Where do Austinites fed up with Austin move?

[Frodo2008]

Originally Posted by TXEX06

I did. I left Austin in 2009 when I was 27 for San Antonio. Haven't looked back! I have had the complete opposite experience as ashbeeigh. And unlike ash I grew up in Sweden, the Northeast, and Midwest. I've never been in the military, my wife has never been in the military, and very few people I know have ever served in the military. My neighbor holds a Master's from Harvard and works in alternative energy (he also has an apartment in the Upper West Side of Manhatten, but loves SA and keeps his loft as his homebase) another is an environmental engineer, one a retired professor, another a lawyer, ones an ENT, a buddy by the pool works for Boeing, another buddy by the pools sells high tech security gates (ones that blow up cars) and he also is part owner of a brewery, a young lady down the hall is a speech pathologist, an older Mary Jane loving dude in the building next to me owns retirement communities, the guy below me owns his own construction business (his radiant cooling system is awesome!), a guy at the end of the hall works in community relations for USAA (never military) and his wife is an RN who works helicopter transports, etc! The military stigma is old and out of date.

So it sounds like San Antonio is a pretty happening place these days. Yeah these days you can't believe most of what you hear about any place. A lot of people on the west coast and in the northeast have bad impressions of Texas in general. Then when they come here they find out they were completely wrong all these years. You have to just go to a place and check it out and see for yourself.

I used to think Los Angeles would be a great place until I went there for the first time. I was very unimpressed to say the least. The scenery around LA is pretty good and the location is good but the city itself sucks big time.

[ashbeeigh]

Originally Posted by TXEX06

I did. I left Austin in 2009 when I was 27 for San Antonio. Haven't looked back! I have had the complete opposite experience as ashbeeigh. And unlike ash I grew up in Sweden, the Northeast, and Midwest. I've never been in the military, my wife has never been in the military, and very few people I know have ever served in the military. My neighbor holds a Master's from Harvard and works in alternative energy (he also has an apartment in the Upper West Side of Manhatten, but loves SA and keeps his loft as his homebase) another is an environmental engineer, one a retired professor, another a lawyer, ones an ENT, a buddy by the pool works for Boeing, another buddy by the pools sells high tech security gates (ones that blow up cars) and he also is part owner of a brewery, a young lady down the hall is a speech pathologist, an older Mary Jane loving dude in the building next to me owns retirement communities, the guy below me owns his own construction business (his radiant cooling system is awesome!), a guy at the end of the hall works in community relations for USAA (never military) and his wife is an RN who works helicopter transports, etc! The military stigma is old and out of date.

It's really a matter of your culture and where you land in San Antonio. FWIW, where I lived and grew up was not military centric at all. I think I may have had 3-4 classmates that had military backgrounds. However, once I got out of college and tried to get into the workforce, that's when the military culture hit me. More times than not I ran into people asking me about my military background and working as if it was a military installation in regards to rules and general culture. I do not have that up here. It's kind of like the tech culture, hipster culture or here music scene here. You can be in your bubble and not see it, but when you step out of it, it's there. I'm not denying your experience and I'm so happy you've found a happy place in San Antonio, but I also know that the more and more the city pushes its "Military City USA" motto the more it pushes out great people like you and me because that's what it focuses on. You've gotta find the right place for you and it sounds like SA is not the place for millenials. Oh, and I'll be 34 in May.

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by ashbeeigh

It's really a matter of your culture and where you land in San Antonio. FWIW, where I lived and grew up was not military centric at all. I think I may have had 3-4 classmates that had military backgrounds. However, once I got out of college and tried to get into the workforce, that's when the military culture hit me. More times than not I ran into people asking me about my military background and working as if it was a military installation in regards to rules and general culture. I do not have that up here. It's kind of like the tech culture, hipster culture or here music scene here. You can be in your bubble and not see it, but when you step out of it, it's there. I'm not denying your experience and I'm so happy you've found a happy place in San Antonio, but I also know that the more and more the city pushes its "Military City USA" motto the more it pushes out great people like you and me because that's what it focuses on. You've gotta find the right place for you and it sounds like SA is not the place for millenials. Oh, and I'll be 34 in May.

Funny, my son and his wife have lived in San Antonio for years. She's a personal chef/caterer; he's never been military. I'm sure some of their numerous friends are but I've never heard about it - lots of medical personnel (our grandson was born with SCID so that was inevitable), firemen, other "ordinary people". Their son is currently going through a military phase (he's four, and that's, based on my experience, right on target - when our son was about that age, he did the same thing, never mind that we were tie-died hippy parents as were all our friends, guns were verboten, we had no television, and that was Austin of the 1970's, somehow it showed up anyway but played out and he's the exact opposite now). He loves San Antonio because it reminds him strongly of the Austin he grew up in (he's a native Austinite - his wife isn't but she lived and worked in Austin and that's where they met) and Austin is nothing like that now, and because he experiences it as a great place to raise kids because there are so many kid-friendly activities. You're painting with a broad brush based on YOUR personal experience in San Antonio by saying it's "not for millenials". Best you can say with any accuracy is that it's not for you.

[ashbeeigh]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

Funny, my son and his wife have lived in San Antonio for years. She's a personal chef/caterer; he's never been military. I'm sure some of their numerous friends are but I've never heard about it - lots of medical personnel (our grandson was born with SCID so that was inevitable), firemen, other "ordinary people". Their son is currently going through a military phase (he's four, and that's, based on my experience, right on target - when our son was about that age, he did the same thing, never mind that we were tie-died hippy parents as were all our friends, guns were verboten, we had no television, and that was Austin of the 1970's, somehow it showed up anyway but played out and he's the exact opposite now). He loves San Antonio because it reminds him strongly of the Austin he grew up in (he's a native Austinite - his wife isn't but she lived and worked in Austin and that's where they met) and Austin is nothing like that now, and because he experiences it as a great place to raise kids because there are so many kid-friendly activities. You're painting with a broad brush based on YOUR personal experience in San Antonio by saying it's "not for millenials". Best you can say with any accuracy is that it's not for you.

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

You're painting with a broad brush based on YOUR personal experience in San Antonio by saying it's "not for millenials". Best you can say with any accuracy is that it's not for you.

I think that's exactly what I said in my post before, that it's up to an individual to decide whether its for them or not. And I may have been a bit too strong in my last sentence in my paragraph previously. For the stereotypical millenial depicted in the news, SA is probably not a good fit. For people that want music, walking distance things, clubs, bars, bike friendly, tech-y jobs SA probably isn't a good fit. For a young millenial family it very well could be a good fit. I have plenty of friends still in SA who have families that are very happy, but I also have friends that have moved to Austin from SA who have families. If someone is going to use an internet forum to decide on where to live without visiting or knowing the city they have bigger problems.

[riaelise]

I love SA. I love the rich Tex Mex heritage that it has. I love all of the things to do there. I'd move there, no question. And SA has plenty of bars and clubs.

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by riaelise

I love SA. I love the rich Tex Mex heritage that it has. I love all of the things to do there. I'd move there, no question. And SA has plenty of bars and clubs.

Yep. If my son and family have any problem it's that their social calendar full of things to do is TOO full (at least for those of us who'd like to spend more time with them - their schedule is full months ahead of time), and a wide variety of things it is, too.

[TXEX06]

Originally Posted by ashbeeigh

I. For the stereotypical millenial depicted in the news, SA is probably not a good fit. For people that want music, walking distance things, clubs, bars, bike friendly, tech-y jobs SA probably isn't a good fit.

Oh geez. Downtown San Antonio is extremely walkable. You can walk the river from The Pearl, through downtown, into Southtown, and onto the missions. The Mission Reach river extension has 15 miles of bike trails. Southtown is a great walkable and very bike friendly area, with lots of bars, restaurants, coffee shops, and art galleries. St. Mary's strip is full of bars, live music, and again very walkable. For better or worse Grayson St is being compared to Rainey St in Austin because of all the bars/restaurants going into old homes. And when the first phase of San Pedro Creek opens this year people will have another option to navigate downtown below street level and away from vehicles and lights.

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by TXEX06

Oh geez. Downtown San Antonio is extremely walkable. You can walk the river from The Pearl, through downtown, into Southtown, and onto the missions. The Mission Reach river extension has 15 miles of bike trails. Southtown is a great walkable and very bike friendly area, with lots of bars, restaurants, coffee shops, and art galleries. St. Mary's strip is full of bars, live music, and again very walkable. For better or worse Grayson St is being compared to Rainey St in Austin because of all the bars/restaurants going into old homes. And when the first phase of San Pedro Creek opens this year people will have another option to navigate downtown below street level and away from vehicles and lights.

Yes, my son has no complaints in that regard, and he lived for several years in New York City, before that Boston, before that D.C., he speaks walkable.

[riaelise]

I wish we could have purchased one of the King William homes while they were still affordable thirteen years ago :/ King William District = Beautiful. Stately older homes surrounded by skyscrapers, a river, and city life. Austin is nice, but San Antonio is just as nice. That's the nice thing about Texas, each city has its own distinct beauty.