How to correctly install Subversion in Mac OS X?
You'll need to prepend the /opt/subversion version in the shell's path to have the environment prefer the new version.
The software's README states:
Installation Notes
<snip>
Once installed, you will need to prepend /opt/subversion/bin to your PATH environment variable.
This can be done a multitude of ways but an easy one is to add the following to the end of /etc/profile or ~/.profile:export PATH=/opt/subversion/bin:$PATH
get macports, set it up properly, and install svn from there with:
sudo port install subversion