Austin vs All (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio: best city, real estate, homeowners insurance)

[H8rade]

This is in response to a previous thread about how good Austin has it. Feel free to compare Austin to any other city.

Anyway, I am stationed at Fort Hood and consider Tampa my home. So I am going to compare Tampa to Austin. They are both similar in size. Sorry if I seem like I am rambling... yes I am biased a little, but hopefully there are some nuggets of information.

I think Austin is a nice city. However, having spent some time in Texas, its not the place for me. I love the ocean and I frequently wished that it was closer to central Texas. The cost of living was lower in Austin, but thanks to the real estate bust it looks like home prices are now more in line with what they should have been in the first place. The cost of living for the two cities is essentially the same.

Entertainmentwise, Austin does have some kick a$$ live music and generally there is stuff going on all the time. Austin has a nice entertainment district and many good restaurants. Austin has access to nice lakes.

Tampa has all of that and then we add in a better zoo, Busch Gardens (kind of like a six flags, mixed with beer and zoo animals). The beach is right there too. In short driving distance, you also have access to springs, river tubing, lakes and extensive wild life areas. Tampa also has three distinct entertainment areas including Ybor City (old hispanic quarter where cigars used to be made), channelside and baywalk are all fun... or just go to the beach for further entertainment areas.

Education - University of South Florida and University of Texas are both tier 1 research universities, so its kind of a wash. University of Tampa and Stetson (Law School) are also great private universities. I think UT-Austin has more name recognition, but University of Florida is an hour and 15 minutes north of Tampa if you really need the extra name recognition and SEC action. ;-)

Sports; Hmmm... Austin - Long Horns; no professional sports???? Oh yeah, Houston, San Antonio and Dallas stole all of that.
Tampa; Football-Buccaneers (won the superbowl in 2003); Baseball-Rays (2nd in AL East); Hockey-Lightning (won stanley cup in 2004)
No basketball; gotta drive 90 minutes to Orlando to experience that Magic.

Weather; both places are hot as heck in the summer. I like that there is more tree shade in Tampa though the humidity is killer at times. The weather is milder in Tampa during the rest of the year.

Where Austin is better then Tampa; there are so many fake people there it'll make your head spin. Lots of people are pretending to be rich when they are not. In Austin, people are more genuine, but there is a serious cowboy attitude problem. I also feel that Austin seems to be the healthier city despite the fact that Tampa and Austin have about the same amount of outdoor activities. Austin has no hurricanes, but hailstorms are annoying. In Tampa, a hurricane is an excuse to take a day off and have a party though. Lastly, Austin has much lower homeowners insurance rates which is a serious problem in Tampa. I pay $650 for HO in Texas and $2,000 for the same size house in Florida. I also think Austin has more high tech jobs and better job opportunities then Tampa unless you have experience. Oh yeah, I think hill country is nice too.

Well, that's my two cents.

I took the below picture about 3 weeks ago.

[dporgie]

I am really not too sure how similar Tampa is to Austin size-wise as the population of Tampa is 250k+ and Austin is 750k+. Even if you include St. Pete the number only gets to 500k+ while the greater Austin area is 1000k+.

While you are correct that Tampa "wins" when it comes to professional sports, zoos and I'll even add the Tampa Aquarium, I think that Austin wins when it comes to lower crime and proximity to world class cities. Three of the top 10 largest cities in the US are a day trip away and each one offers a wide range of pro sports, museums, theme parks and zoos/aquariums. Add in the fact that you can easily drive/fly to Mexico and I think Austin's geographic location is far superior.

I think both places have great food and I think that the lakes and the hill country is a nice trade off for the gulf and bay. While the gulf is nice, I do not think that it compares to an ocean.

Personally, I prefer the less humid heat in Austin versus the ridiculously high humidity of Florida. Also, while mosquitoes are everywhere, there is definitely a lack of other flying insects like gnats here.

I guess the main point is that every place has pros and cons and while Austin is a good fit for me, Tampa is a good fit for you.

Enjoy it.

[mikey1984]

Tampa metro is 2.7 million. Austin is still pretty small in comparsion. Austin is overrated and boring overall. No real big city ammenties, need to go to San Antonio for entertainment. I've had my sixth street fix.

[TexasHorseLady]

So, mikey1984, your idea of Austin entertainment is 6th Street? Don't get out much, do you?

[dporgie]

Originally Posted by mikey1984

Tampa metro is 2.7 million. Austin is still pretty small in comparsion. Austin is overrated and boring overall. No real big city ammenties, need to go to San Antonio for entertainment. I've had my sixth street fix.

How many neighboring towns do you have to add in to get to that number?
So now we have to compare Austin to Tampa, St. Pete, Clearwater, Brandon, Largo, Dunedin, Tarpon Springs, Plant City. Basically the entire central west coast of Florida? Would you like to add Lakeland, Bartow and Winter Haven into the mix too?

I was born and raised in central Florida and Tampa was always referred to as the armpit of the state. So takeaway the nice beaches and retirement income of St. Pete / Clearwater and let me know what's left after Ybor City and the aquarium.

[jread]

I spent a week on the beach near Tampa last summer and was just about suicidal by the time we left. That has to be the most miserable weather I've ever experienced. As a city, Tampa felt a little dinky to me and seemed a lot less "urban" than Austin. There were also a lot more "bad" neighborhoods than what you'd find there. Still, the weather is what I couldn't take. I have no idea how in the world people live in a place like that. The humidity was so thick that the A/C didn't even do anything.

[EJ4512]

Originally Posted by dporgie

How many neighboring towns do you have to add in to get to that number?
So now we have to compare Austin to Tampa, St. Pete, Clearwater, Brandon, Largo, Dunedin, Tarpon Springs, Plant City. Basically the entire central west coast of Florida? Would you like to add Lakeland, Bartow and Winter Haven into the mix too?

For U.S. Census purposes, Tampa is part of the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida MSA. The four-county area is composed of roughly 4 million residents, making it the second largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the state, and the third largest in the Southeastern United States behind Miami and Atlanta.

The answer is yes !!! Metros are important, for instance Dallas itself is the third largest city in Texas behind Houston and San Antonio with a population at 1.2 million. However the DFW metro is the largest in the state and fourth largest in the US with 6.1 million, and Dallas just sort of melts into surrounding cities into one huge populous region.

Metros usually share an airport, TV affiliates, Radio, Sports teams are supported by metro regions, etc.

[H8rade]

LOL, there are alot of misconceptions about other places people have not been.

About the summer weather, yes it sucks due to the high humidity. It tends to rain alot in the afternoons in Tampa. Central Texas is just plain hot as hell to me. Outside of the summer, the other three "seasons" are awesome. When I was in high school I worked at a Marina on the water and the sea breeze helped alot. Inland really sucks.

Really, Tampa itself may not be the best city if you look at it on its own. If you want Urban, you need to stick with hyde park, bayshore, channelside and south Tampa. I am biased toward the Pinellas county side of the bay which would be Clearwater/St Pete. I always feel like I'm on vacation there. The people are less fake and for me the bars tend to be more interesting then Ybor... though I am 31 now so my tastes have changed from Ybor times.

If we want to throw in "short drives" then I could say Orlando and Miami are short drives too. Nuff said on that. I tried to keep this as apples to apples as possible.

Anyway, the whole point of this thread is to show an alternative. Some of the commenters on this forum have not lived anywhere else. I have been lucky enough to have lived in NYC, Phoenix, OKC and Central Texas besides Tampa Bay. I have visited many other places, but I can't post opinions based on visits to another community.

[Alatex]

[quote] I have visited many other places, but I can't post opinions based on visits to another community.[quote]

Well, all I have to go on is visits to both Austin and Tampa, never having lived close to either, but I'll throw in my opinion, anyway

My anecdotal observations:

Austin - Better jobs (I guess this is arguable, but at least in my brother's field, he found a lot more opportunities in Texas than Florida in general, and the Austin area led the way) + lower crime, plus more "local culture."

Tampa - Surrounded by a whole lot more things to do and fun places to visit, but Tampa itself "feels" like it has more crime and nastiness going on.

I'll add that I happen to love the Gulf beaches more than the Atlantic or Pacific, and would love to one day own a little vacation condo along Florida's Gulf coast, and that I am considering the possibility of moving from Alabama to the San Marcos area south of Austin to live (thus the "tex" in my handle ) .

University of South Florida and University of Texas are both tier 1 research universities

Yeah, but that's kind of like saying Vanderbilt and Southern Cal both have football teams. I'll give UT the edge over USF (and I mean no disrespect to USF, as my brother once looked into the possibility of a job there).

Florida has so many snakes, alligators, and weird tropical critters running, swimming, flying, biting, and stinging that I don't think I could enjoy freshwater activities in FL the way people enjoy the water in greater Austin (swimming Barton Springs, tubing San Marcos River, doing whatever it is that people do at Lake Travis , etc).

Overall, I'd give Tampa (and anywhere in central Florida) an edge as a place to visit, but I'd give Austin (and within an hour's drive) an edge as a place to live.