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The new wave is hipsters. Whatever spin you want to put on gentrification, it is being fueled by hipsters. You can find the same cookie cutter green living stuff in most major cities. This movement does not celebrate the individual personalities of cities. Instead, every city strives to be the new Williamsburg.
One of the great characteristics of Pittsburgh was it's clearly defined ethnic groups distributed throughout the many WALKABLE neighborhoods in the city. Most large metros are mainly city centers surrounded by suburbs. We are extremely lucky to have the Polish, Italian, Irish, etc. backgrounds here. Instead of celebrating our cultures, the younger generation is tossing the history aside for political correctness and coolness. It is sad to see Starbucks take over and slowly erase working class Pittsburgh.
The new wave is hipsters. Whatever spin you want to put on gentrification, it is being fueled by hipsters. You can find the same cookie cutter green living stuff in most major cities. This movement does not celebrate the individual personalities of cities. Instead, every city strives to be the new Williamsburg.
One of the great characteristics of Pittsburgh was it's clearly defined ethnic groups distributed throughout the many WALKABLE neighborhoods in the city. Most large metros are mainly city centers surrounded by suburbs. We are extremely lucky to have the Polish, Italian, Irish, etc. backgrounds here. Instead of celebrating our cultures, the younger generation is tossing the history aside for political correctness and coolness. It is sad to see Starbucks take over and slowly erase working class Pittsburgh.
I'd argue that diversifying above eds & meds actually helps the working class. Somebody needs to build the faux "authentic" storefronts and fix the steampunk machines when they inevitably break.
From what I see on C-D and elsewhere is many of the same folks who chastise Starbucks defend Olive Garden & Chilis in the same breath. It's not "hipsters" that go to Starbucks. It's moms, kids and guys who like 20 oz dark coffee.
Anyway, when you're a city competing with other cities to attract businesses & jobs, stating "we're still in 1979" isn't going to get you very far.
Personally, I really miss $0.25 beers served in juice glasses.
From what I see on C-D and elsewhere is many of the same folks who chastise Starbucks defend Olive Garden & Chilis in the same breath.
All completely indefensible IMHO. Add all chains who try to broadly homogenize the dining/drinking experience. They occasionally, through desperation and typically in airports or freeway service stops, get my business. Except Olive Garden - that's a step too far
The new wave is hipsters. Whatever spin you want to put on gentrification, it is being fueled by hipsters. You can find the same cookie cutter green living stuff in most major cities. This movement does not celebrate the individual personalities of cities. Instead, every city strives to be the new Williamsburg.
One of the great characteristics of Pittsburgh was it's clearly defined ethnic groups distributed throughout the many WALKABLE neighborhoods in the city. Most large metros are mainly city centers surrounded by suburbs. We are extremely lucky to have the Polish, Italian, Irish, etc. backgrounds here. Instead of celebrating our cultures, the younger generation is tossing the history aside for political correctness and coolness. It is sad to see Starbucks take over and slowly erase working class Pittsburgh.
I think we both crave something that isn't going to exist. I want to take the best facets of a bygone Pittsburgh and the finest offerings of this "new and improved" Pittsburgh and morph them into a Utopian hybrid. I like SOME of what Pittsburgh is morphing into these days. I also lament that a lot of "classic" Pittsburgh is dying and won't be coming back.
I don't blame Pittsburgh specifically, but I'm in my mid-20s and absolutely abhor most of my contemporaries. My partner and I walked around the Strip District on Saturday morning before I went into work. As we walked past Kaya five of the six occupied patio tables at the time housed diners from their 20s-40s who were sitting across from each other on their Smartphones shallowly "checking in" on Facebook, Tweeting about what they were going to order, taking "selfies", etc. instead of---you know---socializing with EACH OTHER the way people did in prior generations at restaurants. Nobody was looking at their fellow dining partners. Sit and people-watch sometime on Walnut Street in Shadyside, and soon you'll see why I'm so irked with having this "new" Pittsburgh rammed down our throats. You see a bunch of 20-something privileged yet underemployed (by choice) Caucasian girls walking around with hundreds of dollars worth of attire, electronics, fragrances, etc. in shopping bags from American Apparel and Apple. It's like they're younger versions of the women from Sex and the City---without the cushy jobs to back up their spending, though, that is being financed either by their incompetent enabling parents or credit cards that they'll default on and expect the government to bail them out of.
My ideal Pittsburgh?
-You KEEP the yinzers, but you smack the cigarettes out of their mouths and have them wear blue jeans or cargo pants in public instead of stained Steelers sweatpants. I'm technically "poor" myself, but I manage to take pride in my appearance to try to give others at least a neutral or even marginally positive first impression of myself and my city.
-Everyone would be as outraged as I am about witnessing people tossing cigarette butts onto the ground on a daily basis and feeling helpless to do anything about it (could you even call 911 to report this?!) These things are EVERYWHERE, and I'm not going to accept it. Sorry.
-You encourage transplants to move here with their fresh spirits and innovative ideals, but you ground them in reality. Instead of driving median rents through the roof so that "yinzers" can no longer afford the neighborhoods they grew up within, transplants should realize that "cheap" by coastal standards doesn't necessarily mean "cheap" by PITTSBURGH standards and negotiate pricing accordingly instead of willingly overpaying and driving up the cost for everyone in the process. Just from reviewing the online sales transactions of some on here I can see that Goodjules did her due diligence and snagged a fair price on her home in Crafton. Others? Not so much. "If the home is cheaper than it was in _____, then it's a good deal to me..." No. Not necessarily. You selling your home in Long Island for $550,000 and paying $250,000 for a home in Allegheny County isn't a "good deal" if all of the "comps" sold for $219,900. This means that now YOUR home will be used as a future "comp" for another home that will be listed, and sellers will try to justify charging $269,900 for a home like yours because you paid $250,000 for yours instead of $219,900 the way other buyers had done.
-Ban Smartphones (yes, I'm serious). I don't have one because I don't want to morph into one of these self-absorbed tech-crazed zombies I see running amok throughout the East End as they walk into people on sidewalks while taking selfies of themselves drinking bubble tea or trying to follow Twitter to see if Justin Bieber will retweet a picture of their bubble tea that they tweeted at him while holding up the line behind them at the bank as they try to get quarters to do laundry. My fellow Millennial adherents ESPECIALLY seem to need constant gratification, indulgence, and reassurance, and it's irritating (not just in Pittsburgh, mind you, but it's becoming more of a pandemic here in recent years, too, with all of the "I'm so special" people moving in). I'm not exactly highly intelligent, yet when I try to have an intellectual conversation with many people these days I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall because the person I'm with is so distracted thinking about what their ex is doing on Facebook or what funny cat videos have been posted on Instagram that they can't concentrate or focus---it's like they've reached their mental capacity and can't go any further. I routinely have customers on the phone who honestly tell me they weren't paying attention to me as I read their orders back to them to ensure accuracy because they were distracted by their Smartphones, forcing me to repeat myself and lose business from those on hold who hang up after becoming too impatient. How is this a "good" thing?
There needs to be a delicate balance, and in the past few years it seems like the pendulum is swinging too far in one direction in terms of "white-washing" Pittsburgh to resemble Williamsburg, Brooklyn; Portland, OR; San Francisco, CA; Beacon Hill, Boston; or any other "limousine liberal" politically-correct upper-middle-class hipster-driven mecca at the expense of losing Pittsburgh's authenticity, character, local flavor, and unique ambiance that MANY of we transplants moved here to take advantage of and treasure. For example, I'm glad Penn Avenue through Garfield is being reconstructed with fresh asphalt, new sidewalks, new curb-cuts, new benches and street trees, new street lights, etc. to make it look revamped. Ditto Brookline Boulevard. Ditto what Councilwoman Gross envisions for Liberty Avenue through Bloomfield next. My issue? I don't then want EVERY building to house either a yoga studio, pilates studio, vegan coffeehouse, art gallery, and other "fluff" businesses. Polish Hill, where I live, now has numerous "fluff" businesses that have caused our median rent to skyrocket while residents STILL can't fulfill their BASIC day-to-day "non-hipster" needs like buying a loaf of bread or gallon of milk; doing laundry; or grabbing a slice of pizza at 10 PM. Do you think I enjoy paying progressively higher rent each passing year as yet another place for people to bang bongo drums or ride a unicycle while singing Gotye music opens up? That's what's happening here, and it's not sustainable in the long-term.
You can buy a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, do your laundry, and eat pizza at 10 pm on newly homogenized Brookline Blvd. Everything you want, in a much more affordable neighborhood, however that would leave you much less to complain about so I am not sure it is what you are after.
SCR - with all the Bhutans leaving there and coming here, have you ever considering moving to Bhutan? The entire country is non-smoking, there's not much wireless there and obviously they have a brain-drain going on. Could be your paradise!
Also, fwiw, I have a smartphone and have not used FB since 2011 (and never will again). I don't take it out during dinner, nor do I take photos of my food. All of these things are possible!
You can buy a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, do your laundry, and eat pizza at 10 pm on newly homogenized Brookline Blvd. Everything you want, in a much more affordable neighborhood, however that would leave you much less to complain about so I am not sure it is what you are after.
So what will happen in ten years when Brookline Boulevard handles enough spillover of East End housing price refugees that it exchanges its laundromat for a "performing arts space"; its pizzeria for a "community engagement center"; its grocery store (didn't know it had one) for a vegan coffeehouse; its bakery for a comic books store; its pharmacy for an art gallery; its branch library for a gourmet dog biscuit store; etc.? Rent will rise even more, while the existing residents are able to walk to even LESS useful things.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sskink
Also, fwiw, I have a smartphone and have not used FB since 2011 (and never will again). I don't take it out during dinner, nor do I take photos of my food. All of these things are possible!
You're the exception---not the rule. I want to smack anyone and everyone who glances down at their Smartphone while having a conversation with me (including the better half), and especially when I'm with friends at an outing. This irks me so much because I see people becoming more and more Smartphone-obsessed with each passing year.
So what will happen in ten years when Brookline Boulevard handles enough spillover of East End housing price refugees that it exchanges its laundromat for a "performing arts space"; its pizzeria for a "community engagement center"; its grocery store (didn't know it had one) for a vegan coffeehouse; its bakery for a comic books store; its pharmacy for an art gallery; its branch library for a gourmet dog biscuit store; etc.? Rent will rise even more, while the existing residents are able to walk to even LESS useful things.
We already have a performing arts space at the Seton Center, we have a coffee shop (albeit not vegan), already have a comic books store so the 2 bakeries are safe, we hang our art at Cannon Coffee so the 2 drug stores are also safe, and I really doubt the Carnegie Library has any chance of becoming a dog biscuit store.
In 10 years the things you rant about won’t even be popular anywhere in the world, so it doesn’t really matter. Tastes change, times change. if there wasn’t a market for this stuff, people wouldn’t open them. But yes, in 10 years rent will be higher than it is today, that is a fact.
Also, what is wrong with a neighborhood having a performing arts space, or a community engagement center?
To bring this thread back on track, it appears to me that Conflict Kitchen should just base a menu on whatever SCR is eating accompanied by literature on the unfair economic policies that are sending the East End to hell :-)
j/k SCR, you're a good soul. Cranky as hell, but good.
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