I remember around six or so years ago as I walked around in East Village (Manhattan), it was around the end of the year so starting to get cold. You had some of the homeless issues that NYC faced but it was a bumbling city. Now this was all before big tech had opened its large offices in NYC and had people flooding into them but the changes take a few years to take effect. We’d go out, there would be amazing people, beautiful women, and the vibe was quite fun. Maybe I was just younger and less bitter back then, who really knows?
Every passing year though, you felt it. Williamsburg had gone from a hipster type of mecca to now being mini-San Francisco, with the exact demographic from San Fran moving there. Even the bars and nightclubs in NYC started to have less foreign talent and started to resemble a street in Portland more. You knew that something was up but you just couldn’t put a finger on it. Then, as the pandemic hit, you saw it.
New York was no longer the scrappy tough old-school New York. The macho finance guys and hot models that surrounded them in nightlife were slowly replaced by techies and women wearing beanies with button ups. You saw it play out with the pandemic as a once tough city that survived so much was begging for vaccine mandates. While beautiful women were still around, you slowly started to see a drop in quality. Bars which once had good ratios slowly leaned towards being sausagefests.
I spoke to my friend who was born and raised in Austin about his experience with Californians invading the city over the past few decades. From what my friend says, the transition happened over the years where Austin slowly turned into the Bay Area. Soon the Texas blonde bombshell got replaced by trigglypuffs everywhere. Now you couldn’t even joke around without someone trying to get you cancelled and fired. Austin became a giant tech company where free-speech isn’t allowed and the quality of women took a nose dive.
It wasn’t always like that for either city.
Whether NYC or Austin, it wasn’t always like that. People used to live freely, beautiful women were everywhere, cool guys abound, free speech was the law, and everyone enjoyed good times. In fact, older Californians I talk to say that even California used to be quite a place to be in culturally and socially. Then at some point, the decline began in California and spread like a cancer everywhere else.
Whatever is currently happening to NYC and already happened to Austin can happen anywhere.
It tends to almost go in stages.
I feel as if there is a process to the decline of a city, here is my best take at laying it out.
1. The growth of the hidden gem.
Now this is the part where the city is under the radar and people are slowly discovering it. Some stumble there by chance and some were lucky to be born there. The locals are nice and hospitable, people friendly, vibe welcoming, and you feel free being there. You live your life in peace and go out to see friendly faces and if you are a bachelor, a lot more beautiful women than one can ever ask for. It is a well kept secret.
2. The early adopters get the city on their radar.
At this point, good times happen and people start to slowly get a wind of them. Maybe their friends on social media are out and about taking pics and stories, further drawing them to the city. Now the group moving in tends to be more of the ones looking for under the radar places. Think of it as a New Yorker not wanting to move to Florida because everyone they know moves to Florida. The people tend to be your independent artist types who want to escape attention but also want a place that has freedoms along with at least some things to do.
3. The “cool kids” try to move in.
The 10k Instagram follower crowd, hot girls taking selfies everywhere, the social media clout chasers, and you get the gist here. At this point, you still get a lot of hot girls and relatively laid back cool guys who just want to experience something new and unique. While attractive and cool, this group moving en masse to a certain area inevitably makes it go downhill as they spread the word about how cool it is.
4. The blogs, magazines, and social media hype it up.
Now the place is officially “on the radar”. It makes rankings as the fastest growing city, the city with the best economy, the trendy city, and everyone is writing articles about how great it is. You just have to move here, it will change your life, I promise. As soon as this starts happening, the decline has unofficially begun.
5. The wannabes, tech bros, and try hards move in.
Typically from cities where clout and social image is everything, the main ones off the top of my head are San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Toronto. Instead of attractive women and actual alpha males, you get the brogrammers and try hards flooding into the city so they can “get some pussy bro!”. Along with them come some of their ugly and plain-looking girlfriends who are obsessed with social media. As soon as you get tech bros talking about how alpha they are and how many fights they’ve won, the vibe goes downhill. Unfortunately, this crowd has money so they can afford real estate in the city. I will label this group as parasites as they are just trying to live off the land without contributing that much to it.
6. The crowd previously mentioned makes themselves at home and becomes a majority.
Years ago, you’d have the one odd guy that would stick out like a try hard along with his crew. Now, that guy and his type have become the majority which has driven the attractive women away from the nightlife, they prefer house parties instead now. The self-righteous brogrammer has made himself at home and many like him have taken over. An odd trait of this clout chasing crowd consisting of try hards and largely average looking women is that they are obsessed with social media, trying desperately to be like the attractive crowd that initially came to the city.
7. The vibe is officially ruined.
Karens become the norm, politics takeover everything, people become combative, and everyone is clout chasing instead of contributing to the culture. What was originally artists and independent people giving the city it’s character are now commercialized drones that parrot every point from mainstream media. Now the city has gained a reputation of being a place every wannabe cool kid in college and in their twenties just has to go to so they can take selfies. Everyone and their grandma has heard of the city now.
8. The official decline is here.
As rents go up, so does the crime rate and homelessness. Now, the rollercoaster has finally started its descent at full speed. Take a look at Austin’s 6th street and you learn fast what a decline looks like. Now come all of the degenerates of society moving to the city which has long been popular. Meanwhile, the people who made it popular in the first place can only sigh as they plan their next move, seeing a city that has long been degraded.
What can you do about it?
The fact of the matter is that unless we get brave leaders who are good at vetting people that come into amazing communities, this will happen. Yet, it’s a paradox because such communities are “open minded”, not the fake open-mindedness of The Bay Area where people preach equality yet look down on anyone that doesn’t work for the same tech giant as them. The kind of “open minded” attitude I talk of is one that welcomes all walks of life and hears out all opinions without the other side fearing for their lives. Such an attitude would never close off the borders.
It is always inevitable, I think about now as I am in South Florida. The fact is that it is way better than the city which is now a social, cultural, and literal dump called NYC (thankfully the current mayor’s term ends this year). As much as I have loved it, I see how the rents are skyrocketing and am left asking how soon before the area turns into the next San Francisco.
I can do nothing to stop it, none of us really can. All we can hope for is that perhaps the parasites find another city to ravage or maybe the leadership makes it tougher for people to leech off of the land and its beautiful culture. I do think that it is time society pushed back against techies and white hipsters ruining their cities. Nashville is going through the very same problems that Austin went through because surprise surprise, Californians got it on their radar.
Instead, savor the good times. When you know that the good times are limited and not going to last forever, you savor them more. Savor the good times, be grateful, and then as things go downhill (they inevitably will) look for your new gem. You won’t be alone with others like yourself if you discover it soon enough.
