Brooklyn is thriving! Uh, not really.

“We need to learn not only how to hype “hip” cities, but think about how to restore them as aspirational places for those who aren’t members of the privileged and cool set.”

Link: Forbes.com – The Hollow Boom of Brooklyn

That’s the last and probably best line of this great article on Forbes. The only thing is that over the last decade or so, you don’t become a member of the “cool set” – you simply proclaim yourself as one and become a filthy annoying attention-starved hipster; it can be done over night.

Yeah, Brooklyn has some pretty rough and fucked up areas; I blame that on this city’s administration back in the 50′s – 60′s who created projects to sweep minorities into. This caused sort of a ’Lord of the Flies’ situation for people being born into these projects and the neighborhoods surrounding them. With no money or resources they are literally battling each other and not just “the white man” any more. They saw and still see drugs, guns, and gangs as the only option in life – they know nothing else. This keeps the good people of these communities stuck and not able to move forward in most cases. I don’t see these parts of Brooklyn changing any time soon. However it would be funny to see a group of Hamiltons, Pipers, Joshes, and Colbys take one of their exploration walking tours out to these hoods and get the shit scared out of them.

That’s why I’m so against these fucking hipsters “discovering” the parts of Brooklyn that are doing fine. Where we have hardly any crime, drug or gang problems. Where rents – although affected over the last decade by North Brooklyn rent inflation – are still somewhat manageable even though I still think they’re ridiculous. Where our coffee/tea is still about a dollar. Where we eat non-organic, not overpriced food. Where we don’t need or want bike lanes. Where there is zero pretension. Where parks are filled with children and not 30 year old kidults trying to out do each others daily hipster costumes.

Here’s a little example of how it is a fact that privileged fly-over state fauxhemian fucking hipsters are the sole cause of our ridiculously high rents. In the late 90′s – aside from Williamsburg already seeing high rents – just about anywhere in Brooklyn, you could get a 1 bedroom for $500 – 600 a month. Now the rents are exactly double that which coincides with the time NYC/Brooklyn has had a hipster infestation. Never in this city’s history have rents doubled in one decade. It’s fucking insane and disgusting! And please hipster defenders; don’t tell me its the greedy landlords fault. They aren’t stealing the money – its gladly being handed over to them by idiot try-hards who want to live in a cool zip.

If the rents doubled from decade to decade here’s what we’d be paying now. Let’s say in 1900 the rent was $10. Now watch this – let’s double it per decade until the year 2010.

1910 – $20
1920 – $40
1930 – $80
1940 – $160
1950 – $320
1960 – $640
1970 – $1280
1980 – $2560
1990 – $5120
2000 – $10240
2010 – $20480

There’s the proof that hipsters are responsible for today’s ridiculous rents because rents have doubled since they arrived. If it were true that this has always been the trend, then we would pay an average of $20480 per month now. Stay above the line fuckos!