Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
1. The cost of living: Everything here is super expensive, rent average here is around $1000.00 a month, going out to eat costs more, food in the grocery stores costs more. Property taxes are sky high. Average meal for a single adult will easily cost you $30 or more at a local restaurant. There is hardly any free parking anywhere. You even have to pay for parking if you go to their public parks. You have to pay to go into their national parks.
2. The people here ARE NOT FRIENDLY, why a lot of people say the people are friendly down here is beyond me, it’s only a façade and isn’t real. If you are not from Austin they aren’t friendly to you at all. They will try to take advantage of you all the time. For instance when looking for a job, they will pass you over and give the better jobs to people who have been living in Austin for a long time, they will judge you without even really getting to know you. If they think you have money they will take advantage of everything you do. People are rude, smug, flaky, self-absorbent. They are not honest at all, they will promise you the stars, and give you this big grand scheme, only to find out they do the complete opposite of what they tell you. Even the cops down here are very dishonest; if you are not from here they WILL give you BOGUS tickets, just to give more money to the city. They people are extremely flaky here, I mean bad flaky, one minute they act like your friend then they are gone. Oh and btw people are constantly telling you how they don’t want you here, especially if you are from out of state. They say if you don’t like something and I quote “move back to where you came from, we don’t need you here.” It is quite common for people to say that here.
3. The city overall is VERY TRASHY, there are lots of homeless people here that leave trash everywhere, this city claims they are trying to be environmental, that just isn’t the case at all, most of their creeks has trash in it, the roadways are full of trash, no one will do anything to clean up after the city, oh and you will get a bill for cleaning the city to from the city that is in the electric utility bill. Oh yes the even charge you for not cleaning their city.
4. The medians the city does not mow anything at all they just let stuff grow all year round, nothing is taken care of down here, there are weeds in the median that are taller than my car, they don’t seem to take care of anything they have here.
5. The parks are very disappointing, they claim they have lots of parks down here and they do, but most parks aren’t easily accessible by foot or bike, they have very few parks that are paved, maybe like one or two, and when you’re out and about in the parks, people aren’t that friendly they just put their heads down and don’t say much at all. Also the parks aren’t well taken care of, Mary Moore park is badly needed of repair, lots of asphalt is missing on the trail or washed out, they should have a bridge crossing the stream but they don’t you just have to hope the water is down and not get caught up in the water (how this isn’t dangerous is beyond me). Zilker park you have to pay to park, the park is very crowded, no paved trails, very difficult to find a parking spot, even when you do pay.
6. Very low pay vs the cost of living. The pay here is very low for the cost of living the average job only pays between 10-14/hr. Now if you are lucky you can get into a really good job at one of the Tech companies, but everyone is going for the same job you are, the competition is extreme here, and employers are super picky. Why? Might you ask, well because the market is flooded with more and more people moving here? Thus it is difficult to find a good paying job, which in my eyes makes Austin a very undesirable place to live.
7. The traffic is horrendous, a city of this size should not have issues with traffic, the city for this size should not have no traffic problems at all, but because of the City council, the state, and counties lack of willingness to grow and expand anything has made the traffic horrible. Plus people here DO NOT KNOW HOW TO DRIVE AT ALL. No one will get over when they are in the fast lane on the interstate, they won’t use turn signals, they will use off ramps to pass people, they will cut you off, then when you tailgate after they cut you off, they get mad at you and don’t understand why you’re mad and more.
8. Bag ban, stupidest idea ever again this is their ill attempt at being environmental, but if you look throughout the city they aren’t very green at all, as stated before they are very trashy here and nothing is up kept very well at all.
9. The events may be nice but who can afford to go to them, COTA (Circuit of the Americas) average general admission is $300-$400 per person, the festivals are just as expensive, so while they may have all these festivals, no one can afford to go them, unless they save up all year to go to all these events.
10. It’s not very family friendly; this isn’t a place that you would want to have a family to grow up in. SA is way more family friendly and more affordable places to take your family.
11. Nothing is all that close to where you live, while they may have good shopping, it takes a half an hour just to go to the grocery store, and to do any shopping one may have, nothing is close to anything here, you have to drive everywhere, and no big malls like you would have in other cities of similar sizes. Plus some of the stores they have here are VERY DIRTY and quite iffy to go into, you will feel as if you might be in a bad place at some of these stores and thus feel very uneasy. I’m used to having everything less than 5 minutes away so moving here is a culture shock of how nothing is really all that close.
12.They rave about their BBQ here, it’s not all that great, if it is good food then you will have to wait for hours to get your food, who has that much time to wait, and not only that the BBq places here have the strangest hours they will close at 3pm in the afternoon? WTH who does that?
13.People who rave about their live music, it isn’t that great, the music on the radio stations are lame too, they don’t even have a hard rock station in Austin, what city in America of this size doesn’t have a hard rock station, but yet they claim to be the live music capital, is all bs and its crap.
14.The people here reminds me of a bunch of drunk people who are irresponsible little kids who don’t want to take care of Anything at all, are your lives really that lame that you have to go and get drunk all the time and have no responsibility at all? Apparently so.
Reasons why SA is better than Austin:
1.SA is so much nicer to people out of town, they seem much friendlier than the people in that other city.
2. The cost of living is actually affordable, and you can get jobs to make an affordable wage.
3. Tons more stuff to do, Sea World, Six Flags, San Antonio Spurs, The Alamo, The Riverwalk, walkable trails, where a family can take a baby along, A REAL ZOO, where Austin you can't do any of that stuff.
4. SA is way more family friendly than Austin.
5. SA is full of drunks in bars all the time like Austin. SA actually has other fun stuff to do than just drink all day.
6.SA doesn't have the traffic problems, Austin does. They actually have a much better infrastructure in place.
7. Food is way better in SA than Austin and its more affordable.
8. SA has a fiesta that people can afford, where in Austin only certain people can afford to go to theirs.
9.SA doesn't have a stupid bag ban like Austin does.
10. In my experience I think SA is cleaner and SA seems to take care of their parks better than Austin does, Austin doesn't take care of anything.
11. When visiting SA I don't remember bumping into drunks every two or three feet like I did while living in Austin. (and thus is the reason I hardly don't go downtown anymore)
12. SA has more of a small town feel where people in Austin are just downright rude,mean, smug and just remember people in Austin don't want you there if you are an outsider, if you don't like anything they just tell you to leave. Ok I will leave and move to SA where people like outsiders.
Most people that live in Austin are not from Austin. They are transplants. When I lived there I met 2 people who where born and raised there. It used to be a small college town. Tons of people moved there and like most places in Texas infrastructure did not keep up with growth. Austin is "bum" friendly. They let people panhandle on the streets and have hotels where they can stay for free. Part of that "Keep Austin Weird" crap. As for salaries being low there are lots of people who have degrees and salaries are lower because the job market is over saturated. Actually knew someone with a Ph.D selling shoes at the mall. I disagree with you about the music. Austin has many great festivals such as SXSW and Austin City Limits Music Festival. Austin is a really fun town if you are single or college aged.
San Antonio is a nice city. However I have always heard (from people born and raised there that left) the economy is not that great, there are not as many jobs available and/or they don't pay very well.
8. SA has a fiesta that people can afford, where in Austin only certain people can afford to go to theirs.
LOL- Many longtime San Antonians will tell you that Fiesta is NOT affordable and way too crowded! SOME of the Fiesta festivities are affordable, like if you want to learn about square dancing, cactus or knitting. As an example, the hip King William Fair was a $3 admission back in the late-2000s. Now, it's $10 and extremely crowded. The Oyster Bake has not been affordable for some time. An acquaintance told me recently about a celebration in Boerne (west of SA) that they have. A smaller venue like that might be just the ticket.
I moved from SA to Austin. So far, the only things I don't like about Austin are traffic and high rent. The rent in SA is much cheaper, but the wages are also lower. For the job I have now in the Austin metro area, I would be paid about $3 less per hour in SA. That's a difference of over $6,000 per year. However, what actually prompted my permanent move to Austin was that there were very, very few openings for interns in my field. I need to complete an internship in order to become licensed. After I become fully-licensed, I estimate the average salary difference between SA and Austin will be over $7,000 per year.
I've also worked in the criminal justice field where there are huge differences in salary. A corrections officer at Travis County will make about $44,000 after training. In Bexar County, a detention officer will make about $10,000 less after a one-year probationary period. Even Guadalupe and Comal County pay their corrections officers more than Bexar County does, and their populations are much smaller. The disparity is about the same or larger among patrol deputies in Bexar and Travis. If you compare SAPD with APD, the base salary difference is about $18,000 per year.
San Antonio is not known for being clean. If you search the SA forum, you'll see a lot of complaints about dirty diapers in parking lots. The northern areas of town look decent, but large parts of the west, east, and south sides have high poverty rates and aren't very clean. One part of unincorporated Bexar County looks like Detroit. But, since SA is one of the most economically segregated cities in the U.S., you can find an area that will keep you sheltered from seeing the effects of high poverty.
San Antonio is very much a drinking city. Austin has a lot of drunk college students; SA has a lot of drunk, older folks. IIRC, Bexar County has the worst drunk driving rate in Texas. I think it switches back and forth between Harris County and Bexar County.
I rarely went to Fiesta events because I don't like being around drunks, and the costs were too high. You either need to catch the bus downtown or be prepared to pay a lot of money for parking. I think this goes for any large event in any major city. Even with San Antonio being a family-friendly city, I don't think it's that easy for a single person to make friends if he or she doesn't drink or party much. Drinking is just as big down there as it is in Austin.
San Antonio is not known for having low property tax rates. If you're paying less in property taxes in SA, it's because your house is appraised lower than an equivalent house in Austin. The sales tax rate is almost as high as it can go.
The number of homeless people in Austin is about 2,200. The number of homeless people in SA is about 2,900. Since SA has more people, the homeless rate is probably about the same or a little bit lower.
San Antonio is not known for having good BBQ. They have a couple of highly-rated places; the Austin metro area has more. SA is known for Tex-Mex. I haven't really gotten a chance to compare Chinese restaurants, but San Antonio has a dearth of good ones. In my opinion, they also have a dearth of good pizza places.
San Antonio's radio stations are less diverse, so don't get your hopes too high there. The concerts the city attracts are also less diverse. San Antonio's hard rock station went to playing old music because there isn't much high-quality hard rock these days. They seem to play the same stuff all the time.
As for the plastic bag ban, I was annoyed by it at first, but actually don't mind it now. I bought a few reusable bags at $1 each. They are larger, sturdier, and easier to carry than plastic bags. I have a car now, but when my family didn't have a car, the plastic bags regularly tore when we walked and caught the bus. Heavy bags would hurt my hands due to the uncomfortable handles.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FalconheadWest
Wow, so many generalizations that aren't true. My family of 4 can go out to eat for under $30, why does it cost a single person $30 to eat?
I have no idea. I'm a single person and have yet to spend $30 to go out to eat in Austin. Speaking on being single, San Antonio has a significantly lower rate of people with a 4-year degree or higher. That might not be an issue for some people. What I've found is that people in San Antonio tend to start having children young. It's not uncommon to come across an unmarried man or woman on the dating market who already has two or three kids by the age of 25.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Austin is nothing more than a college town (like Madison, Ann Arbor, Tuscaloosa, Eugene, Tempe) that grew too big for its own good.
Just imagine what would happen if you took Madison, WI and dumped 1,000,000 people in the area over the period of 10 years. It would be one huge disaster. The Madison, WI area has only gained around 200K people from 1990 to 2010 (from 650K to 850K). Austin has gone from 850K in 1990 to 1.7mil in 2010.
Austin was never designed to be anything more than a small/medium sized college town and state capital. Sorry, but there's no way I'd pay over $800/mo to rent a 1br apartment in a freaking college town, especially when you consider that most college towns have very reasonable housing costs. Nashville has around the same population as Austin, but the cost of living in Nashville is much lower.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Austin is nothing more than a college town (like Madison, Ann Arbor, Tuscaloosa, Eugene, Tempe) that grew too big for its own good.
Just imagine what would happen if you took Madison, WI and dumped 1,000,000 people in the area over the period of 10 years. It would be one huge disaster. The Madison, WI area has only gained around 200K people from 1990 to 2010 (from 650K to 850K). Austin has gone from 850K in 1990 to 1.7mil in 2010.
Austin was never designed to be anything more than a small/medium sized college town and state capital. Sorry, but there's no way I'd pay over $800/mo to rent a 1br apartment in a freaking college town, especially when you consider that most college towns have very reasonable housing costs. Nashville has around the same population as Austin, but the cost of living in Nashville is much lower.
When I moved from San Antonio to San Marcos, I noticed that the rent was higher. Of course, you can save money if you get a roommate; but, if you want to live by yourself, you get less for more. I was surprised this was the case in a college town with a low median income, but it's all about supply and demand. The difference between San Marcos and Austin is that Austin actually has a lot of jobs for professionals who aren't working for the main university. The median income in Austin is quite high relative to the rest of Texas. It also has a higher GDP per capita than San Antonio despite it being a smaller city.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Austin is nothing more than a college town (like Madison, Ann Arbor, Tuscaloosa, Eugene, Tempe) that grew too big for its own good.
Just imagine what would happen if you took Madison, WI and dumped 1,000,000 people in the area over the period of 10 years. It would be one huge disaster. The Madison, WI area has only gained around 200K people from 1990 to 2010 (from 650K to 850K). Austin has gone from 850K in 1990 to 1.7mil in 2010.
Austin was never designed to be anything more than a small/medium sized college town and state capital. Sorry, but there's no way I'd pay over $800/mo to rent a 1br apartment in a freaking college town, especially when you consider that most college towns have very reasonable housing costs. Nashville has around the same population as Austin, but the cost of living in Nashville is much lower.
I completely agree the cost of living is a major downer here. My bf and I both work, he got his degree in MIS, and I got my degree in Business, we both thought moving here would be a good idea and it just wasn't a good idea at all. He is only making $14/hr and he is an IT tech and I am only making $10/hr as a receptionist. That's only $24/hr between the both of us, that is ridiculous. We believe that since we both have degrees that maybe making a move to where the market isn't flooded with highly educated individuals we would make more money, bc the industry averages should be way higher than what we are making. Plus not only that, we've both noticed that there is huge biases when it comes to out of towners and we both don't feel welcomed here at all.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
