Hobart hipster mystery

IN a hipster list that’s sure to have our cross-strait cousins choking on their chia porridge, Hobart is officially more happening than Melbourne.

A survey has named Hobart as Australia’s No. 3 hipster city, behind the Gold Coast and Cairns.

Geelong ranked fourth, with Melbourne trailing in fifth place.

The hipster city index compared population density, per 100,000 people, to trendyliving indicators like vegan eateries, coffee shops, record stores, tattoo studios and vintage boutiques.

The study — commissioned by US-based global relocation company MoveHub, which tracks the world’s desirable places to live — compared 446 cities in 20 countries.

The owners of two of Hobart’s renowned hipster havens were surprised that the city was ranked so highly.

Mendel Zotz-Wilson owns North Hobart cafe and bar Room for a Pony, and doesn’t believe his establishment is overly hipster.

While he has seen the hipster movement grow in Hobart in the recent times, he disagreed with the findings.

“Whatever hipster is, we’re not as much of that as mainland cities like Melbourne and Sydney,” Mr Zotz-Wilson said.

“I lived overseas for years in Berlin, and I remember when I came back, I thought it was funny that what you would call a hipster was about 12 people in all of Hobart.

“But it’s significantly increased since then in the five or six years I’ve been back, it’s definitely growing.”

Monks & Co barber shop owner Brady Monks said Hobart’s hipster scene was “getting there,” but agreed with Mr Zotz-Wilson that it was trailing behind interstate cities.

“Melbourne came number five so they should be pretty angry, I think that’s pretty much the most hipster place on Earth,” Mr Monks said.