Observation:

Having cruised a couple of once seriously funky and interesting art/design, architecture areas that have been around for decades… gentrification really fucks them up. Largely boring and predictable, mostly taken over coffee table books, tchotchkes, overpriced clothes and such. Plenty of not-cheap coffee shops with decent (limited, not creative) food.

As I said, gentrification. Rentiers and too much money and… <yawn>