This is the Williamsburg of Your City: A Map of Hip America

[10023]

Originally Posted by fflint

Completely gentrified and no longer hip: North Beach, Hayes Valley, the Castro, the Haight, Duboce Triangle, Noe Valley, downtown Palo Alto, downtown Berkeley.

So, like, the SF Bay Area.

[gtbassett]

Originally Posted by 10023

So, like, the SF Bay Area.

There's a lot more to the Bay Area than those areas.

West Oakland is the next hot spot. The Victorian housing stock and proximity to downtown SF, Oakland, and Berkeley makes it a logical place for gentrification which is already rapidly happening and will just pick up steam in the coming years. The bones are there for a thriving and robust neighborhood to emerge.

Vallejo and Richmond are also pretty poor cities in the area that could seen an influx of gentrification if the right factors happen. Downtown Vallejo is cute as hell with Victorian and Craftsman housing stock and the location at the mouth of the Carquinez Straight is really quite beautiful.

The Bay Area may already be really expensive, but there is a lot of room for gentrification.

[10023]

I was being facetious. But yeah, I get it.

[bobdreamz]

Originally Posted by Private Dick

Yeah, it will be interesting to see how the neighborhoods evolve on the Upper East side with Miami's increasing urbanity.

Right... is there a Starbucks in the heart of Wynwood yet? That always seems to be one of the first signs. What would be kinda cool is if rather than the same old white condos, they built condos/lofts in more of the Art Deco Industrial style.

There is a Starbucks but it's on the northern fringe of Wynwood at the Shops @ Midtown. There are mom & pop coffee shops though. Wynwood is getting so gentrified that the Miami Parking Authority is going install meters throughout the area much to the chagrin of local business owners. What is strange is that Wynwood was a Puerto Rican enclave but I don't know if that longer true.



http://www.wynwoodmiami.com/images/d...pg&w=400&h=225

More about Wynwood :
http://www.wynwoodmiami.com/about.php

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by 10023

I mentioned those two because they're the most likely places that would be brought up by someone looking to dispute what I said.

Both have lots of young people, and Astoria has for a long time, but that's because it's fairly accessible to Midtown and cheap. It's like Hoboken. The only place anyone ever goes to from Manhattan is the Bohemian beer garden. In Chicago, many of the most talked about places for food/drink/nightlife are in Logan Square; in New York those places (if outside of Manhattan) are pretty much all in Brooklyn.

Nowhere in Queens has anywhere near Logan Square's buzz... but Logan Square was never as edgy as Bushwick. Its transition is from being boring and residential to trendy, rather than from being dangerous to trendy. So

logan has been edgier than what you say, to be sure. edgier in the sense of "shit, i'm a dumb super white hipster from small town wisconsin and got mugged last night" circa 2006. but, it's had it's fair share of gang shootings and "gunshots or fireworks" shit. i've run my finger over bullet holes in places walking around drunk years ago.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by 10023

^ Another interesting discussion would be, what is the completely gentrified, formerly hip area of your city?

In London, Shoreditch springs to mind immediately. In NYC it's actually either northwest Williamsburg or maybe the Lower East Side. In Chicago it's Wicker Park and Bucktown.

Depends how far back you want to go... before Wicker Park/Bucktown, there was a big creative community in Old Town (the art fair is left from this era). Before that, the boho types and beatniks lived in "Tower Town" which has been almost obliterated by highrises in the area just west of the Water Tower. All of these areas are "completely gentrified" but they had different destinies.

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Depends how far back you want to go... before Wicker Park/Bucktown, there was a big creative community in Old Town (the art fair is left from this era). Before that, the boho types and beatniks lived in "Tower Town" which has been almost obliterated by highrises in the area just west of the Water Tower. All of these areas are "completely gentrified" but they had different destinies.

Yeah, and, not coincidentally, Old Town was one of the city's/country's first gay neighborhoods. Old Town's "hip"/culturally progressive legacy lives on in the Bijou Theater/Bijou Video and (in name) in the Old Town School of Folk Music.

[10023]

^ Yeah but if you wanna go that far back, you get to Greenwich Village in NYC and perhaps Chelsea in London. But that's my parents' generation or older.

[dave8721]

Originally Posted by bobdreamz

There is a Starbucks but it's on the northern fringe of Wynwood at the Shops @ Midtown. There are mom & pop coffee shops though. Wynwood is getting so gentrified that the Miami Parking Authority is going install meters throughout the area much to the chagrin of local business owners. What is strange is that Wynwood was a Puerto Rican enclave but I don't know if that longer true.



http://www.wynwoodmiami.com/images/d...pg&w=400&h=225

More about Wynwood :
http://www.wynwoodmiami.com/about.php

If you are counting the Shops @ Midtown as Wynwood, then Wynwood is getting a Walmart (to go with its current Target, Ross, Marshalls, Payless, Petsmart...etc). Doesn't get more "gentrified" than that.

[McBane]

Good time to share one of fav Simpson quotes:

Anything that's the "something" of the "something" isn't really the "anything" of "anything".

- Lisa Simpson

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by LMich

That was my thought, as well. Given the city's current dynamics, I'm not sure if there is even a Williamsburg, let alone a Bushwick. More specifically, though, if there is a Williamsburg, we're talking more the Cass Corridor within Midtown than the entire grouping of neighborhoods, itself, which is kind of a forced grouping given the geography of the freeways.

I thought Corktown was a bit weird of a pick. Corktown has quite a ways to go on the commercial front, IMO. While it gets a lot of attention for development, I think it's kind of been stuck. We might be seeing an actual boom in the area with some new major businesses moving in, but we've been hearing since the turn of the millennium how it's the next big thing.

Midtown is definitely Detroit's "Williamsburg." I was just in Detroit over Labor Day weekend and the change along Woodward from north of I-75 through Wayne State looks a lot like what I've witnessed in gentrifying neighborhoods in NYC. Anyone familiar with what that stretch looked like just 5 years ago would probably find it unrecognizable today.

Corktown is Bushwick-esque. Like Bushwick, there is definitely noticeable investment in the neighborhood. However, also like Bushwick, the gentrification is very patchy, not consistent like it is in Williamsburg.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by 10023

^ Yeah but if you wanna go that far back, you get to Greenwich Village in NYC and perhaps Chelsea in London. But that's my parents' generation or older.

Right, it was kind of an open-ended question. The transitional areas like Bushwick are easy to pick out but healthy cities are full of Williamsburgs.

[the urban politician]

Right now Chicago's hippest new hood is The Roosevelt Collection.



I kid...I kid...

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Right, it was kind of an open-ended question. The transitional areas like Bushwick are easy to pick out but healthy cities are full of Williamsburgs.

Well, speaking generally, healthy cities are full of gentrifying areas and hipsters.

Williamsburg specifically doesn't have an equivalent, really, or at least I don't know of one. Prenzlauer Berg, Shoreditch, even Manhattan versions like East Village aren't the same, IMO. Billyburg is "special".

Williamsburg is one of those places where you will never have to say "it's the (enter neighborhood) of (enter city)." Williamsburg, for better or worse, is kind of it's own thing. Even Bushwick won't likely ever be an exact Williamsburg.

[10023]

Brooklyn is a brand now. And most of that is Williamsburg.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by 10023

^ Yeah but if you wanna go that far back, you get to Greenwich Village in NYC and perhaps Chelsea in London. But that's my parents' generation or older.

my dad used to go and watch the stones play in pubs like the world's end on the king's road. divey places. it is funny for him to walk through chelsea now. in 2001, when i lived there, we were up in camden town one day and he told me "this is what chelsea was like."

funnily enough, i worked at the world's end that year. the landlord was very excited to hear his stories from '62, '63.

[kool maudit]

the williamsburg of copenhagen is vesterbro. there is no bushwick, it's structurally impossible.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Williamsburg specifically doesn't have an equivalent, really, or at least I don't know of one. Prenzlauer Berg, Shoreditch, even Manhattan versions like East Village aren't the same, IMO. Billyburg is "special".

Williamsburg is one of those places where you will never have to say "it's the (enter neighborhood) of (enter city)." Williamsburg, for better or worse, is kind of it's own thing. Even Bushwick won't likely ever be an exact Williamsburg.

As are most of the rest of the neighbourhoods on this list. Rarely are the environments and circumstances that make these neighbourhoods trendy going to be identical between or even within a city. The reason the list is recording the "the Williamsburg of ______" is because Williamsburg is the most well-known of "these" types of neighbourhoods in the US...and because it's from a New York publication. They're not going to describe their own neighbourhood as "the Wicker Park of New York".

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by 10023

Brooklyn is a brand now. And most of that is Williamsburg.

If by brand you mean the place where a person with very little intimate knowledge of Brooklyn would name, then I can see that. Otherwise, I have to disagree. Bed Stuy and Crown Heights are the new "it" spots for those "in the know." Williamsburg is where tourists go.

[ardecila]

Good time to post this... Brooklyn is defined by Williamsburg these days. Even more ironic given that Williams' daughter plays Marnie on Girls....

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