America's Best Hipster Neighborhoods

[Link N. Parker]

Originally Posted by jwaiter

This is an interesting idea that I'd not really thought of... it could be true and the reason why we see the counter culture fading away, not attracting the large numbers of youth like it used to.

I think that the counter-culture is morphing. Any counter culture these days, is aimed at stopping the "New World Order/One World Government/Globalism" from becoming a reality. Although most hipsters seem to be socialist/socially liberal, there is a significant subset of them that are into the Alex Jones/Infowars website style of reporting.

[Tiger Beer]

Originally Posted by Link N. Parker

The thing is, the artists etc that make a neighborhood 'hip" usually do such a good job of making it an interesting place, that others start to want to live there. This eventually leads to rising rents, due to many people wanting to move in an be part of the music/art/social "scene" that the hipsters created. This is both good and bad for the neighborhood.

The good is that the neighborhood begins to thrive, and the people who move there discover there is life outside of the automobile. They learn to become hipsters themselves, and learn to appreciate art more, and learn how to eat locally and organically.

The bad is that some of these people bring their douchebag tendencies with them, and this can "sterilize" as area, or irritate the hipsters that are there.

The main problem (to the hipster) is that this pushes him/her out of the neighborhood and forced to find cheaper housing elsewhere. But hipsters (I prefer the term "urbanist", myself) prefer neighborhoods that are walkable and have some sort of european charm; there are few neighborhoods in the US that meet that requirement. One of the last places for hipsters to go now is Pilsen. Once that place completely gets taken over, the yuppies will arrive and then there will be no more quaint walkable european-esque neighborhoods in CHI to move to.

I did notice that Austin's East Side is listed as hip, and I saw that when I visited that city a few weeks ago. But something that Forbes did not list, were hipster/urbanist enclaves outside the US...Vancouver, Toronto, and especially MONTREAL, are hipster areas. Montreal's Mile End makes Wicker Park look like a pukey imitator.

In my recent travels, I also noticed that there are significant hipster populations in Dallas (M-Streets/Deep Ellum areas) and also in Albuquerque.

Yeah, I was just google mapping Toronto, and large swaths of very mixed hipster businesses and young people are everywhere.

Interesting about Dallas....wouldn't have thought of that one. ABQ does seem like it should be on the hipster map.

[Tiger Beer]

Originally Posted by Link N. Parker

I dont think we heard it in common parlance until the last 10 years or so. I remember an episode of Seinfeld in the mid-90's, where Seinfeld referred to Kramer as a "goofy hipster". It was a relatively obscure term until the last 10 years or so, although the word "hip" was common back in the 60's.

Probably true, for the general public.

I use to live in NYC in 1998-2000 and SF in 2001-2002...'hipsters' were definitely on those maps. Both Williamsburg and The Mission both were in magazines for being hipster places, even back than.

I was in Portland in 1995-1996 and it was filled with hipsters, but I don't recall them having the label as hipsters. But they were essentially 100% hipster through and through. I was also in Minneapolis in 1994-1995 and it had a very small hipster scene.

But, yeah, maybe in the last 10 years, I've been seeing more discussion and recognizition with the label 'hipster' attached to it.....but just from my own experience, they've been fairly solidly in place for at least the last 15 years....and it didn't seem like they were just popping up 15 years ago, but already in place.

[Irishtom29]

You say Chicago and hipster to me and I think of Anita O'Day and Gene Krupa. Now they were very cool. And they dressed sharp, not like bums.


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