Thinking about relocating from Oregon to the Piney Woods or Hill Country (Houston: crimes, lawyers) - Texas (TX) - Page 2 - City-Data Forum

destin04 · 11-06-2007, 06:25 PM

We were given two choice this summer....Tyler (east Texas) or Austin. We chose Tyler over Austin for several reasons. One of the main reasons was property tax in the Hill Country was way out of line. The same price house we have here would have cost us an additional 225.00 a month for just property tax.
The other issue that kind of turned us off....was the traffic. We were coming from the DFW area and were tired of the traffic.
Now if you are an athiest I would say stay away from East Texas. We are church going people ....but .....wow....we would have never thought it would have been so important here. It's a shove it down your throat situation. I"ve never seen such judgemental people.

jm21 · 11-06-2007, 09:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by destin04

We were given two choice this summer....Tyler (east Texas) or Austin. We chose Tyler over Austin for several reasons. One of the main reasons was property tax in the Hill Country was way out of line. The same price house we have here would have cost us an additional 225.00 a month for just property tax.
The other issue that kind of turned us off....was the traffic. We were coming from the DFW area and were tired of the traffic.
Now if you are an athiest I would say stay away from East Texas. We are church going people ....but .....wow....we would have never thought it would have been so important here. It's a shove it down your throat situation. I"ve never seen such judgemental people.

Wow...really? Damn...I was just looking a bit at Tyler and Longview...hmmm....I'm not much of a city person and hate traffic so I thought medium-sized towns like those would be a good bet...

blueskies49 · 11-07-2007, 08:27 AM

jm21, East Texas holds on a bit more fervently to it's Southernness and bible belt aspect moreso than the rest of Texas although most of the entire state is still in the bible belt.

tstone · 11-07-2007, 09:05 AM

This map may help you a little regarding this issue. You may want to stay south of a line from Houston to Austin to El Paso, which blows out the Piney Woods.

Maybe the area around San Marcos would be a good place? It's a college town of about 40,000 on the edge of the hill country (close to Devil's backbone), and Austin / San Antonio are easily accessible.

In my opinion you should fly in, rent a car for 2 weeks and drive all over the place to check things out before coming to a decision.

http://blog.moregoodfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/church_bodies.jpg (broken link)

Willys · 11-07-2007, 09:28 AM

tstone, awesome map find, thanks for sharing.

jm21, looking at that map it, look about the middle of Texas you see a V shape of blue counties. It looks as though the bottom of that V might be San Antonio * the left vein of that V up into the hill country * the right vein up along I-35, towards Dallas (the two blue counties you see in the northeast of Texas). Austin would be the second blue county down from the top of the right vein. I am in the first red county above the right vein, a place called Temple, a crossroads in SanAntonio to Dallas with Houston to West Texas paths, like an X. In the next county up you would find Waco.

The hill country gets to be fairly expensive in property terms, where East Texas gets to be costly in social terms (ref: your concerns). You might want to look at that right vein, the Austin, RoundRock, Georgetown, Belton/Killeen/Temple area. There appears to be rapid growth taking place here and may satisfy much of what you're looking for in Texas. There's an army post nearby (Ft Hood) so the area is a bit of a melting pot and I don't detect much bible thumping going on around here.

Also, there is a thread in this forum Need information about Killeen that includes a post by bellestaroftexas. In that post she includes a link to pictures of Lampasas, near to the above area, for your viewing pleasure.

jm21 · 11-07-2007, 02:02 PM

That's an interesting map, thanks for it!

I never would have guessed there were that many Catholics in OR though. I'm not aware I knew any grewing up. But then again, Oregonians tend to be non-practicing, non-denominational, or barely-practicing (a lot of people view big church and big government as about the same).

I was planning a trip to China this winter, but a friend bailed on me and I'm short on money...maybe I'll take a road trip down through that area instead.

Are baptists really that pushy? The only people up here who are pushy about their religion are LDS, and even they know to give people their space. I honestly don't know that much about the different religions, and I've often heard that people out here, especially white collar people, are significantly "watered down" when it comes to religion, so the religious practices here might not be representative of what the churches are like in other states.

I did notice the higher property values in the hill country, and it seems quite a bit on the dry side. Looks like it's getting as expensive as here, and would negate a good portion of the reason I'd like to move...hmmm. If I was going as far south as San Antonio, I'd probably think about heading towards the coast instead, such as the corpus christi area. I could live without the coast, or without forests, but not both...obviously the coast there is very different in most ways, but at least there's the smell of salt water. In either case...that's getting pretty far south for me...probably damn hot down there.

I get the impression I should be especially careful to avoid the counties on the map with the diamond on them (over 50% of one religious type). But, I'm pretty sure there are non-religious people everywhere nowadays, and it looks like most of East Texas has at least some diversity of religion...I guess it's hard to imagine it's that bad as I haven't experienced much religious intolerance except as a kid. I've actually had people think I'm a fundamentalist quite a few times.

Maybe I'd be better off looking further north, maybe to CO, western OK, or even KS? But, well, Pacific Northwesters (people born and raised in the western part of oregon and washington, and sometimes BC and/or NorCal as well) are instilled with prejudice towards pretty much every other area in the US, and it's hard to overcome...I was attracted to TX because they seem to take great pride in their state, which I can identify with and respect...but if we think of people from TX as backwards here, we think of KS as host to cavemen....don't mean to offend anyone, just being honest as I see it. Hell, we even think of eastern washingtonians and oregonians as backwards hicks...I actually can't think of an area we don't have prejudice towards. Maybe alaska or hawaii is exempt.

destin04 · 11-07-2007, 03:48 PM

If you have a pretty strong backbone....then I think E TX is a good place. The property values here are still very good and taxes aren't bad. I know a lot of people who aren't shove it your face people....but the one's that are.....seem to be real good at it. You would just need to let them know you aren't interested.
I personally think the Piney Woods are about as beautiful as you can get.......that's is a very good redeeming value.........

jm21 · 11-07-2007, 04:43 PM

Is it more like aggressive proselytizing? Or do they ostracize/exclude you from the community? I've talked with people from Utah, and they say if you aren't LDS, people will be super-friendly to you until they think you won't convert, and then completely ostracize you. I can deal with proselytizing, but the exclusion I'm not sure is worth it.

BstYet2Be · 11-07-2007, 08:00 PM

It's a beautiful place with lakes and open forest land, although nothing in comparison to the beauty of Oregon.

But, it is like any other small southern community... where everybody knows everybody's business... the elite (usually handed down through generations) run the town... the regular people, the churchgoers... and the carousing, bar-binging good 'ole boys that spend their time beer-drinking, hunting and fishing... or a mixture of all of these.

destin04 · 11-08-2007, 05:13 AM

The people of East Texas are good people....salt of the earth. The first question they ask you is "wha'ts your name?" The second question they ask is "Where do you go to church?" They aren't near as concerned w/ if you go to church...but they want to make sure that you are going to heaven. It's really sweet that they care so much about your enternal life. If I were you I would pick out some obscure church in the country and tell then that's where you go. LOL! The upside to East Texas people is that they would give you their last 5.00 if you needed it. ..and they always invite you to "supper". It's worth a look!