Does Austin really live up to the hype? (Denton, Howe: hotel, house)

[another_hot-day]

I noticed the panhandling downtown has gotten a lot more aggressive.

[twange]

Originally Posted by austin-steve

I always believe this: no matter where you go, there you are. Steve

Along the same theme:

"No matter how fast I run, I can never seem to get away from me."

-Jackson Browne


Nice post

[Taterhead]

Originally Posted by DisplacedMidwesterner

Hmmm I work downtown and spend more than 8 hours a day inside Austin.

Round Rock sure isnt anything great either.


Why would I move to Austin proper? Austin isnt very impressive. The taxes are high and there certainly is no shortage of crime. I could care less about live music and downtown is dirty and full of vagrants. After sitting in an office all day with people who blab on and on about UT football and how great Texas is in general there is no way in hell Id move to Austin proper. Whats so funny is that none of these people even went to UT, but if I say anything about Wisconsin they act like Im a criminal. I dont have the heart to say at least I went to school there.

As for me trashing Austin. I dont think Ive said anything that isnt true. Sure there are some nice things about Austin, but the bad far outweigh the good.

I agree with you and your longer post too and I don't even live there yet???. We have vagrants here too but not like on ever corner like we noticed when we visit there. And yes the trucks do tailgate you and so does everybody else. You could be sitting at a stop light and the car/truck behind would be already very close, so i move my car a little forword and they move even closer. I'm like buddy you were already on my ass, so give me a break. We notice this everytime we come for a visit,rude rude rude.

Where is all this charm "keep Austin weird" my kids keep telling us about? we don't see it. I think it MAYBE used to be like that, but not anymore.

Debbie.....

[jread]

Originally Posted by DisplacedMidwesterner

The taxes are high and there certainly is no shortage of crime. I could care less about live music and downtown is dirty and full of vagrants.

What planet are you on? Austin has one of the lowest crime rates for any city its size and it is far from dirty. What utopia did you move from because I want to live there.

I agree that the UT fans are annoying and that the drivers are idiots, but these are minor problems when you consider the issues that most big cities face. Austin could stand to be a little less tolerant of vagrants but I haven't noticed them bothering anyone too much.

Moderator cut: personal

[artsyguy]

Wow I would have hated Austin 20 years ago if it was the same as Denton. (barf)
I am left of center and appreciated Frisco much more than Denton and Frisco is pretty darn right wing.

Originally Posted by jabbit

the hell u all talking about? Denton is where its at. Most of you all just dont get it.


Austin is too touristy and falling to suburban sprawl. Where are the true "austinites"????


Denton is not like austin now it is like Austin was 20yrs ago before it became overhyped and touristy and yankified.

The dude doggin on denton has it out for denton. You can tell by his comment refering to it as iraq. Common.... what a bad argument or connection. Truely bad.

Do you all know how THICK/UNIQUE and respectable the music and art scene in Denton is????

If you can name ONE.. just ONE.... venue that showcases the heart of Denton's gritty/progressive music scene and still dog it then I can tell you did some diggin around here. If you can't you just dont know how to find the real voice and unique culture in the place.


They say Austin is the liberal hot bed of texas. True that.

But Denton is texas best kept secret. You know when you have this truelly amazing thing you kind of want to keep it to yourself and not let anyone know because it might screw up the magic. Well thats whats been happening with denton. They see whats happened to Austin and how they "austinites" fudged it up and want to learn from their lessons to keep supurban non native sprawl away from denton. Typicall....The people that live in Denton are true dentonites and not people that come here because its trendy or touristy.

There the secret is out. Now dont come to Denton to fudge it up. Denton has culture... art and music. Anyone that tells you differently is plain wrong. It has more "true" culture than dallas because its not trying to be cosmo... but rather keeping its own spirit of progressivness, liberalism and independence alive. There is a reason they call Denton ... Austin 2oyrs ago.... or "Beard Town".

I can supply with a number of articles referring to Denton's indepedent music dominance and respectability for such a small town.... and build an easy and strong case for it being better for this compared to other areas in texas... yes even Austin.


Musicians and artists move to Austin much the same way Actors move to LA.... to make it... typically.
People move to Denton just to make music and art. The hell with money. Money never really makes great music and art.

[Raziel]

Austin is okay. It appears that the hype surrounding it may be some of the live music, job growth and affordable housing. I've lived on the West Coast (Seattle, North/SoCal) and have been here over a year, if you have skills primarily in the high tech industry that will be an advantage but, I have to agree with the prior post above that it's just okay, It wants to be a big city and it has more "soul" than Dallas/Ft Worth in my opinion. Although, the heat/humidity kills along with the abundance of traffic/bad drivers on the sub par freeways. My wife and I purchased a home and it's true, the property taxes are high. I don't miss the high housing costs of the coast but, I do miss everything else. Oh ya, I also don't own a Longhorn t-shirt...shame on me : )

[Frodo2008]

I live in Houston. I live in the Clear Lake part of Houston. If you live in Austin you have it made as far as mosquitoes go. In the Clear Lake area here there are tons of mosquitoes 6 months out of the year. It's really humid here and there's tons of mosquitoes here. Every time I do yard work I have to put on a ton of Off.

[scongress1234]

I think that people are just looking for El Dorado, but El Dorado changes every decade or so. Right now its Austin, but it will be somewhere else in a few years. Just like fav/cool restaurants, they have short shelf lives. Now, keep in mind we are just talking about insanely hyped cities. And Austin is insanely hyped now. It is simply being sold hard like any other consumer product by the chambers of commerce and tourism bureaus is all. Really, I think Austin will be better off once the hype slows. A more measured pace will give it more time to catch up with infrastructure, and grow a bit smarter. It's just like the monkey on ones' back the runner in first place has. Dropping back a few places takes much of the pressure off, and one can reach the finish line at his own pace.

[Frodo2008]

Yeah South Congress you're right. I think every hyped place is overrated. I've been to Austin and Boston. Both are heavily hyped cities and I think both cities are very average. No better than any other place. On this Earth everybody is looking for heaven and it doesn't exist on this Earth. They will look and look and they won't find it. You have to die first to go to heaven. You're not going to find it in Austin or Boston or San Francisco or Seattle or any of these other so-called great places. I think Houston is as good or better than most of these hyped cities.

[thedude72]

How was your customer service experience in Austin?