How do you like your city? (Houston, Austin: apartment, to rent, attorney)

[Weatherguy]

In a normal year, you need A/C pretty much every day from May through September. In most years, you don't need it from October through much of April. However, like in so many regions, our weather has been getting warmer in the last couple of decades, and the number of days on which A/C is needed has been increasing. This year has been particularly warm so far. I've used A/C several times since Christmas, even in the middle of winter. In a normal winter, you don't need A/C at all and instead will often need heat, especially in the mornings, unless you really love a cold house, which some people do. But the trend has been such that we're not seeing "normal" winters any more. I had never used A/C in the winter until this year.

At the same time, we had three very cold spells this winter (each lasted only a few days). One of them was so cold that it killed off a lot of shrubbery, and many palm trees were damaged. So it's been a roller coaster.

Vegetation leafed out about a month early this year.

[Denver303TJC]

Originally Posted by JT-3

If everyone was naked the commute would be safer and perhaps more enjoyable.

Yeah, I know! I've been attending meetup groups with a bunch of divorced women and I've shown up naked and have asked them to punish me, since I've been a bad wittle boy. J/K

[Ivory Lee Spurlock]

Originally Posted by RunninJT

Too crowded, too many new and angry people honking at each other everywhere I go.

Where exactly in Austin Metro are you going that you are coming across all these "angry people honking at each other everywhere you go"? I don't see it. I don't run into too many angry people on a day to day basis and I hardly ever hear anybody honking their horn.

[k374]

Originally Posted by Weatherguy

In a normal year, you need A/C pretty much every day from May through September.

LA can get very hot as well. On the coasts it's pretty nice but a home on the coast costs $3-5 million so that weather is irrelevant to most people. Inland, where most people live and the homes are a more "reasonable" $600,000-$1 million, it can get into the 90s in Summer. In the Valley it's very typically triple digits.

Most people don't realize that LA is essentially a desert so any distance from the coast it is hot as hell during summer. The saving grace is that it isn't humid, it's a dry heat.

[mrwumpus]

I'm a Southern California native born and raised (north and south Orange County), and we are visiting TX this week. Austin was the first city that impressed us as a nice place to live. Some neighborhoods are as pretty as Laguna Beach, CA, (minus the ocean views of course). People seem friendly and intelligent in general and the pace is more mellow. Downtown was nice with a hip edge but still "down to earth" and not sketchy/scary like Los Angeles.

That being said, the traffic is horrendous. Drivers are very erratic here. About 30% drive aggressively and fast. 50% drive normal and reasonably, then 20% seem to drive slowly or poorly. Combined, these drivers make for chaos unlike Southern California where everyone just drives fast. Watching them all trying to merge during rush hour is toe curling.

Surprisingly, I don't recall hearing a single horn. I do recall a driver speeding up when I started signalling, so that told me I needed to do it Southern California style which is swerve into the lane and signal briefly after I'm in.

I assume this is just from rapid growth and people commuting from Austin back to the many neighboring bedroom communities.

People like to blame Californians, but who ruined California? Who were the one million people who moved into my California county in my lifetime and made the beaches so crowded I can't find parking even after looking for 30 minutes? There were more Texans in my California office than native Californians.

I guess my point here is every place that is worth moving to is getting more crowded. Until somebody restricts growth or gets creative with public transportation, is there any end to it?

[Texyn]

Austin overall is a nice, innovative city, with decent weather relative to much of the country. The only flaws with the weather are the proneness to winter cold (it is a sin for a city this far south on Earth to be seeing teens and 20s) and the sheer dryness in summer (July and August need at least 4 more inches of rainfall).

[earthisle]

Once family circumstances allow I want to move to California. Government jobs there pay up to twice as much, which more than makes up for any cost of living difference. There are far more outdoors activities, somewhat decent beaches, and in my experience Californians are friendlier.

[ikoolu]

i welcome all your texans to come to california - experience the golden life- my house is for sale if your looking - 1 acre 20 miles from cowtown LA - 2700 sq pool etc etc asking 1.1M - will consider cash offers- oh yea pottery taxes will be about 12k - your water bill will run 300 and electric about 400 also the cities are now taxing cable -phone - internet bills 8% too

please come here - we need you

[steve9229]

NoBull, ReggieFred and dbsteel (among others) made some very good points. I used to really like living here but I am now trying desperately to get out. The cons of living here now outweigh the pros significantly.
It's also worth noting:
There's Significant humidity.
If you don't have allergies you will get them after moving here. If you already have them they'll likely get worse.

On the plus side. When everything is green it looks nice.
It's centrally located so you can get to Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, the hill country or the coast pretty quickly.
There's also lots of stuff to do. Especially if you like to party.

Generally I've found that most people will defend their love of Austin to a fault and declare that there's no better place on earth to live. I'm not really sure why that is. I guess they all drank the Austin marketing machine cool aid?--I can hear people feverously typing their flame responses now. No offense intended. My point is that Austin markets itself extremely well. When I finally leave there will be things I miss about it. However it will mostly be because of my rose colored glasses and how things were when I got here 18 years ago. I could not ever imagine retiring here.

I hope you find some good information on this site so you can make a good decision whether a move here is right for you. Which is the main thing. Where I'm trying to move to is not the right place for most people. But I'll almost surely be happier there. Good luck!

[Cookiemeister]

I guess I am still on cloud nine after moving to Austin 6 mths ago. I love it! The traffic does not deter my enthusiasm for this city. I love all the multitude of parks and water sources, the music scene is first class as are the restaurants. The weather is great for most of the year, except for a few very hot months in the summer but better than snow in winter... here you can find some water hole to cool off in. I enjoy all the film and theater, the farmers markets, the Sunday brunches, downtown, South Austin, East Austin, the weirdness, the liberal attitude. There is so much going on that it is hard to focus. I love the culture and diversity. I think it is a great place to live. I will let you know how I feel in a few years but I doubt I will change my tune.