Melbourne / Naarm
Australia’s counterculture capital
2021-10-17 — 2026-01-13
Wherein the city is named Naarm, pronunciation is discussed, superb wrens are found scarce, Buruli bacteria are reported to encroach, and trams are invoked for six‑storey missing‑middle housing plans.
My current hometown.
Wow, look at these headings. We know too much about my priorities from what I research when I move somewhere.
1 Flesh-eating bacteria
Flesh-eating bacteria are encroaching on Melbourne. See Buruli in Victoria.
2 Saunas and spas
- Sauna Goose is a Danish-style sauna in Melbourne.
- Spa Wars is excellent spa gossip by The Paris End.
- Mornington Peninsula Hot Springs Spa & Massage Victoria is mildly controversial but I still like it, TBH.
- Alba Thermal Springs & Spa is their competitor across the road.
3 Economy
4 Urban planning
It’s complicated. For now, why not join YIMBY Melbourne? I did, because my spicy opinions on land economics make me YIMBY, more or less.
5 …as Naarm
The site of the modern city is called 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 pronounced the way it’s 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 seems to be pretty common for a place to have different names in different languages, and that seems to indicate a healthy society that this is OK.
FWIW, I think 新金山 (Xīnjīnshān, “New Gold Mountain”) is an awesome name for this city, and I’m itching for the right context in which to use it.
6 Urban planning chaos
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
7 Arts
- Home | Experiment 29
- Is pip & pop Melbournian?
- Greg Olijnyk Cardboard Artist
- SHIVERS
8 Where’s the electronic music?
Audio repair
- David Aurora Audio | Pro Audio Equipment Repair/Design + Music Production – Melbourne, Australia (I’ve used David’s service; it’s excellent and affordable. Corollary: waiting times are long.)
- Open Ear Audio Melbourne - Speaker Repairs and Service (Highly recommended for pro audio gear repair.)
TBC
9 Veg boxes
10 Incoming
Footnotes
kinda; it seems it might not be that conveniently simple↩︎
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 few people will notice. At least there’s the small consolation that this mispronunciation probably annoys fewer people than mispronouncing ‘Melbourne’, and those people are more likely to appreciate the attempt, so we have licence not to be pedantic.↩︎