COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE DEATH OF COOL “The FrankenTuscan style is a bit like a normalizing virus looking for a healthy, vibrant, diverse host. When countercultures build up and make cool certain neighborhoods, they are seen by developers as suddenly desirable, so the developers move in, hoping to capitalize on this cool authenticity. But rather than succumbing to the local conditions of Montrose, for instance (tattoo parlors and halfway houses and comic book stores and so on) they put a veneer of normalcy over it. Make it safe enough that yuppies with slight aspirations toward hipsterism can understand and participate. These developers market a lifestyle just cool enough that the West U set will move in, but not so cool that it veers into rebellious anti-establishment cool. As a result, what’s great and exciting about these progressive neighborhoods becomes slowly watered down, normalized, made monocultural again. This virus seeks sameness–it seeks to flatten any bumps, to smooth out any rough edges. It is insidious and impossible to resist. Montrose will FrankenTuscanified, whether we like it or not. As every cool neighborhood in the history of the world has been. . . .” [MJ, commenting on Comment of the Day: Moving on from Montrose]
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Wait. There is a comic book store in Montrose? Where?!
I love pretentious comments. It’s why I was an English major.
Gus, you are going very “meta”
This is a Comment of the day
on a Comment of the day
on a Comment of the day
on a Comment of the day
on a post.
Whew!
Since when were tatoo parlors and halfway houses cool? I didn’t know they had a comic store, though.
With all due respect to MJ, the Montrose hasn’t really been cool since the 80s. While correct that builders of new residences bring a dreary sameness to the hood, in order to attract the demographic that can afford it, the residents in the rest of the houses are certainly not cool when they push the city to pass ordinances forbidding anyone from expressing any creativity with the older housing stock. The only difference between the two is that the new construction COULD be cool, if the buying public would consume them. The owners of the old houses are simply handcuffed.