Anyone move to Austin....and hate it? (Houston, Spring: transplants, budget)

[jread]

Originally Posted by TheHarvester

I can't think of any place I've ever been that's as hollow and pointless as the pretentious talentless heiress who gets so much unmerited media attention.

Probably Dallas and a few areas of California.


BTW, I read a book that compared San Antonio and Austin like this:

"Austin and San Antonio are like two sisters:

San Antonio is the older one.... a quiet, sweet girl who is very family-oriented. She stayed home after finishing high school to take care of the family.

Austin is the younger sister... the wild child. She went off to college after high school, dyed her hair pink, got her nose pierced and started smoking pot."



Yeah, that about sums it up.

[readymade]

Hee hee, I like how smoking pot & dying your hair pink makes you a "wild child"!

My GRANDMOTHER dies her hair pink & smokes pot! (OK, just kidding, but still)

[jabbit]

Originally Posted by jread

Austin is the younger sister... the wild child. She went off to college after high school, dyed her hair pink, got her nose pierced and started smoking pot."

and is starting to drink out of corporate hippie beverages while hanging with yuppies because she has a hard time finding down to earth folks like it used to be.

[jread]

Originally Posted by jabbit

and is starting to drink out of corporate hippie beverages while hanging with yuppies because she has a hard time finding down to earth folks like it used to be.

Ain't that the truth!!!!!

Austin is becoming a victim of its own success.

[MovingForward]

When I lived in Austin as a child--1955-1965--there was nothing "hip" about it. No crowds, no traffic, low-key--typical small southern city, which also happened to be the capitol of Texas. When I went to college in Austin--1976-1980--it had morphed into a thoroughly cool place: music EVERYWHERE (Springsteen for $3.00 at Armadillo World Headquarters; Antone's was still an organically cool place, rather than the pretentiously cool place it became); there was ONE Whole Foods Market (in Austin only); traffic wasn't bad at all; there was PLENTY to do on Sixth Street (which wasn't all college students only); saw some of the best theater I've ever seen (including Chicago and NYC theater); the restaurants were diverse and superb; and there was no how-cool-are-we-now anxiety hovering around the edges of everyone's consciousness. Austin just was what it was. Now, though, it's turned into something different. There is a hyper-consciousness of its "cool" self that has ruined it. Worst of all: the citizens have allowed development to run rampant, and this is the saddest thing of all. Cities grow and change, for sure, but the way they do so is up to those who live there.

Austin is my hometown, and it always will be, but the Austin that used to be was a whole lot better, and a whole lot more genuine, than the Austin that is.

[TheHarvester]

Originally Posted by MovingForward

When I went to college in Austin--1976-1980--...

It's not fair to the rest of us. Don't. Just don't.

The stories I hear about the 1970s and 1980s in Austin are endless and wonderful. I still love it here, but it certainly has changed just as you described so perfectly in your "brief history of Austin" post.

Even when I moved here in 1990, Sixth Street was a place full of music clubs, not shot bars, and people went there to hear live music, not to get drunk and listen to cover bands. The Barton Creek Greenbelt was so uncrowded, you could swim nude almost anywhere along the creek without bothering anyone. Now every decent swimming hole is a mob of beer-swilling kids who leave trash everywhere. And I sound like I'm about 400 years old, don't I...

[austinese]

I have a different perspective. I moved here in 83' for a high-tech job. I was in my late twenties at the time. I liked Austin back then but I thought that I had moved here five years too late. It seemed like what was cool about the city was basically the 6th St. music scene which loses a good deal of its appeal when one nears thirty. SoCo and the Warehouse District didn't exist, and the downtown was a pretty dead place except during weekend evenings on 6th St.

Back then, Austin was hyping itself just as much and, in my opinion, in an even brasher manner. I remember feeling that the hype was a bit overblown and it started to get on my nerves. The deep and bloody real-estate crash of the late eighties didn't end the hype but, perhaps, transformed it to be more reality-based and less irritating in nature.

The company I worked for was based in California and many of its California-based employees were enticed financially to move to Austin. Many ended up going back to the West Coast as soon as they could. They didn't like the heat, the lack of sophistication, and dealing with the nasty traffic patterns that existed back then as well.

I actually find the people here easier to take nou"w as opposed to 20 years ago. I remember hearing complaints about the super-cool, snooty crowd that used to hang out at the original Whole Foods on Lamar. I think that as people mellow with age, the "cooler than tho attitude starts to wane, so I don't see much of this attitude currently in regards to the people I know.

I think Austin now is much more diverse and interesting than it used to be. Of course, it's less affordable and not as convenient as before, but I still prefer the present Austin.

[TheHarvester]

Originally Posted by austinese

I have a different perspective.

I loved reading your different perspective. Thank you. That cured my blues.

[MovingForward]

austinese: I strongly disagree with you. Austin wasn't "hyping itself" at all. Most people in the U.S. couldn't even have located it on a map back then. And the Whole Foods was new, and nobody--much less the "super-cool, snooty crowd"--hung out at Whole Foods. In fact, nobody "hung out" there: it was just a natural foods store. And the "lack of sophistication" is precisely what made Austin cool, that's what I'm talking about. And your comment--"much more diverse and interesting"--is also exactly what I'm talking about: just silliness. Austin was always "diverse." Humanity is "diverse"--that's the stuff of literature, after all--unless you require that there be an amalgamation of languages and races and countries of origin in order to be "diverse." Well, that's one kind of diversity, too, I guess. d The Austin of today is almost unrecognizable. For chrissakes, we used to have to drive 30 minutes into the country to eat at The County Line. Nope, sorry. Austin was way, way different back then. But you'd have a difficult time knowing that, since you only arrived in '83.

[austinese]

I strongly disagree with you. Austin wasn't "hyping itself" at all. Most people in the U.S. couldn't even have located it on a map back then. And the Whole Foods was new, and nobody--much less the "super-cool, snooty crowd"--hung out at Whole Foods. In fact, nobody "hung out" there: it was just a natural foods store. And the "lack of sophistication" is precisely what made Austin cool, that's what I'm talking about. And your comment--"much more diverse and interesting"--is also exactly what I'm talking about: just silliness. Austin was always "diverse." Humanity is "diverse"--that's the stuff of literature, after all--unless you require that there be an amalgamation of languages and races and countries of origin in order to be "diverse." Well, that's one kind of diversity, too, I guess. d The Austin of today is almost unrecognizable. For chrissakes, we used to have to drive 30 minutes into the country to eat at The County Line. Nope, sorry. Austin was way, way different back then. But you'd have a difficult time knowing that, since you only arrived in '83.

I am only referring to the years that I've lived here. Austin was indeed hyping itself at the time when I moved here.

I'm not denying that Austin has changed. People can prefer the old Austin. I'm just saying that I don't, but I'm open to the possibility that if I had moved ten years earlier I might have a different opinion.

Yeah, I've heard the lack of sophistication is what Austin is about before talk. Sophistication to me means basically more options and choices. I knew this guy who used to drive to Houston to eat out, because he had become bored with limited choices that were available here in the late eighties.

I'm sorry but I had trouble understanding what you wrote about diversity.