Bay Area folks in Austin?

[TheHarvester]

Originally Posted by karnival96

Prices are certainly driven by demand (and supply; or lack thereof) ...and also because the regulatory environment here tends to be friendlier to developers.

Excellent point, and a great post in general. My comments aren't meant as price = quality. It's more like "price is correlated with quality" and quality isn't measured over time, it's measured across options. In other words, when you say:

Originally Posted by karnival96

...even though most people who have been here for any period of time would argue that the "quality" of lifestyle available in Austin has declined due to its rapid population growth, its property values have soared into the stratosphere. You could argue that people are actually paying more (even after accounting for inflation) for less quality. By the way, this is even more a truism in California...

This is a commentary about quality of life "then" vs. "now". We cannot buy property "then", we can only buy it "now", so the only valid comparison is between places, not between time periods.

In general, I agree wholeheartedly with your overall argument that the determination of prices is driven by far more than perceived quality of life. There are many other reasons that anyone can think of (like comparing wages, taxes, job growth, vulnerability to natural disasters, etc.) for the differences in price for an acre of land in one place vs. another.

I only disagree with you about the changing quality of life. As austinese said in the post after yours, there isn't agreement between all people about whether quality of life is decreasing or improving. There are worse things and better things depending on what you seek, but what is changing most is the differential in perceived quality between, for example, Los Angeles and Austin. In the 1970s half the world wanted to live in LA. Now, more people from LA are moving here than vice-versa because there has been a perceived decrease in quality of life in LA while Austin has become more appealing to those who are accustomed to an urban lifestyle. For those seeking a funky college town (the old Austin), they're not going to look at this place as much any more. The people who love Austin today are mostly not the people you're using as a basis of comparison, the old-timers who can't let go of what Austin was like back when the Armadillo was the center of culture and you could swim naked at the most popular swimming spots on Barton Creek (cuz nobody was there but a few hippies.)

[1Grl3Boys]

Originally Posted by achtungpv

my wife's grandparents moved here from contra costa co actually (danville). They hate it here.

How amusing! So they never ventured to say, "Concord?" How about Castro Valley or East Contra Costa County (Pittsburg, Antioch)? Anywhere outside of Central Contra Costa County is EXTREMELY diverse. They were very sheltered. What in the world brought them here?

[1Grl3Boys]

Originally Posted by Jazzedforhim

OH DRAT! I just can't wait for our house to sell!!!! I'll miss Peets...but not that much. I'm sure one will be there soon enough!

We moved from Pleasant Hill last summer! Where do you live?

[karnival96]

Originally Posted by TheHarvester

I only disagree with you about the changing quality of life. As austinese said in the post after yours, there isn't agreement between all people about whether quality of life is decreasing or improving. There are worse things and better things depending on what you seek, but what is changing most is the differential in perceived quality between, for example, Los Angeles and Austin.

You have a point there. I've been in Austin for more than 25 years and have witnessed a lot of the change. In many ways, Austin has changed for the better, but I think there is a certain degree of fear, even among the newbies, that somehow this explosive growth is pushing us toward a declining quality of life (unaffordable housing, environmental degradation, increasing traffic, increasing crime, etc.) Your example of Los Angeles, which was once considered a very desirable destination, is a case in point.

[TheHarvester]

Originally Posted by karnival96

...I think there is a certain degree of fear, even among the newbies, that somehow this explosive growth is pushing us toward a declining quality of life (unaffordable housing, environmental degradation, increasing traffic, increasing crime, etc.)

Those negatives are inevitable, we can easily watch them happening and Austin is growing so fast that in a single year you can see changes upward in prices, traffic and crime, downward in environmental quality and unique home-town character.

On the other hand, there has been an explosion of changes that contribute to what many people consider a BETTER quality of life. Setting aside the price problem (which is a problem everywhere), there are so many options for living here now that didn't exist before. I'd love to get rid of my car and live in a downtown condo. I'm seriously considering it, because the cost of owning a car is so high --- I could at least rent a tiny apartment downtown, and the extra $500 I'd pay would be offset by not having a car. This option was not available until recent years.

Music scene: the down side is that a lot of the old funky places and free shows in the clubs on 6th are gone. On the plus side, there's more music here than ever before and new clubs constantly open. There are more festivals and other free music opportunities, many of them more family-friendly than the old club scene. For people who want to be trendy and go out at midnight to START partying, they can pay, I'm not really concerned that it's more expensive to get drunk on 6th and try to take someone home at 3 AM. The daytime and early-evening options for entertainment have exploded in the last 10 years, and now you can go out and dance, listen to music, eat and drink, and come home not stinking of cigarette smoke.

The restaurant scene, when I moved here in 1990, consisted of the 3 basic food groups:
1. Down Home
2. Tex-Mex
3. Barbecue
(plus some decent natural foods places, the usual chains, etc.)

Now the city has vastly more great eateries than I'll ever be able to keep up with, especially since I can't afford to eat out.

In general, the quality of life has improved for those with money, and probably declined for those who can't afford all the new amenities along with the higher rent/mortgage. But so goes the entire nation. It's our economic system that creates the haves and have-nots, Austin isn't the cause of that problem. If anything, the local voting patterns clearly show that we're NOT supportive of the massive income disparity in the USA, as Travis County reliably shows up as a blue island in an ocean of red.