Austin, Texas: North Loop - what happens when hipsters colonize the suburbs

[Dan]

Austin doesn't have much in its built environment that can be considered "urban" in the Northeastern or Midwestern sense. As Austin became "weirder", hippies, creatives and hipsters worked with what they got, and retrofitted the many suburban-style commercial strips anchoring the neighborhoods surrounding the central city.

North Loop is a quintessential Austin neighborhood; in-your-face alternative, yet in a suburban context - beat-up strip plazas, and small tract houses dating from the 1920s through the 1950s sited on large lots. There's few sidewalks, but lots of cyclists and scooters. In North Loop, you'll find vintage resale shops, a 1960s-style radical bookstore, a BDSM boutique, and tattoos on the bodies of what seems like every resident and visitor. The yuppies are making inroads, scraping off land for their corrugated metal and dryvit-sided po-mo habitats. Will they bring their yoga studios, day spas, baby boutiqies and organic bistros with them? Time will tell, but the Magic 8-Ball says "ALL SIGNS POINT TO YES".

North Loop is a funky little neighborhood, but make no mistake: it's not what this Yankee would call "urban".

[Maister]

I've never seen anything quite like this before. A four-square with mod looking carports?

It's taken a lot of images to get it across, but after a few Austin threads I am beginning to get a 'feel' for the built environment around there. It is different.

[hilldweller]

What's with all the trash bins out in front of the businesses, do they always leave them out like that or was it trash day? Why not a shared dumpster (or would that not fit with the whole "keep Austin weird" vibe they're after)?

[FueledByRamen]

Wow, I never considered the North Loop area to really be suburban. Glad to see things are picking up there. Just a couple of years ago, that retail area (between Ave G and Ave F, I think?) was lifeless.

[Dan]

What's with all the trash bins out in front of the businesses, do they always leave them out like that or was it trash day? Why not a shared dumpster (or would that not fit with the whole "keep Austin weird" vibe they're after)?

I don't think separate trash bins are a deliberate attempt to "keep Austin weird", but I don't think anybody's in a hurry to clean up the appearance of the area either. There's one thing Austin and my hometown of Buffalo have in common, I've noticed: a predominant school of thought that disheveled and gritty places are "authentic" and "real", and therefore good; while areas that are too neat or clean are "sterile" and "soulless", and therefore bad.

Another similarity between Austin and Buffalo, very much in evidence in North Loop: weeds growing from curbs, sidewalk cracks, and the like are everywhere, and usually left untrimmed. Austin is a very "weedy" city in more than one way. For a city that is so environmentally conscious, Austin can often feel dirtier than other large cities in Texas.

[Rygor]

There seems to be a preponderance of Volvos, Priuses, and other small compacts. Also a good mixture of ex-hippie looking housing and yuppie modern homes and townhouses. The types of stores, cyclists, and general vibe scream of a "Stuff White People Like" atmosphere.

[TexanOkie]

Wow, I never considered the North Loop area to really be suburban.

I think Dan was saying it's a suburban development pattern. Really, North Loop (and a majority of Austin between 183/Research, 290/Ben White, and Lake Austin) is really only considered urban due to it's location in proximity to the rest of the Austin metro.

[jmello]

Looks like a hipster slum. Also looks alot like Charlotte and Durham, NC.

[ICT/316]

I would have to say Austin is different from most of the rest of Texas.

Bill