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The caffeine curse: why coffee shops have always signalled urban change
- Xcelerate 11y ago> I love looking in through the outside window and seeing everyone on MacBooks, it’s busy, it’s exciting and yet you’ll get someone walking passed saying ‘Oh my god, look in there, everyone is on a laptop! What’s wrong with them! Why don’t they talk to each other!?’ This is funny, because it perfectly describes the difference in attitude between me and my father. He gets annoyed when he walks into a coffee shop and sees everyone on their phones and laptops. On the other hand, I think the atmosphere is quite cozy, and love taking my own stuff to work on to that kind of cheerful environment. I almost never start a conversation, but I do enjoy being around other people.
- nxzero 11y agoBoth are fun; that is just enjoying the feel of it working - and talking to people too.
- mysterypie 11y ago> I think the atmosphere is quite cozy, and love taking my own stuff to work on I can remember a time (1980's and earlier) when the modern version of the coffee shop didn't exist. The nearest equivalent was a bar: Dimly lit, filled with smoke, loud annoying music, aggressive people, and a waiter coming around every 10 minutes to ask/demand if you want another drink. If you dared bring in some papers or a book to read, you'd get dirty looks, rude comments, or worse. Thank god for the modern coffee shop and the shift in attitude.
- santaclaus 11y agoThe 1980s? I know a few coffee shops that are still like that.
- ido 11y agoMight be geographical? Many of Vienna's most popular cafés were established in the 1800s.
- cel1ne 11y agoMy exact thought. I also think elsewhere im europe there were cafes and bars where especially writers would work.
- phillc73 11y agoThis article from a few years ago is quite interesting regarding the literary history of London's coffee houses: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/england/london/articles/London-cafes-the-surprising-history-of-Londons-lost-coffeehouses/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united...
- Shengbo 11y agoYes, as far as I know the very first cafés in Europe opened in the 17th century in Vienna, Paris and London and then spread to Italy and the rest of the Austro-Hungarian empire over the following two centuries.
- DrJokepu 11y agoYep, there were revolutions in Europe that started out in coffee shops.
- tehwalrus 11y agoAnd yet the guy with "a PhD in coffee shops" in the original article says he thinks they contributed to political stability in 18th Century England because they give people a place to rant and feel better afterwards... (I never was convinced that you feel better after a rant, though. Rather, you have just worked out your "angry muscles".)
- elcapitan 11y ago
- xzi 11y agoI remember those days. And I couldn't go into the bars, being in my teens in the mid-to-late 80s. The best option was the all night places like IHOP. As long as you tipped well and weren't loud, they'd let you hold down a booth with nothing but coffee for most of the night. And then moved to a college town which already had 3-4 competing coffee shops in 1989. Felt like heaven. Doing homework on my old Powerbook. Sitting with friends, having a smoke, if by myself then reading something difficult and hoping a cute smart girl would notice.
- TorKlingberg 11y agoThe first Powerbook was released in 1991, and started at $4000 converted to current dollars.
- xzi 11y agoSorry if I implied the powerbook was being used in 1989. Didn't get that until my senior year. My brief reminiscence was more of a broad sweep of those years in that town. In 1989 I was still using (at home) an Atari 800 with matching disc wheel printer. Though I spent far more time in the computer lab with its Macs until I got my early graduation present. Kinda miss the lab days. I made more friends there in the sleep-deprived craziness of the overnights than I did in the coffee shops.
- Shengbo 11y ago>I can remember a time (1980's and earlier) when the modern version of the coffee shop didn't exist. Are you talking about the US here? I'm pretty sure they've been around in Europe and the Middle East for centuries.
- icebraining 11y agoYeah, in Lisbon one of those "modern" coffee shops has celebrated its 230th anniversary.
- cylinder 11y agoYeah, he's talking about the US only. My US suburb, quite large, never had a coffee shop until Starbucks in 2001. Sad.
- Shengbo 11y agoIt's interesting how long it took for the US to adopt them. I wonder why the coffee shop culture wasn't exported earlier. I wouldn't compare Starbucks to European style cafés though. It's sort of like the McDonald's of coffee shops. Not a good experience if you're looking for quality coffee and a pleasant atmosphere.
- cylinder 11y agoYeah Sbux is terrible, there is still a dearth of good cafes across the US. Only now is NYC picking some up via Australian imports.
- coldtea 11y ago>I can remember a time (1980's and earlier) when the modern version of the coffee shop didn't exist. The nearest equivalent was a bar. Nope, the nearest equivalent was a diner. Think "Happy Days" -- those things existed for a century.
- zappo2938 11y agoDepends where you live. I grew up in scientific communities and there were always cafes. They were very much like coffee shops but the only choice was regular or decaf coffee.
- marincounty 11y agoYea, but there were more little cafes(cafes that encouraged cousomers to stay.), books stores, magazine stands, and people just outside--actually talking to each other. The only look down was maybe a quick adjustment to the Walkman. In high school, I worked in a little place called cafe Nuvo. No one had laptops, but they talked. They wrote in journals. They read books. Talked about philosophy, and politics. Business people did their paperwork there. It was a neat place, but run horridly by a dentist who didn't know how to run a business. I recall even the fast foods joints encouraged kids/adults to hang out. I never felt pressured by establishment staff to order something, or leave. Was it better than today? In a way? I definetly miss the book stores. It was easier to talk to people back then, at least least for myself.
- wtbob 11y agoI remember pubs in the late 90s: dimly lit, filled with smoke, quiet rock music, quiet people, waitress who'd drop by when you called her over. I could bring in all my books and write a term paper for an entire afternoon, and they never minded. It was glorious and, unlike the coffee shop, illegal nowadays.
- dkopi 11y agoMy father used to blast me for years for being on my laptop all the time. Today he actually spends more time with his laptop at coffee shops than I do.
- RyanMcGreal 11y agoObligatory image: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*U36hBj8i-C7JJJxS4MP2HQ.jpeg https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*U36hBj8i-C7JJJxS4M...
- justifier 11y agowhat the hell is water?
- nxzero 11y ago“What’s the WiFi password?” Interesting; tomorrow I'm going to ask five people this exact question just to see what happens. EDIT: Obviously if you've read the article, it states this is like asking "do you know what time it is?" - that is it's an known excuse to start a conversation. Personally, I don't believe this, hence my experiment.
- WalterBright 11y agopenny-get-your-own-wifi
- nxzero 11y agoPenny: Hey, Sheldon, did you change your wifi password again? Sheldon: Yes, it's "Penny, get your own wifi." No spaces. ___ TV-Show: The Big Bang Theory Source: http://www.tvfanatic.com/quotes/hey-sheldon-did-you-change-your-wi-fi-password-again-yes-i/ http://www.tvfanatic.com/quotes/hey-sheldon-did-you-change-y...
- sergiotapia 11y agoAre you a bot?
- vemy 11y agoLooking through their other posts, I don't think so.
- fenomas 11y agoA bot that recognizes approximately-quoted pop culture references and provides their source would be a hell of a bot.
- Aelinsaar 11y agoOh boy... it's actually not that hard to imagine a future of spambot's running on neural networks. :/
- golergka 11y agoWhy is the author so quick to assume that everyone sees gentrification as something bad? There's been vocal opposition to it, but it doesn't mean that everybody feels that way.
- nxzero 11y agoWhy Is Gentrification Such a Bad Word? http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/gentrification-bad-word/396908/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/gentrifi...
- guard-of-terra 11y ago"seizing homes a family has owned for generations because of $150 owed in property taxes, even if that was just a clerical error; changing the locks while carrying out “repairs,” lying that the building is being condemned, or turning off utilities" Wow. That's totally not cool. High-profile officials should be made resign over cases like those.
- golergka 11y agoI started reading the article and it told about tricks that landlords used to evict renters. I don't understand. Why can't landlords just refuse to prolong the rent contract? It's their property — how come renters become a problem for them?
- mc32 11y agoWhen they don't have it people want it, and when they get it, they don't want it. Run down cities, rust belt cities wish for gentrification, people who live in places going down hill wish for it too, it brings safer neighborhoods, better stores, more jobs, on the other hand people decry rising rents and "changing the character" of the neighborhood, as if unemployment and the transients didn't also"change the character" of the neighborhood. Basically people want it both ways. Have their cakes and eat them too.
- paublyrne 11y ago
- omonra 11y ago"what everyone hates about urban change and gentrification – first come the creatives and their coffee shops, then the young professionals, then the luxury high-rises and corporate chains that push out original residents" I personally have no problem with it. And if we're talking about crappy and dangerous neighborhoods that are becoming upscale - I love it. If anything I think it's the sort of process that benefits majority of population while extracting a cost on a minority. If we look at total effect, it's certainly net positive.
- TulliusCicero 11y agoFun related fact: when an area is gentrifying, more development is actually correlated with LESS displacement for the existing residents, not more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/12/the-poor-are-better-off-when-we-build-more-housing-for-the-rich/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/12/the-p... "...the California Legislative Analyst’s Office recently released some positive data backing up this point: Particularly in the Bay Area since 2000, the researchers found, low-income neighborhoods with a lot of new construction have witnessed about half the displacement of similar neighborhoods that haven’t added much new housing."
- ehnto 11y agoMy uneducated guess might be that the new developments add more density and thus lower land/rent prices overall. I am not sure about that though. In my city as well, new development often come with affordability requirements for the exact reason of not displacing the existing community. Adelaide, Australia has a really cool process for careful urban development. The city makes sure many existing buildings stay put and that new developments accommodate them in various ways. It specifically limits high rises, with the term mid-rise mixed use zoning being able to describe most of the dense areas. The quip about coffee shops, creatives then professionals still rings true. But it stops short of high rises, and intentionally tries to mix all residents and wealth brackets.
- nefitty 11y agoI can't help interpreting your opinion as, "it's ok to kick the poor people out, as long as the upper classes, government and businesses prosper." People aren't numbers to throw into a mean function. That "net positive" argument is what has been used to excuse globalization's "there have to be some losers" philosophy, which disproportionately affects those already in poverty. A sense of community is one of the few things poor neighborhoods can offer their inhabitants. When those impoverished people are elbowed out and away from each other to make way for another coffee shop, it becomes hard to sympathize with the moneyed class's desire for late-night gourmet poke. Edit: Taking a look at TulliusCicero's WaPo link is making me reconsider my position.
- oska 11y agoI recommend the included YouTube clip. It's from a series of short documentaries called Look at Life [1], produced between 1959 and 1969 in the UK. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_at_Life_%28film_series%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_at_Life_%28film_series%29
- PascLeRasc 11y agoThis is very similar to PG's most recent essay about making Pittsburgh a startup hub: http://paulgraham.com/pgh.html http://paulgraham.com/pgh.html
- jkot 11y agoI think there was post while ago which tried to predict property price raise based on number of new coffee shops.
- groundCode 11y agoI find it interesting that Coffee shops have such a long standing history in London given that tea is basically the national drink.
- test1235 11y agoLondon is practically a country unto itself as far as customs and behaviours go.
- notahacker 11y agoThe coffee shops also served tea, and both were exotic novelties when the shops first opened. But tea became affordable as an everday drink for the common man much earlier because the British empire had access to so much of it. For all our famed fondness for tea, we make the top 50 for per capita coffee consumption ahead of some of the countries we import it from too.
- dkopi 11y agoCommenting on this post while I'm at a coffee shop myself. If I had to pick one city for having the best coffee shops, it would probably be Tel Aviv. The coffee is great, all coffee shops are laptop friendly (and gladly provide you with the wifi password), and people are very open to social interaction with strangers. At any given moment you'll find a designer working on a logo, an architecture student reading a post blasting gentrification, entrepreneurs discussing their new startup, or freelancers looking for a break from working at home. Tel Aviv coffee shops are also very dog friendly, and that's always a great conversation starter. I often find that "could you watch my laptop while i go to the bathroom?" followed by "hey, what are you working on?" is usually the best way to get to know new people. I even find that I'm a lot more productive when I work at a coffee shop instead of an office. A coffee shop provides with just enough distraction and people watching when you need to take a break, but not enough that you completely lose concentration and focus.
- tim333 11y agoWhat do you think of Tel Aviv as a place to hang out working on a startup compared to SF? I'm a brit thinking of a change of scene.
- lmm 11y agoThe great advantage of SF is its astonishingly consistent climate. I can't speak to Tel Aviv at all, but I'd say make sure you're comfortable working at typical temperatures there - I think that's a key (and unnoticed) part of productivity.
- dkopi 11y agoTel Aviv's weather is very comfortable. Hasn't snowed in tel aviv since 1951. Summers can get hot and humid, but air conditioners are the norm, and dress code is shorts and flip flops. And Tel Aviv has an awesome beach you can actually swim in. To quote wikipedia: Tel Aviv experiences a Mediterranean climate with hot summers and generally mild, wet winters. The average annual temperature is 20.2 °C (68.4 °F). Average temperature of the sea is 18–20 °C (64–68 °F) during the winter, and 24–29 °C (75–84 °F) during the summer. In January, the coldest month, the average high temperature is 18.3 °C (64.9 °F), the low temperature averages 11.1 °C (52.0 °F) and the average sea temperature is 19 °C (66 °F). August, the warmest month, averages a high of 30 °C (86 °F), and a low of 22 °C (72 °F), with the average sea temperature being 30 °C (86 °F). Generally, the summer season lasts about six months, from May to October. Three months – March, April and November – are transitional, while December, January and February are the coldest months. The city receives 528 millimeters (20.8 in) of precipitation annually, which mostly occurs in the months of October through May. Summers are generally dry, and the area experiences over 300 sunny days per year. SF has a lot of advantages over Tel Aviv (Being closer to Bay area VCs, being closer to the US market and customers, time zone differences) - but I'm not sure weather is one of them. Tel Aviv has a vibrant startup scene and lots of tech talent. Also - a lot of american expats. It's really easy to get by speaking only English and a few basic Hebrew words.
- coldtea 11y agoBecause they are not essential (like a bodega or gas station would be), and most are tied to a more laid-back, more bohemian lifestyle -- which means enough non-poor people are coming in the neighborhood to make them viable. Of course talking about "coffee shops" proper -- the poor just make do with Dunkin Doughnuts and the like...
- narag 11y agoWhat's a "bodega"? I'm surprised to see this word in English, also considered as a basic service (not a wine cellar then?). In Spanish it's one of the two evolutions of Greek "apotheke", the other one being "botica" (farmacy).
- coldtea 11y agoI know it with these meanings, but used it in the third form (here's from Wiktionary): (1) A storehouse for maturing wine, a winery. (2) A store specializing in Hispanic groceries. (3) (slang, New York) Any convenience store.
- narag 11y agoOK, "el chino" then.
- briandear 11y agoIt's New Yorker slang for 'small convenience store usually owner operated.'
- tim333 11y agoSome pics of the kind of thing refered to https://www.google.com/search?q=bodega&num=20&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjGq5uk0ZDMAhVC0hoKHWsqA_QQ_AUICCgC&biw=1093&bih=478 https://www.google.com/search?q=bodega&num=20&source=lnms&tb...
- Merad 11y ago> the poor just make do with Dunkin Doughnuts and the like Oh brother, HN's insulation from the real world is showing... If you can afford $2 for a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee on a regular basis, you probably are't poor. Most of them "make do" with a cup of Folgers/Maxwell House/etc brewed at home in a Mr. Coffee.
- ewanvalentine 11y agoI'm not sure why urban progress can be considered a 'curse'.
- Zelmor 11y agoI love myself some fine light roasted filter coffee as much as the next person. My biggest concern with these places, however is IT security. Anyone who hasn't played around with their laptops once receiving the wifi password, running their chosen network analysis tools/penetration suite and messing with people whose screen you might even see from two tables away, hands up in the air. I will not be first in line, mind you. Thus, I advise people to use their own connection or ssh to their home network when using even protected wifi in coffee shops. The burglar already has the keys to the house, and you are a willing guest to the table. Who will take responsibility for your safety if not you?
- forgetsusername 11y ago>Anyone who hasn't played around with their laptops once receiving the wifi password, running their chosen network analysis tools/penetration suite and messing with people I don't "mess with people" going about their business for fun.
- illumin8 11y agoAny Macbook has a default ignore all inbound traffic setting on their firewall - provided reasonable use of SSL services (Gmail, Google Apps, Dropbox, etc) and good web hygiene you would be totally safe surfing random insecure public wifi all day long.
- foldr 11y ago>Anyone who hasn't played around with their laptops once receiving the wifi password, running their chosen network analysis tools/penetration suite and messing with people whose screen you might even see from two tables away, hands up in the air. That's not ethical, and depending on exactly what you're doing, possibly not legal either. There's very clearly an implicit assumption that coffee shop wifi is for your own personal (and relatively light use). If you want to do anything else, you should get the permission of the owners.
- Zelmor 11y agoAs much as I agree with you, it is really naive to expect everyone to behave ethically. We wouldn't need security if the world was as such.
- Zenst 11y agoWell the insurance industry was somewhat born on the back of coffee with the formation of reinsurance for ships by a group of people who used to meet in a coffee shop that went on to form Llyods of London, and the World of reinsurance and insurance grew from there. One indeed wonders, how much business is done in a coffee shop's today in relation to the past compared to todays times.
- jackfoxy 11y ago...and the founding of Lloyds of London and the New York Stock Exchange were both associated with coffee shops.