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I was the OP who said that I didn't take into account 2 checks/bills for taxes. Yes, I have two separate bills. I received one bill that I must pay to Williamson County for my property taxes for 2007, and one that I pay to Round Rock Tax Assessor. They are two separate amounts. We don't have our taxes rolled into our mortgage payment, so maybe that's why I pay 2 different bills (and know about it) and many people don't, since their mortgage company pays it.
But I do know that in Rhode Island, it was one bill to the town that covered both property and school taxes.
I feel for you. We did sell ours, but made nothing. The victory was in selling.
My list:
1.)Poor pedestrian infrastructure. I knew that Austin wasn't NYC, but I did(and do) expect much more from a city that talks itself up as being progressive and green. In this aspect, it's second rate at best. Some areas(downtown and newer developments) are well designed, but if you like to walk around neighborhoods with your dog, look out and be prepared to walk in the street a lot. I've almost been hit three times since I've been here
2.)Libraries. I guess we were spoiled, but I'm finding the libraries here to be pretty average and dreary, especially the downtown branch. It's adequate, but uninspiring. Libraries should be beautiful, inspiring and important community focal points.
3.)Italian food. There just isn't much here and I miss it sometimes. There are a few places but you kind of have to dig to find them. If you're coming from the North/East Coast, be prepared. I'm not talking about 5-star restaurants, just a mom & pop place(not a pizza parlor) to get some decent eggplant parmesan
4.)Drivers. I heard a lot about how bad the drivers were here in Texas, but I have to admit, I thought some of it might be hyperbole. It's not. There seems to be a pervasive characteristic of acute reckless driving in this state(not just Austin). I've seen drivers like that everywhere in this country but never to this extent. There are actually signs on I35 that encourage folks to report reckless drivers. It's kind of scary actually. A lot of irreverence towards traffic laws. And this is coming from someone who's been in more than a dozen accidents The latest one, when my wife and I were here looking for an apartment last July:
Anyway, we would still move here. No place is perfect and I think many of these problems will be addressed over time...although I don't know what can be done about the drivers.
I think that Austin is an animal of Texas much as anything else. Being the capitol, and heart and soul, so to speak, it will reflect the priorities, or lack thereof, of the same. Texas is 50th in education spending per capita.
Texas also spends the least on public infrastructure per capita, is first in % of population without health insurance, 46th in % of population with high school degrees, first in toxic factory emission pollutants(army nerve gas is incinerated daily over galveston, the only town in the USA willing to do so), 49th in park spending(why twange has trouble finding nice places to walk fido), #1 in public executions(never could understand that one, nor can europe), #1 in traffic fatalities(another reason twange has trouble walking his dog), 47# in voter participation, 48th in community lending by banks, 47th in SAT scores, and so on...Texas is great for business, because Texas is 49th in tax revenue raised, and corporations are near the bottom per funding arts, community events, or anything resembling accountability.Now, that all being said, is it any wonder why Austin, the capitol of this mess, would manifest much of the same, particularly in spending on infrastructure such as roads, pedways, libraries, parks, rec facilities, and many other sundry things? Nothing happens in a vacuum. Austin is simply a product of its own state, as well as the capitol of the same. How could one expect anything else in the midst of the state stats I mentioned? Unless they were the equivalent of city-states in Europe in the middle ages, and levied their own taxes and built walls around the city, there is pretty much no way to avoid becoming a part of the rest of the state in all things I mentioned. The only saving grace in Austin is that it has a major state university in its midst, which thankfully supplies many of the things that would otherwise be lacking culturally in such an abjectly lacking environment.
Last edited by socrates1234; 12-25-2007 at 10:59 AM..
Wow. Socrates I hope you don't live in Austin because it sounds like you'd be miserable there.
I'm generally happy with the community I live in, but there are specific things, which can't be changed (amount of daylight), that are making me very unhappy so I'm looking at the option of moving (to Austin...). If you do live in Austin and hate it as much as that post makes it sound, I'd really recommend looking into relocating. Nothing is worth being so unhappy so much of the time. Life is short.
On the other hand, if you love Austin, but are just trying to discourage new comers I'd have to say you need to come to terms with the fact that when you live somewhere nice, it's going to attract people from other parts of the country. Sure there are negatives to this, but plenty of positives as well. Change is both good and bad. If people are attracted to Austin they will very likely try to perserve that which makes it unique.
Wow. Socrates I hope you don't live in Austin because it sounds like you'd be miserable there.
I'm generally happy with the community I live in, but there are specific things, which can't be changed (amount of daylight), that are making me very unhappy so I'm looking at the option of moving (to Austin...). If you do live in Austin and hate it as much as that post makes it sound, I'd really recommend looking into relocating. Nothing is worth being so unhappy so much of the time. Life is short.
On the other hand, if you love Austin, but are just trying to discourage new comers I'd have to say you need to come to terms with the fact that when you live somewhere nice, it's going to attract people from other parts of the country. Sure there are negatives to this, but plenty of positives as well. Change is both good and bad. If people are attracted to Austin they will very likely try to perserve that which makes it unique.
I would highly recommend anyone considering relocating to a city to spend some time there before they commit, even if its a job transfer. Austin was a little jewel a long time ago, but the doubling of the population in the last 10 years has completely destroyed the ambience it once had. Hard to preserve Austin when you double the population of a small, quaint city in just a matter of a few years. Austin has now approached the same problems as the other big three cities in Texas, and is not special anymore. All those state stats I mentioned have finally begun to overwhelm the city. This is not a don't worry be happy thing. It's a Austin has jumped the shark and is not a special buzz city utopia anymore, and never will be again thing......and I hope you become happy again as well. You opened your post by saying that there are things that can't be changed that are making you sad....don't hang your hopes on any "utopia" to make you happy. If you rely on externalities to make you happy, you are not in control of your own mindset/destiny to begin with anyway. Many people who think like this travel from place to place looking for perfection/utopia, when it was inside them all along.....maybe YOU might have learned a lesson with this tonight.....
BTW, that works for relationships too. When we rely on someone other's approval/presence for our own happiness, we are setting ourselves up for problems....same as when we look for "utopias" to make things all "better" in our lives....
again, all the answers, peace, serenity, approval, and happiness lies completely in our own selves........
Spoken like Socrates. I do think that sometimes it helps to be able to change the scenery, since it gives you a (even if false, yet comforting) sense of being in control of something, not necessarily of one's destiny, (health, happiness, or success in career or relationships). For many people it's our way of feeling like we have a little say in what happens in our lives, instead of feeling like we are just marking time, waiting (patiently)what may never come our way. But then most beautiful or meaningful things happen to us when least aware of or expected.
Your recommendation of spending some time at one particular place before committing to it makes perfect sense, though for some people it's impossible. Kids, mortgages, school schedule, and other leg binders become insurpassable hurdles making the experiential research at best scanty, therefore the need for and success of sites like this.
I myself am traveling to Austin today, albeit for a couple of days only, to refresh my memories of this beautiful city in the hope of making up my mind about relocating there soon. I know it will take another couple of trips at least as short as this one in Spring and Summer before I know for sure.
you can only golf 50 weeks a year and not 52 ..... Socrates I like the idea
of having a couple of months more summer on either end .... it's not nervana
and maybe a panacea ... but it would make me "happier " and a little healthier
I'm happy with the community I live in, but there are specific things, which can't be changed (amount of daylight), that are making me very unhappy so I'm looking at the option of moving (to Austin...).
I understand what you are talking about when you say (essentially) you can't run away from yourself. I am very happy in Madison during the summer, I love the people and the area, but when the day light starts waining (read pitch black at 5:00) the darkness becomes oppressive. By the winter solstice we only have about 8 hours of daylight, if it is overcast (which it usually is) even less.
This really is an external, not an internal thing. Moving really is the only solution for me. I'm only considering Austin as opposed to any place else because it is compared to Madison by a lot of people. I don't want to loose 98% of what it means to live here (no place is perfect), but I get *so* depressed and immobilized in the winter.
Spoken like Socrates. I do think that sometimes it helps to be able to change the scenery, since it gives you a (even if false, yet comforting) sense of being in control of something, not necessarily of one's destiny, (health, happiness, or success in career or relationships). For many people it's our way of feeling like we have a little say in what happens in our lives, instead of feeling like we are just marking time, waiting (patiently)what may never come our way. But then most beautiful or meaningful things happen to us when least aware of or expected.
Your recommendation of spending some time at one particular place before committing to it makes perfect sense, though for some people it's impossible. Kids, mortgages, school schedule, and other leg binders become insurpassable hurdles making the experiential research at best scanty, therefore the need for and success of sites like this.
I myself am traveling to Austin today, albeit for a couple of days only, to refresh my memories of this beautiful city in the hope of making up my mind about relocating there soon. I know it will take another couple of trips at least as short as this one in Spring and Summer before I know for sure.
Far wiser than what I said....so well said as well, Ab.........yes, sometimes we do need to change the scenery. I think that is why we jump in and out of relationships/marriages so much as well as jobs. The question is, are we really changing anything, or are we just taking the same mindset/problems from the past place to place? If we could truly find inner peace, would it make any difference what type of person was there to share it with? Do we have to share it with someone of equal mindset to truly enjoy it? Can you even be properly described as "enjoying" inner peace, or is it something that just is, beyond sharing, or the background of friends or hometowns? Finally, just what are we all looking for anyway? A great place to live? A great place to become what we truly were inside all along? A mindset? A way of life? Money, power, sex? All of the above? Perhaps many of us, if not most of us, aren't even sure what we are looking for, and just feel an indescribable emptiness inside, with a inner-driven quest to fulfill it.......or is this all just a lack of religion and a connection with our spiritual selves, numbed by consumer culture, but not enough to completely still it?
All this just applies to people who move somewhere for a higher purpose than job-transfers/money. It would apply to that large mass of folks you don't hear about much, who are questing for that certain something out there, and haven't quite found it yet........
BTW, look up my new post on WHY PEOPLE WRITE SO MUCH ABOUT AUSTIN for some other good thoughts that may come in handy........I don't hate it at all, and actually love it.....just not the way the city has handled the last 10 years of growth,
and I have fears for how long the precious old spirit that still hangs over the center part of the city will last. You have
essentially Mesa, Az.(sprawl) and heaven(the DT/central environs of the city)check to jowl now.....we can only wait
and see how that plays out, and try to guide it best we can....areas that grow fast, especially rare birds like Austin,
can lose their persona forever if it isn't handled right. And some places just weren't meant to be large...
Last edited by socrates1234; 12-26-2007 at 01:39 PM..
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Electricity costs
The latest one, when my wife and I were here looking for an apartment last July:
