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I am curious to hear opinions on which of these two places are better to live in and/or visit. Examples of comparable items include cost of living, population, ethnic diversity, music or thearte events,rent/utilites prices, scenery,things to do in and around the city, and places to meet people....and so on!! Any input welcome! Thanks!!
cost of living-tie- depends on where ya live in both cities. can be cheap/expensive
population-Phx - has twice or three times as much people
ethnic diversity-Atx - higher % of Blacks, Asians, East Indians
music or thearte events-Atx come on really, no place in US best Atx in music
rent/utilites prices-Phx- has more elec companies and they work real good with ya
scenery-Phx- city full of mountains. can't beat that
things to do in and around the city-Atx by a hair because of the river and lakes in and less than 1hr away, and nice downtown rocks
places to meet people-Phx due to its size and various city in the Valley area
Complete BS. It has a lot per capita, this is true... but come on.. NYC.. LA... even New Orleans down the road have great and/or better music scenes. I'd say the Phoenix metro is more interesting, so is Arizona (IMO) and being able to drive to LA/San Diego or Las Vegas pretty quick, or to real mountains..... but Austin seems like a more fun place to live and seems like it has a decent core to do stuff in, i.e. a lively downtown.
Texas to me still has some kind of weird stigma, I dunno... Not sure I could embrace it with all the RA RA RA Texas folks. Arizona seems cool though.
Complete BS. It has a lot per capita, this is true... but come on.. NYC.. LA... even New Orleans down the road have great and/or better music scenes. I'd say the Phoenix metro is more interesting, so is Arizona (IMO) and being able to drive to LA/San Diego or Las Vegas pretty quick, or to real mountains..... but Austin seems like a more fun place to live and seems like it has a decent core to do stuff in, i.e. a lively downtown.
Texas to me still has some kind of weird stigma, I dunno... Not sure I could embrace it with all the RA RA RA Texas folks. Arizona seems cool though.
Tough choice bt these two.
You are right, that was hyperbole. In its defense though, there really is a ridiculous amount of live music happening all the time, and Austin also has proximity and accessibility on its side. Add in the several huge musical festivals and the city does pretty well for itself. The whole 'live musical capital of the world' thing is just branding by the chamber of commerce, some people get their panties in a bunch about that but I think it's just meant to reflect that live music is one of Austin's defining characteristics. New Orleans definitely could be argued to have a better scene, for me it comes down to genre preference...my musical sensibilities skew towards what Austin offers.
Lol at your RA RA Texas comment...it's funny because it's true mostly, at least...there are 2 camps, you either complain about it or you get the hell on board with it
You are right, that was hyperbole. In its defense though, there really is a ridiculous amount of live music happening all the time, and Austin also has proximity and accessibility on its side. Add in the several huge musical festivals and the city does pretty well for itself. The whole 'live musical capital of the world' thing is just branding by the chamber of commerce, some people get their panties in a bunch about that but I think it's just meant to reflect that live music is one of Austin's defining characteristics. New Orleans definitely could be argued to have a better scene, for me it comes down to genre preference...my musical sensibilities skew towards what Austin offers.
Lol at your RA RA Texas comment...it's funny because it's true mostly...there are 2 camps, you either complain about it or you get the hell on board with it
I'd still probably put it around 5th-6th in the country for the music scene, considering it's only a 2 million metro, impressive. It's most definitely not ahead of NYC or Los Angeles. I mean the place definitely revolves around music.
I would prefer the music in Austin also, but, I'm not sure I'd say it is *better* than New Orleans.
Complete BS. It has a lot per capita, this is true... but come on.. NYC.. LA... even New Orleans down the road have great and/or better music scenes. I'd say the Phoenix metro is more interesting, so is Arizona (IMO) and being able to drive to LA/San Diego or Las Vegas pretty quick, or to real mountains..... but Austin seems like a more fun place to live and seems like it has a decent core to do stuff in, i.e. a lively downtown.
Texas to me still has some kind of weird stigma, I dunno... Not sure I could embrace it with all the RA RA RA Texas folks. Arizona seems cool though.
Tough choice bt these two.
How is it BS?? This is my opinion and at least I gave one with insight living in both cities. Have you lived in either one?? Texas is my home, but I had more fun living in Phoenix than Austin.
The RA RA Texas thing cannot be explain, you must be born here to get it.
How is it BS?? This is my opinion and at least I gave one with insight living in both cities. Have you lived in either one?? Texas is my home, but I had more fun living in Phoenix than Austin.
The RA RA Texas thing cannot be explain, you must be born here to get it.
No, but I find the outside visitor usually has better insight into what is good and bad than actual residents, and often notices thing residents are just "used to". This is of course assuming they visit and spend time in a lot of cities. It gives them an objective lens to stack up the quality in multiple cities against each other. Residents when speaking of where they spend the most time are too often conflicted with illusory superiority. For that reason I tend to comment much less on say, Florida where I grew up, than I do other cities because I'm aware of my own probable bias. I generally tend to trust the opinions of well traveled people on here, as opposed to people who are "born and raised" somewhere who too often tend to skew towards "this is the greatest place on earth" and also go to the other extreme with "this is a rotting cesspool". The truth is usually somewhere in the middle. Now if I wanted to figure out where is the closest place to get good food from a particular part of the city, then I would definitely trust the local over the transient/traveler... they just aren't the best at comparing cities vs cities.
Not that you can't be right... but I am saying your opinion on it being the best music place in the country is a bit off. It's the same way with a lot of Chicago folks that think the Mexican and Chinese food here is good, I have gotten into arguments with them saying it isn't so hot, having also lived in California, and not from either.
New Orleans is a crime ridden swamp that has no place in this conversation. Austin wins this by a hundred miles if it was against New Orleans and Phoenix is a decent place but Austin is nicer. Austin, Houston, and Dallas are the nicest places in the entire south
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mostly, at least...there are 2 camps, you either complain about it or you get the hell on board with it 
