Cool neighborhoods come and go.
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Nailing down what makes them cool in the first place is a complex art. By the time the hordes learn that an area is trendy, it’s probably not anymore.
Viewed in that way, the art of being cool is sort of like birdwatching. Once the bird knows it’s being spied on, it instinctually flees. Or maybe it’s more like porn—you can’t define ‘cool’ easily, but you know it when you see it.
Debates on what cool actually means, I think we can trust the global experts at Time Out to make that distinguishment. Back in September, the company released a ranking of the coolest 38 neighborhoods in the world.
The results are the hard work of its dozens of on-the-ground writers and editors stationed around the world. They’ve taken their underground knowledge and used it to rank the world’s coolest neighborhoods.
Can you name them? With neighborhoods from Asia to North America to Africa, it’s a pretty wild and unpredictable list. And I mean that in the best way possible.
Top 5 coolest neighborhoods in the world
No. 1: Notre-Dame-du-Mont in Marseilles, France
It’s all about vibrant grit in Notre-Dame-du-Mont. According to local expert Alicia Dorey, it’s a mashup of characters like ‘punks and their dogs, women in colourful robes, and salty old sailors sipping 8.6 beer’.
But there’s also plenty of street art and fine art in the scene. With dozens of galleries alongside the neighborhood’s restaurants, shops, and bars, it’s a decidedly artsy area.
But let’s keep that word ‘punk’ in mind; this isn’t a curated vision of ‘cool’. It’s a very organic one.
No. 2: Mers Sultan in Casablanca, Morocco
Local writer Lauren Schenkman insists that Mers Sultan is the core of the city’s young artists and cultural thinkers. There are few markers of ‘trendy’ neighborhoods—no super-cool coffee shops or record stores.
Instead, you can find hole-in-the-wall cafes and establishments where the old guard of old men and daring young graffiti and EDM artists are rubbing elbows. The architecture is also worth noting, with plenty of Art Nouveau and Art Deco callbacks.
No. 3: Pererenan in Bali, Indonesia
I’m going to be blunt about this selection—I’d pay good money to know what locals think about Pererenan being Bali’s coolest neighborhood. I’m curious about that because much of the neighborhood’s appeal seems hyper-focused on tourists… and that’s very rarely a key ingredient in cool. (Cool is homegrown, not marketed.)
But in Pererenan, you can find eclectic shops galore, pristine beaches, cafes designed for lazing, and other tranquil settings like rice paddies and ‘warungs’, or local shops and businesses.
According to Time Out’s expert, Cheryl Sekkappan, the neighborhood is quickly changing.
No. 4: Seongsu-dong in Seoul, South Korea
According to local expert Jocelyn Tan, this neighborhood has evolved immensely over the last few years. Historically, Seongsu-dong in Seoul has been an industrial neighborhood home to leather and shoemaking warehouses.
Today, those warehouses and factories have been flipped into hyper-cool galleries, boutiques, shops, cafes, and more. But fashion hasn’t entirely disappeared. Seongsu-dong is now the country’s chicest shopping district—and one of the world’s coolest neighborhoods.
No. 5: Kerns in Portland, United States
Portland’s Kerns took fifth in Time Out’s report on the coolest neighborhoods in the world—which might not surprise those who already see the city as America’s hipster capital. Personally, I’m a little floored that Portland came out ahead against Miami’s Little River, which took the No. 12 spot.
If you want to dive into how Kerns nabbed fifth place, start here.
