Nostalgia

You’ll hear many white Melburnians express dismay at gentrification, and you are advised to go along with it if you want their friendship, but know this – white Melburnians secretly love gentrification. Why? Because they are nostalgic and love to yearn for the way things used to be! Just like your Dad yearns for a time when there were no Muslims in Australia, white Melburnians long for the days when they could stroll down Brunswick street in their pyjamas, catch Something for Kate at the Punters Club, and talk about how great the Vegie Bar is without sarcasm.

Expanding the Frontiers of Whiteness

Melbourne white people love trying to predict which suburb they are going to want to live in next. Ever since houses in Fitzroy and Northcote started selling for millions, white Melburnians have been talking about Coburg, Preston and Thornbury with the kind of zeal more readily associated with the Soviet plot to invade Czechoslovakia. But instead of using military force like the Soviets, white Melburnians expand their territory through economic means in a process called gentrification. But it is only expert-level white Melburnians who can sense when the time is right to expand the territory. This is due to a quirk in white Melburnian culture that sees international travel as desirable yet perpetuates insularity when it comes to exploring Melbourne itself.

Below is a list of potential new suburbs to colonise. Their Whiteness Factor indicates their suitability for white Melburnians. It turns out White Melbourne is expanding so fast you might want to consider the possibility of Greater North Epping becoming a white Melburnian suburb around 2030. But please note - it is a guide only. You must wait for the approval from an expert-level white Melburnian before making the move. The key is to find suburbs on the cusp of complete gentrification. That way they still retain the essence of their original state, but have a high enough profile to garner wide respect amongst the white Melbournian community. So it’s still a bit early to tell people you live in Fairfield.


THORNBURY

Pros: Close to Northcote.
Cons: Relatively expensive.

Its proximity to Northcote is worth 3 points alone but there is a risk hyper-gentrification will turn Thornbury into the Brighton of the north. Whiteness Factor: 3/5.

PRESTON

Pros: Has Preston Market.
Cons: Has Northland Shopping Centre.

The market means Preston will always rank highly amongst Melbourne white people but Northland(s) brings too many of the wrong type of white Melburnians to Preston. Whiteness Factor: 3/5.

SPOTSWOOD

Pros: Has one nice café.
Cons: That one nice cafe is in Spotswood.

Spotswood still feels like a country town, which would be a great if it really was a country town, but for a suburb that is literally in the shadow of the West Gate Bridge it is unacceptable. Whiteness Factor: 2/5.

FOOTSCRAY

Pros: Lots of black people.
Cons: Lots of black people.

White Melburnians make a lot of noises about Footscray, particularly the Ethiopian restaurants, but they are still too scared of black Melburnians to seriously consider moving here. Whiteness Factor: 2/5.

DOCKLANDS

Pros: Inner city location.
Cons: A sterile facsimile of a real suburb.

Docklands could have ranked highly but too bad the corporations got here first. Instead of quirky cafes and recycled clothing shops, there's The Coffee Club and Cotton On. It’s basically Chadstone by the Sea. Whiteness Factor: 1/5.

GREATER NORTH EPPING

Pros: Day trips to Uluru?
Cons: No train station.

I can see Indonesia from my house. Whiteness Factor: 0/5.

COBURG

Pros: Feels a lot like Brunswick.
Cons: ?

Since Brunswick is the current capital of White Melbourne and Coburg kind of feels like Brunswick if you don’t think about it too much, I think Coburg is the winner. Whiteness Factor: 5/5.


Any others?