Melbourne / Naarm

October 17, 2021 — March 19, 2025

diy
place
policy
straya
wonk

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Figure 1: Superb wrens! I was hoping to see more of these when I moved further south, but you know what? When you move to Melbourne you learn that the bush is much farther away than it is in Sydney. I have seen hardly any birds at all.

My current hometown.

Wow, look at these headings. You know too much about my priorities, seeing what I research when I move somewhere.

1 Flesh-eating bacteria

Flesh-eating bacteria encroach upon Melbourne: See Buruli in Victoria.

2 Saunas and spas

3 Economy

4 …as Naarm

The site of the modern city is known as Naarm in the Boonwurrung and Woiwurrung languages1. Naarm as a name has a pronunciation advantage: the way local English-speakers pronounce Melbourne is baffling to outsiders since we say /ˈmɛlbən/ (“MELb’n”) and outsiders say /ˈmɛlbɔːrn/ (“MEL-born”).

Naarm, by contrast, is conventionally pronounced as it is conventionally spelled. ‘Naam’ is probably a better spelling for US English speakers who pronounce Rs after their vowels.2

Anti-woke types use ‘Melbourne’ exclusively. The very-woke use ‘Naarm’ exclusively. I personally choose the appropriate name for the context as best I can. I think that arguments about naming things are a low-value use of time especially arguments about choosing the one single name for a thing. It seem to be pretty common for a place to ahve different names in different languages, and it seems to be an indication of a healthy society that this is OK for people.

FWIW I think 新金山 (Xīnjīnshān, “New Gold Mountain”) is an awesome name for this city, and I am stinging for the right context in which to use that.

5 Urban planning chaos

Melbourne’s Missing Middle

Melbourne’s density drops precipitously from high-rises to single-family homes, with very little medium density between. Melbourne’s Missing Middle’s signature recommendation—a new Missing Middle Zone—would enable six-storey, mixed-use development on all residential land within 1 kilometre of a train station and 500 metres of a tram stop—building an interconnected network of 1,992 high-amenity, walkable neighbourhoods.

Melbourne’s Missing Middle envisions Parisian streetscapes across all of inner urban Melbourne, along our train and tram lines and near our town centres. Gentle, walk-up apartments, abundant shopfronts, sidewalk cafes and sprawling parks replacing unaffordable and unsustainable cottages.

TBC

6 Where is the electronic music at?

TBC

7 Veg boxes

8 Incoming

Footnotes

  1. kinda; it seems it might not be that conveniently simple↩︎

  2. That said, I suspect that the way English speakers say ‘Naarm’ might be technically incorrect compared to its historical version because people seem vague about that. On the other hand, the sadly precarious state of the Woiwurrung language means that few people will notice if so. So there is the small consolation that at least this mispronunciation likely annoys fewer people than does the mispronunciation of ‘Melbourne’, and those people will more probably appreciate the attempt, so we have license not to be pedantic.↩︎