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Least SWPL cities in the US
10-30-2014, 01:33 PM
Every big city has SWPL-elements, but it's starting to gain popularity in regional cities as well (opposed to liberal college towns which have always leaned SWPL). Dumb events like "Zombie Pride Parades" which SWPL's love are common now in cities like Omaha, Des Moines, or Boise. Places which don't immediately come to mind when someone thinks SWPL.
Another hallmark of SWPL is a town crier mentality. These people are convinced their city is the best place in the world for the most part and get extremely angry if you disagree.
The major southern cities of Dallas, Houston, or Atlanta have strong SWPL elements, but nowhere near on par with the strongholds. In the stronghold cities, the SWPL-faction literally defines the culture of the place.
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Least SWPL cities in the US
10-30-2014, 01:45 PM
Quote: (10-30-2014 12:47 PM)Brian Shima Wrote:
Sp5 I didnt get the impression it was at all when I was there. Cattle what part of Houston are you talking about? It gets conservative as soon as you leave the downtown and hip areas . It's definetly not SWPL as fuck like you said. To your comment about Texas not being conservative, I'm not sure if your serious. Have you been to the thousands of towns across that state?!
Any large city is not going to be 100% SWPL, because they're big. To get 100% SWPL you need a suburb or college town, like Brookline or Amherst.
But Beacon Hill, the South End, the Waterfront, Back Bay, Harvard Square (considering Cambridge as a part of Boston) are pretty close to iconic SWPL. The ancestral homeland of SWPL. After all, you have all these huge expensive universities pumping out SWPL grads. Except for MIT, of course.
Depending on the style of SWPL, you could throw in Center Street in Jamaica Plain, Central and Inman Squares in Cambridge and a lot of South Boston now.
Quote: (10-30-2014 12:27 PM)lycosidae Wrote:
True dat...
I'm what you'd call a "conservative urbanite" -- Could never suburbanize my lifestyle.
This is why I like Dallas so much, it's got kind of the best of both worlds... DART has made some amazing progress in recent years at connecting the different neighborhoods and the cool public spaces downtown.
Austin is a weird case... I suppose that's why I listed it as an outlier...
You make Dallas sound pretty good, I'll give it a long look as a place to live if/when I go back to the USA.
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10-30-2014, 01:49 PM
Is SWPL culture peculiar to the US? Is this something that exists in the rest of the Anglosphere? Don't mean to derail the thread, just want to know if someone has any insights into this.
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10-30-2014, 02:49 PM
There's definitely some overlap with hipsters, but SWPL's tend to lean more towards "yipsters", the yuppie/hipster hybrid.
Hipsters for example think it's cool to drink PBR (at least they used to) or something cheap like that. Yipsters have got to have the latest local flavor of IPA.
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10-30-2014, 05:58 PM
Haha SWPLs are always crazy about places being walkable. That's probably another indication of how SWPL a city is. They have driving around town with a vengeance. Every city I've been to has the stuff that sp5 listed but you have to drive.
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10-30-2014, 06:13 PM
Someone mentioned the biker decked out in lance Armstrong gear. Seeing some asshole blocking a high volume lane on his six speed around here is like a beacon for swpl' breeding grounds. Don't get me wrong, they still tend to be daytime warriors and driving nomads(using cars to get to more swpls dense areas and not partying in non-swpl areas).
I bet Cattle Rustler would mistake many areas here for swpl, but he would be wrong. You have to have an adept eye for it here.
and always remember to speed past bicyclists. Don't be the neighbor that let a pony league 'triathlete' into the community.
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10-30-2014, 06:16 PM
I'm kind of SWPL. I just don't share the politics.
If only you knew how bad things really are.
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10-30-2014, 08:00 PM
Least?
I don't know...Stockton?
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10-31-2014, 05:25 AM
Nashville is ugly as hell to me for that reason. You have a lot of swpl types holed up in a country like city stuck in the hills. I don't fit in there at all, but my local friends like it a lot.
I think a lot of people failed to mention the boho amount of places compared to swpl count. Places like Atlanta seem really boho in the younger crowd as well as swpl. Ashville, North Carolina would fit that description aslo, even though it's a reasonably small city.
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10-31-2014, 06:37 AM
Hipster and SWPL aren't synonymous. I live in a city which is a world hipster/SWPL capital and am surrounded by them, there's a few distinctions between the terms.
Your textbook hipster is an early 20's heavily tattooed, "starving" artist or musician supported by their parents, lives in a bustling hipster neighbourhood, does copious amounts of MDMA, smokes hand-rolled cigarettes or American Spirit and only drinks PBR / whatever the area's hipster beer is.
Your textbook SWPL however is older, late 20's to mid 30's, and has a job in something corporate like P.R or law which coupled with them usually being in a relationship with a fellow SWPL, means they have quite a bit disposable income. They live also live in the inner city, but in a quieter, kid friendly areas, without all the street art and dive bars unlike their hipster cousins. They don't smoke, do drugs (anymore) or drink shitty cheap beer. They are the people who invented "foodie" culture, and moan endlessly about the environment, you get the idea. In short SWPL's are the basically the upper-middle class liberal elite. The boundaries are porous, many SWPL's are also some subset of hipster, usually more of the "indie" persuasion then hardcore hipster (yes there are many types of hipster, often with little in common) and virtually all SWPL's were hipsters of some sort when they were younger.
The main things the two big groups have in common is being of above average intelligence/education, living in the inner city, being obsessed with what is currently cool (which means different things to different groups), and having progressive politics. Also coffee.
In fact, I'd argue the same holds true for hipsters. Let's take the two largest kinds of hipsters. How much does a wannabe 90's grunge kid who wears black skinny jeans and flannel really have in common with a granola, grandma sweater wearing neo-hippie for example? Put them in the same room and trust me they don't get along... Hipster is really just a catch-all-term for postmodern youth culture.
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10-31-2014, 08:19 AM
True dat Deluge. Some of the hipster kids are cool and appear counter culture while some appear alternative culture but really are a moments notice away from a SJW battle cry. You can't differentiate them by appearance unless you're verse in your locality's diaspora
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10-31-2014, 10:36 PM
Now you see why I'm under the impression that NYC and L.A are SWPL heartlands. That is, heartlands of the upper-middle class liberal elite, at least in the white neighborhoods.
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11-01-2014, 07:40 PM
SWPL's prefer NYC to LA.
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11-01-2014, 10:40 PM
Manhattan & Brooklyn.