By Rachel Dry
Sunday, January 25, 2009
If we have to ask, the answer's probably no.
But let's do it anyway.
Will Washington now be cool?
That query -- posed with a reflexive mix of irony, earnestness and a cautious eye toward upward-creeping rent -- came up last weekend as an aura of cool descended, temporarily, on this capital city and its inaugural pomp and party hats.
For answers, we turn to those for whom cool is a science, an academic pursuit. It's a fittingly Washington (and Outlook) thing to do.
First, what are we talking about when we talk about cool?
Carl Rohde has an idea. He teaches cultural sociology in the Netherlands and runs a Web site called "Science of the Time -- the science of cool." He oversees a network of trendspotting "cool-hunters" who troll major cities for the next next things. There are no cool-hunters in Washington. And he says he has no real plans to find any. He has also never been to our nation's capital. But he's game to consider the question anyway.
"The definition of cool is not hip, it's nothing that's painfully hip. With that, you are in fashion-model territory," he says. "Cool for us -- and this is how we train our cool-hunters -- is that something must be attractive and inspiring, with future growth potential."
So, kind of like a city you know?
He won't say for sure. (He's never been here, after all.) But Rohde and other practitioners of the business of cool-hunting do offer some insight into how the city might be transformed into a trend-setting hub.
THE PEOPLE
Not the people themselves -- no, not you, never you -- but there are too few of you and you're too spread out. That's what Peter Gloor, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, thinks. He's co-author of "Coolhunting: Chasing Down the Next Big Thing" and author of the forthcoming "Coolfarming" (for, presumably, when you'd rather grow the next big thing instead of chasing it down). To him, a cool city is like a beehive. He has studied trends in tourist destinations, and the hottest new ticket isn't necessarily overrun, but it is often crowded and difficult to get to.
On a recent Washington vacation, he thought the city seemed too empty. "I spent a typical museum week in D.C. with my kids and you walk and walk and walk and it never feels dense," Gloor says. "In Times Square, you could walk on the heads of people." A feeling of coolness, he says, is related to the density of a crowd: "We like to be together with other people, we like to share the same goals." A cool city is simply a place where everybody wants to be.
It's the capital, and the trappings of bureaucracy just aren't cool
The buildings of official Washington make it feel too planned, too stretched out, too grandiose, too impressive. It's not organic enough, according to Gloor.
The people
"Cool really starts with people -- people who are the gatekeepers of their communities," says DeeDee Gordon, co-founder of the consumer-insight firm Look-Look and a seasoned culture- and trend-watcher. Gordon is also a Maryland native and bristled a bit at the question. "Who says D.C. isn't cool?" she demanded. She says she uses the word cool to describe something that's significant and is going to influence culture, usually in a very positive way.
She admits, however, that she has neither seen nor heard nor discussed a cultural trend that started in Washington in a long time.
But she's optimistic that this could change, especially if the town is inundated by creative young people. "A lot is going to rest on the types of people that Obama puts in those open positions in the Plum Book," Gordon says, referring to the book of upper level government jobs that the president can fill. "If you put cool people into those positions, there could be a really interesting effect."
And then there are the particular people -- four new residents, to be precise -- who are off to a brisk start as trendsetters. Lisa Haverty is a cognitive scientist who runs a branding consulting firm. She says that people's perceptions of Washington as a cultural leader will change quickly. And one good way to measure the change is . . . the Web traffic to jcrew.com. The first daughters donned coats by the clothing company for their father's inauguration, and the look generated so much buzz that the Web site crashed.
It's the capital, and bureaucracy can be cool
"Washington is the place where the American president lives," cool-hunter Rohde reminds us. "During the last eight years, for many people around the world, that was not a very cool thing."
But now we have President Obama in residence. Or, as Rohde calls him, "Mr. Cool."
"In Washington, you have the association that all people have with bureaucracy: 'Oh this is government -- the total opposite of cool,' " Rohde says. "However, if this cool president manages to make the coolest people want to work for him and flock to the bureaucracy of Washington, he can change the city."
Because there are other things to think about. And by one measure, this city, tentatively stepping, or trying not to step on its hem, into the spotlight, will always be cool. At least according to Haverty's working definition of a hard-to-define term.
"Cool is something to shoot for. It's kind of an aspirational feeling -- maybe you are not quite as cool as you'd like to be."
So in that case, if we have to ask, maybe we are.
Rachel Dry is an assistant editor of Outlook.
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