And there are of course tons of yuppies all over Manhattan. Never did spend much time in Brooklyn, but I hear it's full of hipsters. Next time I'm in NYC I plan to do some exploring in Brooklyn.

 

The areas around Williamsburg off the L Train (not so much Williamsburg itself these days as its really gone yupster) I'd argue have some of the most flamboyant hipsters in the country outside of Portland.  Lower Manhattan used to be their spot btw, until they were priced out, first time I was in NYC in the late 1990s I remember seeing some proto hipsters around there.

--

 

I guess the biggest Bro-y thing about Chicago is the unpleasant levels at which they worship their sports teams.  Sports culture in Chicago is obnoxious to those of us who don't care too much about it - its also the most visibly bro-y thing when you are going through town, though it applies to everybody just about.

Yeah I don't really get how the whole "bro" jock thing is still going strong and is essentially unchanged since the 1980s.  We're like in the third generation now of those guys.  It's the same percentage of the population and they still wear basically the exact same clothes (Ralph Lauren polo shirts and jeans and a baseball cap) and still grunt and postulate in the exact same way.  They still major in business, never do the reading in liberal arts classes, and keep getting out of school and making more money than you.  The world keeps turning but these guys just keep being manufactured the exact same way. 

Yeah as an example of flamboyant fashion black teenagers here have all the sudden started wearing 1989-1992 fashion, including the Kid & Play haircuts.  I have no idea what motivated this sudden shift away from the decades-old hip-hop attire, but I started noticing some black kids wearing white skateboarder clothes around 2008 or 2009.  Somehow this "House Party" aesthetic took off big-time in 2013.  Obviously somebody out there is manufacturing these clothes so no doubt at least some of it was a manufactured "movement".  But what's interesting to me is that this will all pass in a year and finally we might see black fashion move away from that same oversized sports jersey thing that's been going on since about 1992.  That means white kids will start moving away from that also. 

 

It will take a much longer time though for the white kids. The white underclass holds on to outdated looks much longer than the rest of the population.

Yeah I don't really get how the whole "bro" jock thing is still going strong and is essentially unchanged since the 1980s.  We're like in the third generation now of those guys.  It's the same percentage of the population and they still wear basically the exact same clothes (Ralph Lauren polo shirts and jeans and a baseball cap) and still grunt and postulate in the exact same way.  They still major in business, do never do the reading in liberal arts classes, and keep getting out of school and making more money than you.  The world keeps turning but these guys just keep being manufactured the exact same way. 

 

"Normal" is a known quantity and those guys have no qualms about networking and asking people for money.

 

Just Do It

Yeah as an example of flamboyant fashion black teenagers here have all the sudden started wearing 1989-1992 fashion, including the Kid & Play haircuts.  I have no idea what motivated this sudden shift away from the decades-old hip-hop attire, but I started noticing some black kids wearing white skateboarder clothes around 2008 or 2009.  Somehow this "House Party" aesthetic took off big-time in 2013.  Obviously somebody out there is manufacturing these clothes so no doubt at least some of it was a manufactured "movement".  But what's interesting to me is that this will all pass in a year and finally we might see black fashion move away from that same oversized sports jersey thing that's been going on since about 1992.  That means white kids will start moving away from that also. 

 

It will take a much longer time though for the white kids. The white underclass holds on to outdated looks much longer than the rest of the population.

 

No young hipster in 2014 can remember a non-ironic Jerry Curl, or that whole "spaceship" element of black fashion that was still -- if you were really lucky(?) -- occasionally observed into the early 1990s.  The very "friendly" image of the black pop musician in the early and mid-1980s like Lionel Richie or Billy Ocean was completely upended by the end of the decade by the onset of gangster rap.  The so-called Millennial generation has not experienced anything close to the sort of style and musical shifts that happened in the 1980s.  2014 is basically the exact same as 2004 in almost all respects whereas the difference between 1984 and 1994 was absolutely massive. 

Yeah I don't really get how the whole "bro" jock thing is still going strong and is essentially unchanged since the 1980s.  We're like in the third generation now of those guys.  It's the same percentage of the population and they still wear basically the exact same clothes (Ralph Lauren polo shirts and jeans and a baseball cap) and still grunt and postulate in the exact same way.  They still major in business, never do the reading in liberal arts classes, and keep getting out of school and making more money than you.  The world keeps turning but these guys just keep being manufactured the exact same way. 

 

Less changes over time than most assume.  Hipsters think they are some new, unique breed of human species.  Not true.  We had them back in my day.  They are the same people who hung out at the coffee shops and smoked those special (cloved?) cigarettes.  The girls were all a self-professed "very mature for my age."  They liked music unless/until it became mainstream.  The 'hit' on the album was never the best song.  The best movies were the indies and foreign flicks.  They either shopped at thrift stores or bought ridiculously expensive clothes specifically designed to look like they were purchased at a thrift store or stolen out of some old relatives closet.  I went to high school in the 90s with tons of these kids.  They certainly never had any doubts they were cool.

^Cloves. I guess the common phrase was the 'alternative' crowd. Less facial hair, more dyed hair (with Manic Panic of course) than modern hipsters, but yeah - not much different. Not sure if it was a smug sense of cool, just not being mainstream but of course, that became a commodity (Hot Topic stores). Anyway, glad I don't know anything about that whole scene from back then. :wink:

 

There was almost no one at my high school like that. Half of the luchroom was the trailer park kids leaving everybody else crammed together on the other side forced by circumstance to get along.

This is totally a get off my lawn moment but it was a lot harder to be into obscure music and movies back then. I remember crappy copy of cassettes and mix tapes made from recording late night radio shows.Today you're sifting through piles and piles of music trying find something different.

 

There was almost no one at my high school like that. Half of the luchroom was the trailer park kids leaving everybody else crammed together on the other side forced by circumstance to get along.

 

Bahaha. That describes my highschool. There was a certainly a small alt kid clique but it was definitely  2 distinct groups. 50/50 the haves (a little) and have nots.

 

 

This is totally a get off my lawn moment but it was a lot harder to be into obscure music and movies back then. I remember crappy copy of cassettes and mix tapes made from recording late night radio shows.Today you're sifting through piles and piles of music trying find something different.

 

Well, at least where I grew up, you always had the Cedar-Lee theatre and several Coventry stores (Record Exchange, Sunshine, etc.) which fit the mold.  Vinyl was always a safe way to go if you were cool enough.

^lucky. I relied a lot on friends older siblings filtering cool stuff down.

 

Speaking of vinyl, it's been coming back since the 90s, shouldn't it be here by now?

This is totally a get off my lawn moment but it was a lot harder to be into obscure music and movies back then. I remember crappy copy of cassettes and mix tapes made from recording late night radio shows.Today you're sifting through piles and piles of music trying find something different.

 

 

Oh yeah, that stuff was a big deal.  I remember getting vhs tapes of live music performances and skateboarding that were like 4th-generation copies.  I also saw the first South Park (the famous Brian Boitano pilot episode) as a dubbed VHS tape in the dorms.  South Park wasn't on TV yet, and if it was it wouldn't have mattered because the dorms didn't have cable and very few people brought TV's to college. 

 

Think about how much more cut-off from home a college student was in 1994 than in 2014.  Not only was there no internet, there were no cell phones, meaning most people had to call home collect from a bank of pay phones in the lobby, and it was so expensive that people didn't talk more than once per week.  On top of that most dorms had a 24" TV in a lounge somewhere that got lousy reception, but there was always some a-hole who brought his 100-tape movie collection to school and lorded over the dumb thing, imagining himself to be some sort of movie disk jockey. 

 

 

I had internet in 1994. I was in grad school, and I had a 486Mhz computer, a 28.8k baud dial up modem, and 5 hours per month of AOL (stand back! here comes the internet!!!). I can recall burning all 5 hours one month so I could download Wolfenstein 3D. I regret nothing!

 

Anyway, in the 80's we had the 'new wave' types that would, I suppose, fill in for today's hipsters. That, or the metal heads (of which I was non-committally a member of), but I don't think they really considered themselves a 'type' per se.

What's ironic, perhaps, is that hipsters have somewhat become exactly what they despise...... mainstream

My college had precisely two computers with the internet in 1996.  One was in the library where you had to have the librarian log you in and you were limited to 30 minutes.  The other was in some advisor's office in an old house and you had to sit in her office with her.  What was weird was that there wasn't web-based email yet, only PINE and Eudora, which I think were telnet (I'm trying to act like I know what I'm talking about).  I didn't get an email address until fall of 1997, and after that it was all downhill. 

My college had precisely two computers with the internet in 1996.  One was in the library where you had to have the librarian log you in and you were limited to 30 minutes.  The other was in some advisor's office in an old house and you had to sit in her office with her.  What was weird was that there wasn't web-based email yet, only PINE and Eudora, which I think were telnet (I'm trying to act like I know what I'm talking about).  I didn't get an email address until fall of 1997, and after that it was all downhill. 

 

Probably POP3.

OU was definitely accessible through Telnet at that time. That's what I used at least through 2000.

"Anyway, in the 80's we had the 'new wave' types that would, I suppose, fill in for today's hipsters. That, or the metal heads (of which I was non-committally a member of), but I don't think they really considered themselves a 'type' per se. "

 

THats funny.  I did both. 

Oh yeah, that stuff was a big deal.  I remember getting vhs tapes of live music performances and skateboarding that were like 4th-generation copies.  I also saw the first South Park (the famous Brian Boitano pilot episode) as a dubbed VHS tape in the dorms.  South Park wasn't on TV yet, and if it was it wouldn't have mattered because the dorms didn't have cable and very few people brought TV's to college. 

 

I was an early adopter of the internet and actually wound up seeing it online - quality was terrible! Lol.  Buffering...buffering...

i heard another one! i heard another one!

 

 

q: how many hipsters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

 

a: it's a rilly obscure number, you probably haven't heard of it

I snapped a shot of this hipster on Friday in suburban West Chester:

 

No tattoos? No facial piercings? No cigarettes/weed? These Midwest hipsters are hipster lites...

No tattoos? No facial piercings? No cigarettes/weed? These Midwest hipsters are hipster lites...

 

Call him what you will, but he is manning an artisanal Popsicle cart.

No tattoos? No facial piercings? No cigarettes/weed? These Midwest hipsters are hipster lites...

Oh so now that you're in the Bay Area, you're an expert?  Ummmmmmmmm

No tattoos? No facial piercings? No cigarettes/weed? These Midwest hipsters are hipster lites...

 

That means he could still make a boss with a flat-top haircut and an F150 happy with 30 minutes at the barber if necessary. The ohio challenge.

hipster twister strikes mccarren park in the burg:

 

http://nypost.com/2014/08/11/hipster-twister-touches-down-in-brooklyn/

 

hipster twister strikes mccarren park in the burg:

 

http://nypost.com/2014/08/11/hipster-twister-touches-down-in-brooklyn/

 

 

 

When weather stops being polite...and starts getting REAL. 

 

Hipster in West Chester? Sounds like the start of a bad joke.... What do you call a hipster in West Chester? A missionary? A Diplomat? Hmm.... clearly I need to think about this more.

Anyway, in the 80's we had the 'new wave' types that would, I suppose, fill in for today's hipsters. That, or the metal heads (of which I was non-committally a member of), but I don't think they really considered themselves a 'type' per se.

 

I think the hipster is different than the 80s & 90s bohemians. The 80s & 90s bohemians had their own groups and were a product of something original (e.g. goths, college rocker, ravers, punks). The hipster has just taken all the avant garde or "authetic" ideas of past generations and molded into their persona. Nothing really original has been created from the hipster movement.

 

Metal heads, at least in their original form, I think were pretty different than hipsters (aside from bad hair and tight jeans). I see metal heads as more macho and blue collar. Hipsters seem passive and pseudo-intellectual.

 

^ Hipsters are descendents of the "college rocker" in your taxonomy. The difference is that, after the movement died in the underground (IMO died, period), it ballooned in the mainstream with no competition.

 

When I was a punk kid in the '90s, I went to NYC a few times and was blown away by the idea that any fringe group was basically not fringe there, because the communities were so big. I think the Internet made that happen on a global scale. So the whole concept of underground has been revolutionized. That's one factor as to why no underground movements have replaced the hipster movement.

 

Another reason is the music tradition which founded hipsterism: indie rock. Indie rock is not a legitimate genre (like "college rock" before it). It's a big tent, and can conceptually accommodate many different tastes, styles, and innovations in music. So as tastes change and innovations happen, there's no need for a new movement.

 

Finally, there's the whole irony/postmodernism which defined hipster. This is another nebulous concept, much like the "genre" of indie rock. It brings the concepts of "alternative" or "underground" to their logical conclusion by rebelling in an infinite loop. When you get to that point where you can, e.g., rebel against pop culture and consumerism by buying pop albums "ironically" and pursuing a career in marketing, there's just nowhere else to go.

August 28, 2014

HBO's 'Looking' needs extras to play San Francisco hipsters, bears, techies

By Giselle Velazquez

 

Looking to make a quick buck? "Looking" might be able to help.

 

The HBO series about a trio of gay San Franciscans needs extras starting next week, according to TheBoldItalic.com, and the casting agency has some interesting requests.

 

In addition to the "Hipsters, Techies, LGBT Community, Bar Goers, etc." needed to accurately populate The City, San Francisco-based Beau Bonneau Casting desperately needs hairy "bear types, cubs, chubs, otters, etc."

 

"Butch type" lesbians are required immediately, as are transgender individuals. And perhaps in recognition of Victoria Ramos, the Mission's legendary Tamale Lady, "Looking" needs a Latina with a "real, lived-in, interesting face" to portray its Pupusa Cart Lady and fictionally feed hordes of drunken hipsters, techies and bargoers, etc.

 

Extras will be paid San Francisco's minimum wage of $10.74 an hour, with extra for "Canoe/Kayak experienced Lifeguard Certified Men" and $250 a day for nude extras (no word on the rate for naked extras in canoes).

 

CONTINUED

http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/hbos-looking-needs-extras-to-play-san-francisco-hipsters-bears-techies/Content?oid=2886037

Seriously, what is with the epidemic of uhkelele's?  What is with frat guys now listening to neo-folk?  The future wasn't supposed to be like this. 

Ukeleles and whistling are supposed to be your signal to spend money on products and/or services.

Oh yeah.  A lot of cell phone and "lifestyle" commercials are combining whistling over ukehlelehe(sp?) strumming, then punctuating the whole affair with some dorky twitter phrase like "Morning Win!".  I don't know what that one advertises, I just know that it makes me tense up when I hear it.  Luckily my exposure to TV uhekelehele's and whistling is limited to my workplace's break room. 

there is so much of this stuff, but funny:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7 Handy Accessories For the Bike Riding Beer Lover

http://news.nextglass.co/beer/bicycles-and-beer-products/

Ukeleles and whistling are supposed to be your signal to spend money on products and/or services.

 

You forgot the cute Xylophone.

 

Oh yeah and this:

 

August 28, 2014

HBO's 'Looking' needs extras to play San Francisco hipsters, bears, techies

By Giselle Velazquez

 

Looking to make a quick buck? "Looking" might be able to help.

 

The HBO series about a trio of gay San Franciscans needs extras starting next week, according to TheBoldItalic.com, and the casting agency has some interesting requests.

 

In addition to the "Hipsters, Techies, LGBT Community, Bar Goers, etc." needed to accurately populate The City, San Francisco-based Beau Bonneau Casting desperately needs hairy "bear types, cubs, chubs, otters, etc."

 

"Butch type" lesbians are required immediately, as are transgender individuals. And perhaps in recognition of Victoria Ramos, the Mission's legendary Tamale Lady, "Looking" needs a Latina with a "real, lived-in, interesting face" to portray its Pupusa Cart Lady and fictionally feed hordes of drunken hipsters, techies and bargoers, etc.

 

Extras will be paid San Francisco's minimum wage of $10.74 an hour, with extra for "Canoe/Kayak experienced Lifeguard Certified Men" and $250 a day for nude extras (no word on the rate for naked extras in canoes).

 

CONTINUED

http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/hbos-looking-needs-extras-to-play-san-francisco-hipsters-bears-techies/Content?oid=2886037

 

This pissed me off as it wasn't entirely correct.

^"Pupusa Cart Lady" LOL I don't think we have those in NY, do we? I've seen churros and mango carts, though. I once read that one of those mango ladies made enough money to send her kids to college!

^"Pupusa Cart Lady" LOL I don't think we have those in NY, do we? I've seen churros and mango carts, though. I once read that one of those mango ladies made enough money to send her kids to college!

 

Try Queens, the boro, not the people!  LOL

I'm now seeing hipsters in East Oakland. Hell has frozen over...

I'm now seeing hipsters in East Oakland. Hell has frozen over...

The only thing I know about East Oakland is that is where Too $hort is from...

I believe MC Hammer is the super dope home boy from the Oak-town. But that was some time ago

^"Pupusa Cart Lady" LOL I don't think we have those in NY, do we? I've seen churros and mango carts, though. I once read that one of those mango ladies made enough money to send her kids to college!

 

we have the "sainted" arepa cart lady. who recently opened her own restaurant which i need to try one of these days. we made her an early internet star on the old chowhound website way back in the 1900s.

East Oakland still has North Toledo or East Cleveland-level crime statistics. It has areas of extreme ghetto that are by far the worst in the Bay Area. It never suffered population loss since it has been a major immigration point from Mexico for decades (it largely lacks abandonment), but its "feel" is Rust Belt ghetto. It's a flat industrial area with port, manufacturing, and warehouse facilities. It also includes Oakland's Airport. Oakland is not Brooklyn. Oakland is Newark with hipsters and money. The New York Times was way off. The only similarities are the hipsters, but Brooklyn hipsters are much nicer than Oakland hipsters.

 

Oakland: Brooklyn by the Bay

By MATT HABERMAY 2, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/fashion/oakland-california-brooklyn-by-the-bay.html?_r=0

 

Other than having two BART stations (not nearly enough for its population density), there is nothing about East Oakland attractive to hipsters. It just goes to show you how desperate kids are for housing in the Bay Area. They're moving into known gang and cartel territories that the understaffed Oakland Police have had a lot of trouble controlling (they've been shot at and killed in East Oakland). It's not a nice area, and probably the last place that's safe for hipsters in the Bay Area, who many times are the targets of crime (always looking at phones and no situational awareness).

 

Then again, West Oakland long suffered from similar problems and it's gentrifying at warp speed (first stop on BART from SF, Google busses, etc.). Still, hipsters have not been welcomed with open arms...

 

West Oakland Coffee Shop Vandalized Hours After Gentrification Protests

Wendi Jonassen | June 13, 2014

 

Two people wearing black hoodies and black face masks hurled five rocks through the windows of Kilovolt, a newly established coffee shop on Mandela Parkway at 1 a.m. on Thursday, breaking several windows, scratching countertops, and damaging the coffee brewing machine. The vandalism occurred just a few hours after the Oakland Planning Commission approved the West Oakland Specific Plan (WOSP), a controversial redevelopment plan, with a vote of 4-2.

 

Prior to the meeting, protesters opposed to WOSP marched from DeFremery Park, according to an article published in a anarchist publication, Fireworks. Some demonstrators tried to block the entrance of the meeting, while others used the public comments period to discuss gentrification and rising rents.

 

Ethan Ashley, the owner of Kilovolt, strongly believes there is a connection between the vandalism and the WOSP protesters. During the rally and march, fliers titled “Spread the Struggle Against Gentrification” distributed among the crowd called specifically for vandalism.

 

“Oakland is becoming unrecognizable. Fight back. Vandalize development and gentrifying businesses.” These were some of the phrases printed on the fliers that feature a giant hand clawing at a map of West Oakland (oddly resembling old Nazi Propoganda poster, as reported by the East Bay Express).

 

This is not the first time Kilovolt has been vandalized since opening in late April.

 

Within the first two weeks of opening, someone spray painted ‘Eat Shit Yuppies‘ on the exterior of Kilovolt and poured glue in the locks. Someone seems to have come forward to take credit for that specific act in a comment on IndieBay.

 

http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/06/13/2014/-west-oakland-coffee-shop-vandalized

What a dumb acronym for an area undergoing gentrification.

It is dumb since Oakland is not like Brooklyn. It's much smaller, much less dense, and the transit is inferior since BART wasn't built to metro rail standards outside of Downtown SF (four subway stations) and Downtown Oak (three subway stations). Brooklyn still has a lot of natives left too. People overlook how big it is and that the hipster zone is really just a small chunk of it. By contrast, San Francisco and Oakland hardly have any natives left. This is due to lack of new construction. With gentrification, the only option is displacement since people in the Bay Area keep voting down and protesting new housing proposals.

 

The protests of new construction in hipster neighborhoods really make my blood boil. People have no concept of supply and demand. You constantly see people on the streets yelling about gentrification in one sentence and then demanding bans on new construction in the next. The West Oakland Specific Plan is the greatest thing to happen in West Oakland in decades, and people are furious about it? Screw these anti-development idiots. We need this housing bad. We needed it years ago. The Bay is twisted in its political logic...

 

I do give Oakland's political leadership some credit for ignoring the protests and forcing through some big projects recently (WOSP, Brooklyn Basin, etc.). They're showing more backbone than San Francisco's leadership. It's still not as pro-development as LA, but Oakland seems like it's at a major political turning point. Perhaps it could be the first pro-urban, pro-development city in the Bay Area?

 

*Also, the mayor of Oakland, Jean Quan, does compare it to Brooklyn:

 

Mayor Jean Quan herself made the comparison to the National Journal last week, saying, “We’re a little bit like Brooklyn. Because Oakland is so much more affordable than San Francisco, the whole arts scene has shifted over here. The food scene has taken off. Those kinds of cultural things have made Oakland very desirable.” Her words seem like a guarded yet unmistakable shot across the bow at Ed Lee and his mind-bogglingly unaffordable city. Yet both locales are afflicted by and benefiting from the same general trends; San Francisco is just further along. Quan sees an ascendant Oakland sponging up everything quirky and livable about SF as it becomes a playground for the ultra-rich.

 

But there are lots of ways in which Quan’s comparison of OAK = BKLN falls apart. For one thing, Oakland’s a separate city, not subject to the vicissitudes and policies of a mayor it didn’t vote for, and far enough away that you can’t walk there from the West Bay. At 400,000 people, Oakland’s population is half as big as SF’s and about one-seventh the size of Brooklyn (which is itself twice as populous as Manhattan). Crime in Oakland is considerably higher – the murder rate is more than four times that of New York, and there are six times as many burglaries. And while magically 25 degrees warmer in July than its neighbor, Oakland lacks a certain mystique that, through the alchemy of late capitalism, frequently transmutes into a brand – be it dreaded by long-term residents or lauded by elected officials and other boosters. Without putting Oakland down the way Gertrude Stein’s remark is frequently (mis)interpreted, there are no “Oakland Pickles” or “Oakland Industries” sweatshirts, yet. And much to that city’s credit, at least no celebs are naming their daughter “Oakland.”

 

http://www.thebolditalic.com/articles/3754-how-apt-is-the-oakland-brooklyn-comparison-anyway

 

*WOSP is probably an attempt to not whitewash that neighborhood's African-American history like was done in historically minority neighborhoods in San Francisco. San Francisco changed the names of some neighborhoods when it gentrified. This made people angry, particularly long-time residents. Oakland is not changing the names of any neighborhoods yet as far as I can tell. So you see these names for redevelopment projects that avoid giving "white" names to historically minority neighborhoods. They know no one will ever refer to the place as the "West Oakland Specific Plan." A silly redevelopment name like that means the older neighborhood names will stick. Development names can be tricky business...particularly in a politically charged place like Oakland.

And I agree with this quote:

 

At times, it feels as though many Oakland proponents of the analogy are ex-San Franciscans who want to be cooler than San Francisco by being as cool as Brooklyn. (It is universally understood among cool kids that Manhattan is no longer cool). Oakland will be the new Brooklyn for a little while until San Francisco becomes so insidiously homogeneous that every last non-techie decamps for Fruitvale, and then it will presumably supersede San Francisco altogether.

 

Oakland hipsters are the worst in America. There is so much insecurity and judging in them. I can't even get served at half of the white people bars in Oakland. The number of glares I get walking down the street in Uptown blows my mind. I suspect most would live in the Mission District if they could. Thankfully, the other half of Oakland is much more tolerable. Oakland has a mix of some of the biggest hipster douchebags, worst gang bangers, and nicest upper class people in the Bay Area. But that ignores the sheer diversity of the place and the fact it's one of the few urban areas in the Bay getting more diverse. It's still a big immigration point for Latin America and Asia (particularly China- I find Oakland's Chinatown superior to all three of San Francisco's). That aspect of Oakland is awesome. I think its big social divides and tension result from the sheer diversity of the place, and extreme inequality (which seems more extreme than San Francisco). Oakland has about twice the diversity of San Francisco and it's a lot more integrated. It's more similar to Los Angeles in its racial makeup and is easily one of the most diverse cities in the country.

 

But overall, Oakland is not cooler than San Francisco. And San Francisco is not cooler than Los Angeles or New York. Like SF, Oakland is losing a lot of its talented artists and musicians to cities like LA and Austin. Oakland does have some great urban neighborhoods like Downtown, Old Oakland, Jack London Square, Piedmont, and the whole string of hoods surrounding Lake Merritt, but it's a secondary city somewhat like Long Beach. Though Long Beach doesn't have as much political tension and its hipsters are far nicer. But in terms of size, scale, economy, industry, and weather, Oakland = Long Beach.

Do the hipsters and nerds get along in the Bay Area? Seems like there's a lot of crossover between those two.