Pittsburgh is as "hip" as you want it to be (Philadelphia: taxes, to live)

[Awesomo.2000]

Every city I have ever been in has a liberal City paper that has left swinging articles and promotions for bands and art.

Pittsburgh will not be hip until you can pick up the Onion on the street. In Denver every Wednesday was new Onion day. It was great to pick it up and have comic relief mid way through the week.

[juliegt]

While Pittsburgh as a whole doesn't feel "hip" to me, it does have areas and a segment of the population that are hip. Like most mid-size and large cities, if you're looking for hip, you can find it. I live near SF which is very hip. I've spent time in Chicago, SF, Seattle, Pittsburgh, and Nashville over the past 10 years. I'd say Pittsburgh feels hipper than Nashville, but not as hip and certainly not as vibrant as the other three cities.

I do think it has a greater hipness potential because it isn't as depressed as many similar sized US cities, yet has very affordable housing with interesting architecture and good higher education. These things combined often attract creative artistic types which can lead to hipness. Doesn't mean it will happen for sure - but a lot of factors are there.

[Copanut]

If you think you're hip, chances are you're not. If the City Paper were hip, why does it come out on the same day and accept advertising? Starbucks, hip? Then I guess so is McDonalds, both have that kewl wi-fi thingy.

Hip changes all the time, at least it should IMHHO.

[Little Mizz Pittsburgh]

[chicken.or.the.nugget]

maybe its good that pittsburgh isn't hip. It should try to be a republican city, and instead of having clubs it should have bars/pubs. Some people would like that...people who dont wanna drive in dinky cars, and dont like complainers, workers who cant speak english etc. I've been to pittsburgh once and thought it was great.

[Katiana]

Originally Posted by Awesomo.2000

Every city I have ever been in has a liberal City paper that has left swinging articles and promotions for bands and art.

Pittsburgh will not be hip until you can pick up the Onion on the street. In Denver every Wednesday was new Onion day. It was great to pick it up and have comic relief mid way through the week.

Also Westword, though it's become more "mainstream alternative" lateley.

Originally Posted by juliegt

While Pittsburgh as a whole doesn't feel "hip" to me, it does have areas and a segment of the population that are hip. Like most mid-size and large cities, if you're looking for hip, you can find it. I live near SF which is very hip. I've spent time in Chicago, SF, Seattle, Pittsburgh, and Nashville over the past 10 years. I'd say Pittsburgh feels hipper than Nashville, but not as hip and certainly not as vibrant as the other three cities.

I do think it has a greater hipness potential because it isn't as depressed as many similar sized US cities, yet has very affordable housing with interesting architecture and good higher education. These things combined often attract creative artistic types which can lead to hipness. Doesn't mean it will happen for sure - but a lot of factors are there.

Which similar sized cities? And are you talking about cities of 300,000 people like Colorado Springs (I would agree Pittsburgh is way more hip than COS), or cities with a metro of 2.something million, like Denver, Portland, etc?

[nuwaver88]

Originally Posted by Little Mizz Pittsburgh

Well, that's where I see a lot of people, who think they're HIP, go to get coffee all the time. I don't drink coffee, I just like to go in there for their breakfast pastries.

The several Starbuck's that are located Downtown, especially the one in the William Penn Hotel, cater to the professional crowd. That Starbucks is silly busy all of the time. Are business professionals hip? Maybe, maybe not.
Like a previous poster said, Starbucks is McDonalds. They have everyone brainwashed into spending three, four, five bucs for a coffee. Maybe at one time back in Seattle back in the 1980s, so called hipsters frequented Starbucks. Maybe Eddie Vedder and/or Kurt Cobain played acoustic night there. That was like the Beehive Coffeehouse in Pittsburgh. It was a place for people who aspired to be hip.

[Little Mizz Pittsburgh]

Once AGAIN, you all are taking what I typed and going far RIGHT again...I didn't say STARBUCKS is hip. Reading is fundamental. I said "that's where I see a lot of people who THINK they're HIP". For the record, I don't go to any Starbucks' downtown, because I don't WORK in town. I work in Oakland, so I usually frequent the one there for their pastries only. Oakland's demographic is totally different MOSTLY because of all the Universities in the area. Capiche?

[sketchbooks]

I'd measure hipness by the success of independently owned businesses (not Starbucks!). A place is hip if someone can open up their own coffeehouse or bookstore or clothing shop or music venue, and attract enough local customers to thrive. City policies can play a part in this- if business licensing and taxes are convoluted and confusing, if neighborhoods freak out over potential noise after 8pm (AHEM Squirrel Hill), if commercial rents are unreasonably high, if no buses run at night nearby- those will hinder the growth of businesses owned by younger, more creative people.
Are those conditions really creating a barrier for Pittsburgh? I don't know. There are some good signs (the expansion of Crazy Mocha for example) and some not so good (rough economic times make everyone a bit less adventurous)

[fleetiebelle]

Starbucks is like McDonalds, but it has opened the way for the coffee culture in America to thrive. And strangely, a Starbucks in a neighborhood doesn't mean that the locally owned joints fail. So thanks to Starbucks we can have Kiva Han and Tazzo d'Oro and 61C.