Making it stick

Developers love to give their new subdivisions grandiose names, but will they stand the test of time, asks Lyall McFarlane.

- Lyall McFarlane

The other day, my computer was giving me a problem or 10, so I took it to a techie in the Christchurch suburb of Halswell. His abode was in a relatively new housing development with the grandiose name of Country Palms. The thing is, post earthquakes, that area’s gone from being “country adjacent” to one of the First Four Ships Town’s largest suburbs. So, it’s not in the country and there aren’t palms. At least, there aren’t palms plural. There is one solitary palm, singular, which must have given someone quite a bit of grief nurturing it to maturity through the Canterbury winter.

But calling the area Suburban Palm wouldn’t have appealed to any developer. No, they like a grand name to get cut through and compete with all the other developers, who coin names that gild the lily just a wee bit.