Comments on: Has the neighborhood stopped being cool or have I just gotten older?

By: emilie

emilie — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 21:22:47 +0000

Destroy Everything and it will be OK again.

By: tk

tk — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 19:15:51 +0000

I stand corrected.

By: JRG

JRG — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 17:56:10 +0000

You’re a middle aged man now. It happens.

By: seafoam

seafoam — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 08:19:04 +0000

the next tech crash is nowhere in sight. Just rename the blog Oakland Oakland when you get here with the rest of the working class heroes that lived in the mission the last decade… everything is bigger and better – for instance OMC & booties

By: jared

jared — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 05:54:39 +0000

you guys should come buy buildings with us in downtown Stockton (like Detroit, but smaller, safer, warmer… but with plenty of cool old historic spaces.) The mortgage on the 5000sf warehouse we just bought in Stockton (6 blocks from the waterfront) is under $1k/mo.

By: ct

ct — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 04:33:56 +0000

These pics made me smile.

By: Allan Hough

Allan Hough — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 04:27:07 +0000

But now I just like staying in and watching TV.

By: Missionish

Missionish — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 03:49:01 +0000

And Allan, you just need to stop worrying about the blog being cool and hip. Just be your 35 year old self.

By: Missionish

Missionish — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 03:46:57 +0000

Yep.

By: Maple

Maple — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 03:06:40 +0000

No they don’t live in Brooklyn anymore, even Bushwick now is basically Valencia street with a bit of grunge left in very certain areas. What you’re describing has now moved to Baltimore, Portland (for now but rapidly becoming less so), Detroit and so on. Personally I’m buying a house in Detroit fairly soon

By: tk

tk — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 00:48:01 +0000

Both. It is undeniable that you get less “hip,” whatever that means, as you get older. I’m even older than you so I’m probably even less hip. I have to Urban Dictionary stuff all the time just to know what people are talking about. So yeah, part of it is just aging out of hip. Young people have to do their own thing, and it wouldn’t be their own thing if you were hip to it.

There’s also no denying the neighborhood has changed, fairly dramatically, in the past 10 years – forgot the past 20 years, since I started hanging out in the Mission. I know this is a familiar and boring trope, but it really is true that back then you could live in the Mission and have a part time job and do something cool on the side and be fine. People doing something cool on the side are part of what makes a neighborhood interesting and cool, at least in my opinion. You can’t do that anymore. You can’t rent a 3-bedroom in the Mission for $1500 and split it with 3 friends anymore. So voila, now only people who make a lot of money can be new renters, and people who used to be able to live there live in Oakland or Chicago or Brooklyn now.

So, both.

By: Vinnie

Vinnie — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 00:11:59 +0000

Thanks for enlightening. I feel the same.

Cool people and cool things will make all areas eventually less cool, because the uncool – the uncool people, the uncool stores, the uncool scene – wants so desperately to be near the cool, it will creep in, and suddenly you’re a resident alien. The uncool has more money, and money can push into anything.

By: Sam

Sam — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 23:15:10 +0000

That said, the Mission in the early to mid 2000s which I experienced was seemingly less hip than it was in the early to mid 90s. So yea, I dig the article

By: Sam

Sam — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 23:01:34 +0000

The area has gotten less hip, that’s undeniable.