Hard Words About Suburban Hipsters

When we heard that Urban Outfitters was making its big move into suburban malls and Main Streets, we resisted making grand statements about a broader cultural shift. Selling urban hip in the suburbs didn't make the suburbs hip, after all. Now comes some hard numbers—fittingly, from Mike's Hard Lemonade--that "suburban cocktail culture" has overtaken city clubbing among our nation's young people. A survey conducted for the makers of the bottled alcoholic drink found that "78% of American adults now say going to a BBQ and get-together in the suburbs is more fun than going out to bars and clubs in the city. And it's not just suburbanites that feel that way -- 72% of adults living in urban environments say so as well."

While we suspect that "the suburban cocktail culture" is a confection akin to Mike's new "mike-arita," which seems to have spurred the survey, it's no surprise that young urbanites are more fond of gathering around a Hibachi than club-hopping: urban-hip as they may be, the majority of Americans under 30 grew up in the suburbs--the first generation for whom that is true—and backyard entertaining makes them feels at home.