You Guys Ever Notice... (Houston, Dallas: lawyers, job market, university)

[PublicImageLtd.]

That the diehard Pro-Austin people( Ones that cant ever shut up about how Austin is right up there with Heaven as the place to be)


are usually very financially secure, wealthy people? I rarely see any non-college student who's finances are tight be pro-austin.

You know, I guess I would love Austin too if I worked in the software, advertising, marketing industries making a new chunk of change.

I've lived here in Austin since 1987. Austin used to be a really cool, quiet underground place. Till about say 1991-92 when Dell, and other corporations started majorly getting big or established. Then the cost of living kept going up and up.

Why would I want to live in a wannabe version of LA if its going to be the same cost of living-wise, and lack of decent job market? LA may be spread out. But at least you're getting better job opportunity and more things to do that can almost justify the cost of living there.

Dont get me started on the dating scene here. Its great if you want to date 21 year olds the rest of your life. Not so good if you happen to be early 30's. Cause every one in that age bracket here is either married, or single with kids.

For all it's drawbacks, LA, New York, Arizona have better availability of single 30 somethings with no kids. Nothing against single parents. But my line of work barely covers the cost of living here. There's no way I can support a potential family.

I mean San Antonio for all its questionability living-wise, at least is cheaper to live. And the job market is somewhat better. I have a feeling Austin is going to have the same situation as what happened to californians who moved down here.

The cost of living is going to keep going up, add in metro raising their fares higher and higher. I guarantee you'll see a huge amount of people flee from here to San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, or even out of state.

Im trying to pull money together myself for me and my father who I take care of to move to San Antonio. Cause I make more money there than here. All the companies in my industry moved up there 2 years ago. That was the only thing keeping me here. Now there is no reason, so I plan to move me and my dad out of here by next year.

See the rest of you guys there in a few years

[CarnivalGal]

I'm a very financially secure (although I wouldn't say wealthy) person who has never said Austin is great, or even good. In fact, if you look at my posts, I am pretty darn critical of Austin.

[verybadgnome]

Go to the Thursday Night Social Bike ride at Fiesta Gardens and you will meet about 300 hipsters whose only money is from their gig at the pizza joint that would never leave Austin if they had a choice.

[jr1038]

Though it certainly wasn't your intention, this thread is a wonderful example of the common denominator amongst, for lack of a better term, Austin "haters" - that is, providing ignorant arguments founded on extremely limited anecdotal evidence. Things like a random encounter with a racist or drunk college kids are offered up as legitimate reasons for why Austin "sucks" or is "inferior" to other Texas cities.

But the hallmark of this crowd is the embellishment (or outright fabrication) of more objective details - case in point, there's no denying that the cost of living in (parts of) Austin is high relative to the rest of the state, but it's hardly reached stratospheric west coast prices as you suggest. And who are you trying to kid about the better job opportunities in LA?

I can think of many reasons not to like Austin - most of which have an objective basis, e.g., lack of "big city" amenities - but criticism along this line is rarely expressed and even more rarely well-articulated on this forum.

However, attempting to extrapolate your extremely limited sample set of opinions of Austin which have allegedly been correlated to socioeconomic status only reflects upon your foolishness. But, please - continue to make senseless generalizations while the rest of us, evidently, wealthy folk shake our heads in pity...

[ScoPro]

[Trainwreck20]

That the diehard Pro-Austin people( Ones that cant ever shut up about how Austin is right up there with Heaven as the place to be)

Not sure I could come up with many usernames on here that fit this description. There ARE a bunch of users that do try to correct ridiculous assertions about traffic, costs, etc., but most aren't even claiming that it is all that great, necessarily, just not the pit of hell that some would have you believe.

[BLev555]

You guys ever notice that people with a name like "Public Image" is the reason why people with the name "Public Image" don't like Austin?

Dude... get on with yourself. It's not L.A. It's not San Fransisco. It's not Denver and it's not New York. It's Austin. And it's changing and it is what it is. And it's still the greatest place in the country. So get on with your damn self. Sorry the image didn't live up to your image. Stop chasing images brother. You'll be happier in the end.

[migol84]

Not. At. All. True. I'm poor, still a student, I only got $600 saved and I'm one of those who love Austin to death. I'm currently in San Francisco and yes San Francisco is a behemoth of a city compared to Austin. But those are not the things that make Austin such a fantastic city. I assumed that San Francisco would offer everything as eloquently as Austin offers for me. The girls, the booze, the music, the food, the people... all in just a few blocks. Sadly, that's not true. Yes, San Francisco provides more in every single aspect, but it doesn't offer it the way Austin does and that's why I like it. That's why I miss it.

I miss the fact that I could actually eat and get full for just 6 bucks. Here I've just finished eating a meal for 18 bucks and I wasn't even full. It's like Blev said, if its not the image for you, then it isn't the image for you. But boy, just today here in SF I heard it 3 times, of others saying great things about Austin and I didn't even say a word about Austin. You're just not seeing what's great about it and I feel sorry for you because you should be having so much fun even right now.

And just so you know... you gotta be kidding about your age range. I have plenty of friends all in their 30's who are doing just fine dating. Go out more dude.

[df175]

Originally Posted by PublicImageLtd.

..
I've lived here in Austin since 1987. Austin used to be a really cool, quiet underground place. Till about say 1991-92 when Dell, and other corporations started majorly getting big or established. Then the cost of living kept going up and up.

But this is true everywhere in the USA that's "hip." Not a valid complaint about Austin per se. Cost of living is still cheap in Indianapolis, Houston, and Kansas City among other places.

Why would I want to live in a wannabe version of LA if its going to be the same cost of living-wise, and lack of decent job market? LA may be spread out. But at least you're getting better job opportunity and more things to do that can almost justify the cost of living there.

Wannabe version of LA is a huge stretch. Yes, with wealth has come more superficialness to Austin, but LA is many orders of magnitude worse.

Austin due the university and the technology business will always be more grounded.

Dont get me started on the dating scene here. Its great if you want to date 21 year olds the rest of your life. Not so good if you happen to be early 30's. Cause every one in that age bracket here is either married, or single with kids.

For all it's drawbacks, LA, New York, Arizona have better availability of single 30 somethings with no kids. Nothing against single parents. But my line of work barely covers the cost of living here. There's no way I can support a potential family.

Two issues here:

Yes, after 30 (really 35+) being single in Austin drops off a cliff as far as the single life. LA and NYC is much better if you value that.

Supporting a family in Austin isn't that hard... just move to Leander or Kyle. Typical suburban situation. Few people can raise kids in West LA; instead they move to Riverside.

I mean San Antonio for all its questionability living-wise, at least is cheaper to live. And the job market is somewhat better. I have a feeling Austin is going to have the same situation as what happened to californians who moved down here.

...

San Antonio is a working class kind of city. It's affordable but down there you're just not going to run into the level of educated, creative, and bright people like you do in Austin.

[centralaustinite]

Puh-leeze!

Chances are you would have hated Austin of 20 years ago too! One big reason -- jobs were not plentiful. Sure there were lots of State and University jobs but they were steady-income prizes and newcomers rarely got them. Every barista, yogurt-shop worker, and burger-flipper seemed to have a master's degree. Have you seen Slacker? The reason there were slackers was that tuition at UT was so cheap, and "real" jobs so hard to come by that it was easier just to keep taking a few classes, make art, play in a band, etc.

The high tech, advertising, marketing jobs that you deplore transformed Austin! They broke up insular attitudes by attracting a critical mass of outsiders (20+ years ago, folks could give you the cold shoulder when they found out you weren't from Texas) who could no longer be ignored. Insular "Old Austin" (not the ones at Threadgills but the lawyers in Pemberton) was shaken up and Austin became a more vibrant and charitable place.

Anyway, Texas is a low-tax, low-service state (and has been for decades under dems and repubs) and that means that it is a hell of a place to be poor. The difference now is that the state has a much bigger, more diversified economy. Education and skills were not much help during the 80s oil bust and S&L crisis, but they make all the difference now.