, green suburbia of the inners.
But when it comes down to it, a lot of it has to do with where you grew up (Ms Lo is from Belconnen).
It could also, as the tradies think, be a state of mind, this north-south thing. Those who grew up on one side of the lake may never really feel they ever left, even if they eventually settle on the other side.
The answer, then, can be a bit complicated.
But not when it comes to Whitlam.
So, are you north or south?
