A Hipster Invasion at the H Street Festival in DC

Originally published at Mobility Lab.

While visiting the H Street Festival northeast of Union Station in Washington DC last weekend, it was apparent that hipster culture is booming and that many sideline hipsters like myself are more than open to exploring the hipster part of town. Rumor has it that the festival expanded from 35,000 to 65,000 attendees from last year to this year, although I haven't seen that verified anywhere yet. Travel & Leisure magazine has taken note, placing H Street in 6th place among "America's Hippest Hipster Neighborhoods." The top 5 are:

1. Silver Lake in Los Angeles
2. San Francisco's Mission District
3. Brooklyn's Williamsburg
4. Chicago's Wicker Park
5. Portland's Pearl District

The magazine measured hipness by walkability, coffee shops, food trucks, farmers' markets, locally owned bars and restaurants, artistic community, and various ways how people talk about the neighborhood. Many of these variables are the same ones we're seeing again and again in measures of the most valuable real-estate markets of today and the future.  Photos by Paul Mackie