What do Dopers think are some up-and-coming cities that are starting to have, or are poised to soon get, a reputation for a progressive culture? Austin still has the “Keep Austin Weird” slogan but has IMO outgrown itself since the Dell-fueled influx of people moving in. The roads weren’t designed for that many people driving at once, and the congestion really drags down the vibe, man.
I know a couple people who just moved out of their beloved Seattle neighborhood, and I think there was a thread here recently about that city’s downhill slide, with rising homelessness and skyrocketing housing costs. (Gee, can’t imagine how those could be related.)
So … what’s the next small- to mid-size city that will be the next poster child for progressive urban living?
Being Amurrican I used cities in the U.S. as examples, but I’m not averse to hearing where the new, I dunno, Amsterdam might be.
Worst part of visiting my in-laws is the Austin traffic. It’s hellish- doesn’t seem to matter what time of day, or where you are- the roads are just jammed.
My big worry for Austin is whether all those high-rise condo/apartment buildings are going to be able to keep up high levels of occupancy at the rents they’ll need to in order not to decline and become low income. I mean, at some point this new hippie/hipster/liberal city will arise, and all the young, fresh out of school professionals will flock there, and at that point, who’s going to want to live in a one-bedroom high-rise condo for $1800/month that’s nearly to 360/71?
As for an answer to your question, I suspect it’ll be somewhere in the South or Midwest. We’ve already got similar places in the East, West and South-Central (Austin/New Orleans), but I can’t really think of anywhere like that in the Midwest or Deep South.
Ithaca, New York. I know of someone who’s transgender and active in the music scene there; seems like a very liberal place. Might be too small to register nationally as a poster child, as only 30,000 live there.
I would think Portland, OR has to be losing some appeal as well with all the protesting there.
For the Midwest, I’d nominate Madison, Wisconsin; it’s had a hippie / super-liberal vibe for decades (in no small part due to the presence of the University of Wisconsin), and the area has grown pretty substantially in the time since I went to school there in the 1980s. The city itself is at about 250K residents, and the metropolitan area is at about 650K.
I think it might surprise. We shouldn’t be looking for an established lefty city but one with appeal that will draw young lefties. Boise, maybe. Or Provo. Somewhere in the Mountain Time Zone.
The primary cause of these things isn’t leftiness - though it helps - but more cheapness of housing. That combined with young people and an arts scene makes things happen.
Columbus, Ohio. It’s got similarities with Austin: a huge state university and a state capitol. The weather, while lousy at times, doesn’t have the brutal winters you’d get in Chicago.
I’m keeping an eye on Newark, New Jersey. Yes, it is in many ways a disaster right now (which could have been, and was, said of Brooklyn neighborhoods like Bedford Stuyvesant and Bushwick, now hipster Meccas), but it’s NYC-adjacent, served by public transit, and housing is inexpensive (at least compared to its neighbors Hoboken and Jersey City, not to mention New York City).
So what exactly do you mean by the word hippie? Back in the 1960s hippies were definitely low income–mostly having minimum wage jobs when they were working… The kinds of places so far mentioned generally don’t meet this criteria.
It won’t be a city, just a run-down part of a city. Like Deep Ellum or North Oak Cliff in Dallas. Meanwhile, the people in the suburbs will clutch their pearls about how that part of town was ruined.
My guess is that Madison will finally get filled up and will crawl along I-94 until it takes root in some part of Milwaukee.
You know, I had a hard time describing it even as I was drafting the O.P. I didn’t necessarily mean the specifics of the 60s-style hippies per se … I guess “vibrant arts scene, widespread mass public transportation, access to affordable housing” while perhaps less colorful, is a more accurate description of the vibe I was trying to connote.
If other Dopers have a better wording than my “I know it when I see it” please chime in!
Ithaca is firmly in the “cool college town” category. I don’t think it’s big enough, either. I’ve spent some time there in the past year, since my son started school there. If we’re talking NY cities, how about Buffalo?
Athens, Georgia. It doesn’t have great public transportation, but it otherwise fits the bill pretty well. College town, island of blue, good arts culture. Its music scene is of course nationally famous.
I’ve spent a little time in Raleigh, NC recently. While it doesn’t have the overtly hipster vibe of an Austin or a Portland, the population seems to skew young and somewhat liberal. It feels a bit like a blue oasis in a red desert.
