So why does Austin keep making top 10 lists? (Howe: city hall, living)

[scongress1234]

Originally Posted by Mack wild

I don't have unrealistic expectations here. I just live in a small town that makes me feel like I might as well just be dead. Im single and a small town is no place for a single youngin and I have lived in a state ranked dead last in entertainment, jobs, and oppurtunity for most of my life. I just want a place where I can afford to stay there, that has a climate that is not too cold for a 1/3 of the year, where I can feel excited to be alive. I am dead inside here, I need to leave. Whenever I go somewhere on vacation or move somewhere for the summer -- I come alive. I love having people all around, and options for things to do with my time. Your little walk sounds very cool to me. Im the kind of person who would get a happy grin on my face to be battling wild drivers in the street trying to cut me off -- at least Im living....at least there is some sort of stimulation...

You can be happy in a small town, or miserable in a big city...trust me, its you, not where you live.......yes, you could do a lot better getting away, but don't think that that will solve all your probs....you have to change the inner you, and some people never are able to do that, at any age, and wont be happy no matter where they move to, from hawaii to paris to san diego, etc........happiness comes from within...we make it ourselves..no one has the power to make us happy, and you NEVER want to give anyone that power.......BUT, if you can make you OWN self happy, you've just solved what could be a lifetime of troubles...trust me, I'm right on this!

[theaustinegalitarian]

Interesting fact about the homeless district being next tot he entertainment district: the city-supported "Resource Center" (the ARCH) lets homeless males bunk out there at night, but no females. Homeless females can sleep there during the afternoon, which automatically means that the City of Austin denies shelter to women who work at low-paying dayjobs but gives it to those who walk the streets at night....

At least it was this way last year when the United Way decided to stop giving support to the Salvation Army without checking that the Salvation Army shelter, right next door to the ARCH, was the only shelter giving a place to sleep to women at night. They were attacked in the competition for funding by the liberal religious over at Caritas who don't like Salvation Army conservatism, but who also don't shelter anybody at all, but grab all the homeless-assistance funding to pay yuppie sociology majors to play psychobabble games with people who can't even get interviewed for many jobs if they are American-born but not carrying a recent college degree. (Reason: the human resources personnel all graduated since "Americans don't want these jobs" became the mantra and they are trained to profile qualified Americans as 'undesirable' if those Americans exhibit a preference for physical labor.)

The one good thing about the placement of those shelters is that occasionally a dead-drunk yuppie on 6th street might wake up at the Salvation Army and realize that everyone looks the same in there. >

[MJinAustin]

Originally Posted by scongress1234
BTW, here is a description of my immediate neighborhood.....I live next to a wendy's, which is across the street from a huge shopping strip, with a HEB and all....across the street, two mega-apartment complexes....as you go down the street, you pass a car wash, a BMW dealership, a tech park,
a couple gas stations, and a walgreens.......I have passed these same places hundreds of times......my point is, Austin is just a city....where people
live, work, have fun, mostly live and work........this isn't someones fantasia of the best city to live in, per top ten lists...this is just a bunch of people trying to make a living and maybe enjoy things a bit while they are here, is all.....in other words, this is reality....[/quote]

CRIPES, I just figured out that you don't even LIVE near South Congress...you live in the BURBS. You live off McNeil, don't you. No wonder you complain about Austin being like every place else. You don't live in the part of Austin that is uniquely Austin.

[Jennibc]

Originally Posted by Mack wild

I don't have unrealistic expectations here. I just live in a small town that makes me feel like I might as well just be dead. Im single and a small town is no place for a single youngin and I have lived in a state ranked dead last in entertainment, jobs, and oppurtunity for most of my life. I just want a place where I can afford to stay there, that has a climate that is not too cold for a 1/3 of the year, where I can feel excited to be alive. I am dead inside here, I need to leave. Whenever I go somewhere on vacation or move somewhere for the summer -- I come alive. I love having people all around, and options for things to do with my time. Your little walk sounds very cool to me. Im the kind of person who would get a happy grin on my face to be battling wild drivers in the street trying to cut me off -- at least Im living....at least there is some sort of stimulation...

It sounds like Austin might just work for you! Go for it.

[LookingtoLeave]

Originally Posted by scongress1234

Well, just like Santa, the Easter Bunny, and other fictitious characters, we all want to believe in a perfect place that will fulfill all our fantasies, and the top 10 lists play into that.....

Think of this...why always 10? why not 5, 3, 16, 13, etc....simply just plays into the same branding and marketing that we use to sell movies, music, and anything else sellable.......think of it another way....look how many there are....lets start with Money Mag.....their best place to live issue is the best seller every year....Forbes has several best selling issues
..while the 400 richest people is always the biggie, they always sell lots of issues anytime a best cities article is trumpeted on the cover.....and they get many hits from the cities they mention on the web, some people of which may buy their products, and link to them.......

Also, look at how many of those lists there are...it used to be just a couple.....mostly money mags annual...and now it has morphed to something almost mastabatory in the way people focus on them......what do they mean?

Well, certainly Flint, Akron, and Youngstown will never be on them...and there are certainly good qualities in all the ones that are often mentioned, but anyone who really thinks that even in just one you look at, that the cities really should be in that order, are looking at things in a childish way, not realizing that it is at best all subjective.....they take the cities that are doing well, attracting relocatees, and such, and just keep on rehashing them in one survey after another......

Think of it like baseball, another stat obsessed situation........where you can endlessly parce stat after stat, and argue who is/was the best at every position.....

What I would like to see, that I never saw yet, would be the ten greatest american cities of all time.....well, here goes.......hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!

1.)New York
2.)Philadelphia
3.)Los Angeles
4.)San Francisco
5.)New Orleans
6.)Chicago
7.)Washington DC
8.)Atlanta
9.)Boston
10.)Houston(the last one because of all the growth, and the real possibility of it becoming great soon)

No one ever said Austin was a perfect place, but when you consider the economy, layoffs, job prospects for some industries, cost of living, etc., even I can see why Austin would be on the list. I don't believe you answered my question and if you did it's buried in that long post. Besides the obvious Forbes, who puts these publications out and why are they targeting Austin? Is Austin paying them off or something to list them? You say it's a marketing gimmick, which the in reality you could say ALL publications are as they are meant to sell, but give no support to your argument. I mean you act like they are completely random and a monkey with darts is throwing them at maps and it just happened to land on Austin and it was acceptable enough to stay on the list.

While no city/town is perfect, could there perhaps be some validity to these posts? You have to knock everything down and put some spin on it. Any why would anyone who believes that the cities should or shouldn't be in a particular order is being childish? Who are you to say they are out of order? Aren't you the one that just said they're subjective?

[RangerDuke08]

Originally Posted by LookingtoLeave

No one ever said Austin was a perfect place, but when you consider the economy, layoffs, job prospects for some industries, cost of living, etc., even I can see why Austin would be on the list. I don't believe you answered my question and if you did it's buried in that long post. Besides the obvious Forbes, who puts these publications out and why are they targeting Austin? Is Austin paying them off or something to list them? You say it's a marketing gimmick, which the in reality you could say ALL publications are as they are meant to sell, but give no support to your argument. I mean you act like they are completely random and a monkey with darts is throwing them at maps and it just happened to land on Austin and it was acceptable enough to stay on the list.

While no city/town is perfect, could there perhaps be some validity to these posts? You have to knock everything down and put some spin on it. Any why would anyone who believes that the cities should or shouldn't be in a particular order is being childish? Who are you to say they are out of order? Aren't you the one that just said they're subjective?

Forbes is a publication mostly based on number, in other words when you mix low housing with a decent economy, low crime and growth of the city, the index of whatever forbes usually is exceptionally high in certain place with that combination, being said I do feel Austin is a great city wise, with its vibrant culture. See the problem with most cities like L.A., Chicago, N.Y. etc. is that they are all homogenous, with skyscrapers, people rushing everywhere, traffic, crime, high cost of living, unfriendly people. I would go with a small to midsized, safe, friendly, vibrant city anyday such as Austin, Denver, Santa Fe, Knoxville etc. Unfortunately, once a city hits those lists it usually means it isn't a hidden gem any longer and inevitably 20 years down the road places like Austin and Denver will become no less than L.A., NY, Chicago, etc.

[LookingtoLeave]

I agree and some of the reasons/benefits you mentioned is why Austin and the others wind up on the list. I just get the impression SCongress thinks everything is a gimmick or marketing scheme then in another thread he'll praise Austin. Very contradicting. To an extent, I do take those lists with a grain of salt as all cities have the pluses and minuses, and it's hard to get the real vibe of a city until you actually live there, but I just don't think Forbes or whomever pulls everything out of their a$$.

And let's just hope these mid-size cities like Austin, Denver, etc. can keep their charm. One can always hope.

[artsyguy]

doesn't advertising and media have everything to do with it......it isn't for real.

[mlassoff]

Originally Posted by Mack wild

That's what I don't get. I mean there are several articles consistantly over the years that talk up Austin. It's not just Forbes, I've seen several others. In every one that I see Austin always seems to be near the top and the most balanced with rankings for individual categories. I don't know if the hype has just caught on such that these writers just make it a sexy pick and randomly come up with numbers or what they judge these things on, but if you listen to Scongress1234 or some of the others on here you would think it to be a huge conspiracy.

Austin is included-- as are the other cities-- because the publications see these as good target cities in which they can boost their circulation.

[atxcio]

Originally Posted by mlassoff

Austin is included-- as are the other cities-- because the publications see these as good target cities in which they can boost their circulation.

Then why always include the same city (eg, Austin)? Wouldn't they move on to another city, to boost circulation there? Otherwise, it's not working well if they haven't increased circulation here with year after year of trying with the top 10 list. Are we even a major print media market?