This document analyzes which Denver neighborhood has the highest concentration of hipsters based on the location of breweries, dive bars, independent coffee shops, and other hipster-frequented establishments. The analysis finds that the Five Points neighborhood has the most hipster spots, particularly numerous craft breweries. It also presents a "cost distance" analysis of the shortest bike path between two hipster brunch locations. The conclusion discusses how hipsters are indicators of gentrification in formerly low-income neighborhoods like Five Points.

1. Here There Be Hipsters
By
Erik King
Research Question: Which Denver neighborhood is your best
chance of running into a hipster?
Background: You used to enjoy walking around the neighborhood.
Going to the local dive bar for a 2 dollar PBR and watching a live
band. Maybe even going to an independent record store and buying a
vinyl disc of the band you heard the night before. Suddenly it
happens, a white male with a beard and a handlebar mustache, black
skinny jeans, an ironic t-shirt and sporting a man bun attempts to tell
you that the music he listens too is not only superior to your band but
that they are so obscure that you probably have never heard of them.
Yes,you’ve encountered a hipster.

2. .
But what is a hipster?
Hipsters are the friends who sneer
when you cop to liking Coldplay. They're
the people who wear t-shirts silk-
screened with quotes from movies
you've never heard of and the only ones
in America who still think Pabst Blue
Ribbon is a good beer. They sport
cowboy hats and berets and
think Kanye West stole their sunglasses.
Everything about them is exactingly
constructed to give off the vibe that they
just don't care.
— Time, July 2009[10
Data Sources:
1. Body Art Licenses,County Boundary Lines, Food Stores, Liquor Licenses,
Statistical Neighborhoods and Street Centerlines, http://data.denvergov.org/ , 2014-
2015, Accessed on November 7, 2015.
2. Independent Coffee Shops, http://geoservices.tamu.edu/Services/Geocode/ , 2015,
Accessed on November 9, 2015.
3. Brunch Heat Map, http://denver.eater.com/ , 2015, Accessed on November 15,
2015.
4. Denver Breweries, http://www.yelp.com/denver , 2015, Accessed on November
15, 2015.

3. Method ofAnalysis: There are places within Denver, or any major city for that
matter, that a hipster would not step foot into, unless that hipster was doing it
ironically. These include Starbucks, McDonalds, Wal-Mart, basically, any
place where the commoner goes. With that in mind, I have populated my data
with places that I think any self-respecting hipster would want to be seen at.
The list of spots that I have compiled include breweries,dive bars, independent
coffee shops, tattoo/body piercing shops and select food stores.
Detail ofAnalysis: Hipster Drink was exported from the Liquor License
shapefile and Hipster Food was exported from the Food Stores shapefile. These
two shapefiles as well as the Body Art Licenses shapefile were added from
Denvergov.com. Hipster Coffee was geocoded and both Hipster Brunch and
Denver Breweries were added manually. All of these layers were
merged into one layer called Hipster Merge. I did a spatial join with
Hipster Merge and the Statistical Neighborhood layers which produced
the map on the right.

4. Cost Distance Analysis: This hipster, on the modern penny farthing, needs to
get from one brunch spot to another. I converted the bike paths to raster than I
made a cost distance model which shows the shortest path from Telegraph to
Fuel Café. The flow chart in the bottom right corner is the model I used to
develop the path.

5. Results for the hipster hotspot map: I produced an excel spreadsheet,as shown below, showing the top ten Denver neighborhoods that an
encounter with a hipster might occur. The reason for the five points neighborhood being on top is the fact that eight Denver breweries are in the
area with more soon to open.
DenverNeighborhood HipsterSpotCount
Five Points 25
Speer 18
Capitol Hill 16
Highland 14
CityPark West& Union Station 11
CheesmanPark 10
CongressPark,Berkeley&Lincoln
Park 8
Results for the costdistance model: The Cherry Creek bike path to the South Platte bike path may be the shortest path between the two brunch
spots but it’s also too mainstream for the hipster riding the penny farthing. On his travels, he will encounter many, normal people all doing many,
normal things. Will he be able to forgive his friends for moving brunch to a different location?
Conclusion: Why should you care about hipsters? Maybe someday they will in your
neighborhood, taking pictures of their brunch or exclaiming loudly the fine virtues of
Pabst Blue Ribbon. The fact that more hipster spots, according to my research,can be
found in Five Points speaks volumes. This Denver neighborhood was,at one point, a
predominantly African-American neighborhood and now gentrification is sweeping
through it. Is it fair to blame hipsters? No, not really. All they’re doing, ironically, is
following a trend.