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Well, really Austin's only advantage over San Jose to me is the cost of living, and that's just happens to be the most important criteria for most folks.
You can discount this, but it's a really big difference..
This isn't "Austin is better if you are poor". At literally any price range, I prefer what you get in Austin over what you get in San Jose. As my net worth goes to infinity I'd eventually not choose either of these metros, but there is really no point on the scale where I'm looking enviously at San Jose. It's simply outrageously priced. If it was Malibu or La Jolla or an urban neighborhood in SF, etc, etc, that'd be one thing, but, outside of the employers/career component, I'm not seeing the value in San Jose.
San Jose, being part of the Bay Area, is surrounded by great schools, like UC Berkeley, Stanford, San Francisco State and UC San Francisco
Oh, no doubt about that, but that's not what I was talking about. I was talking about college towns in terms of it how affects nightlife and Austin definitely has a very bustling college town nightlife scene and generally a very active nightlife scene. I am pretty well aware of nightlife in and around Stanford and it is not really a collegetown atmosphere or really much of a nightlife at all.
I didnt see much of a difference during the day tbh, but I am referring to how these places look---at street level, the first thought that came to mind when I went to Austin was: This literally looks like Sac.
I see a resemblance, including in the rather smaller square-ish platting of blocks around downtown though it also depends a bit on where you are. If you were there in the daytime for work, then you probably were in the downtown central business district bit of Austin. Austin certainly has much more bustling urban areas than San Jose or Sacramento though.
Aside from personal experience, one tool I think is pretty good at giving a rough proxy for cities in the US is to use walkscore and to look at the total number of people living in a certain walkscore band. You'll see that Austin has a lot more people than either San Jose or Sacramento living above 90, and above 80.
I don't think there's much to argue here about having more "urban" intensity or nightlife. Austin does better at that. However, I'd still probably pick San Jose because I prefer California the state, I like mountains for hiking, and I have a strong preference for East and Southeast Asian groceries and restaurants. Also, I think San Jose has a decent chance of very rapidly becoming a lot more urban, dense and interesting or at the very least having faster and more frequent access to parts of the Bay Area that are.
I see a resemblance, including in the rather smaller square-ish platting of blocks around downtown though it also depends a bit on where you are. If you were there in the daytime for work, then you probably were in the downtown central business district bit of Austin. Austin certainly has much more bustling urban areas than San Jose or Sacramento though.
Aside from personal experience, one tool I think is pretty good at giving a rough proxy for cities in the US is to use walkscore and to look at the total number of people living in a certain walkscore band. You'll see that Austin has a lot more people than either San Jose or Sacramento living above 90, and above 80.
I don't think there's much to argue here about having more "urban" intensity or nightlife. Austin does better at that. However, I'd still probably pick San Jose because I prefer California the state, I like mountains for hiking, and I have a strong preference for East and Southeast Asian groceries and restaurants. Also, I think San Jose has a decent chance of very rapidly becoming a lot more urban, dense and interesting or at the very least having faster and more frequent access to parts of the Bay Area that are.
Metro-wide San Jose is much more dense and walkable than Austin, but it doesn't really crescendo into much in downtown San Jose itself. People in the San Jose metro don't travel to downtown for work, entertainment, dining, nightlife, etc to the extent that people in Austin do.
I don't consider Austin to particularly "urban" by any stretch but it does have very active nightlife that you'd have to go into SF to approximate in the Bay Area.
Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by whereiend
Metro-wide San Jose is much more dense and walkable than Austin, but it doesn't really crescendo into much in downtown San Jose itself. People in the San Jose metro don't travel to downtown for work, entertainment, dining, nightlife, etc to the extent that people in Austin do.
I don't consider Austin to particularly "urban" by any stretch but it does have very active nightlife that you'd have to go into SF to approximate in the Bay Area.
Metro-wide San Jose is much more dense and walkable than Austin, but it doesn't really crescendo into much in downtown San Jose itself. People in the San Jose metro don't travel to downtown for work, entertainment, dining, nightlife, etc to the extent that people in Austin do.
I don't consider Austin to particularly "urban" by any stretch but it does have very active nightlife that you'd have to go into SF to approximate in the Bay Area.
I'm not sure how accurate or useful that statement is, because you certainly don't get dense enough to be reasonably walkable for most of either area, so to me it would only make sense to compare the expanse of very walkable area rather than to do an average over entire counties in order to arrive at a fairly low density average that wouldn't be very walkable at all. After all, walking is a lot about the local density rather than large averages.
Austin definitely has more actually urban and walkable parts and larger populations living in such than San Jose does which in turn seems to also attract more people to go there as visitors as well so it really is busy and bustling. It's more people living in a more walkable area and it's not close in this regard. Of course, parts of East Bay and then SF proper are even further jumps, but I'm assuming the OP is restricting this to the county or MSA level.
I would agree, in terms of nightlife and activity areas, Austin seems plainly to have more of them and residences concentrated around activity hubs giving them more walkability. Anyone living outside those hubs end up Uber'ing to said activity hotspots, or between them though. The true transit system in Austin is Uber / Lyft.
I'm not sure how accurate or useful that statement is, because you certainly don't get dense enough to be reasonably walkable for most of either area, so to me it would only make sense to compare the expanse of very walkable area rather than to do an average over entire counties in order to arrive at a fairly low density average that wouldn't be very walkable at all. After all, walking is a lot about the local density rather than large averages.
Austin definitely has more actually urban and walkable parts and larger populations living in such than San Jose does which in turn seems to also attract more people to go there as visitors as well so it really is busy and bustling. It's more people living in a more walkable area and it's not close in this regard. Of course, parts of East Bay and then SF proper are even further jumps, but I'm assuming the OP is restricting this to the county or MSA level.
Yeah I get what you are saying. Neither city has a lot of 80+ or 90+ walkscore areas, but maybe Austin has more there, I'm honestly not sure. What I meant is that I think the SJ metro has a lot more semi-walkable areas, as it has fairly dense suburbia compared to Austin which has a lot more low-density suburbia that requires car trips for even the most basic of tasks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Need4Camaro
I would agree, in terms of nightlife and activity areas, Austin seems plainly to have more of them and residences concentrated around activity hubs giving them more walkability. Anyone living outside those hubs end up Uber'ing to said activity hotspots, or between them though. The true transit system in Austin is Uber / Lyft.
I agree with this. Downtown Austin on a weekend might even comparable favorably to San Francisco in activity level, but most of the people would have Uber-ed in from outlying parts of the city and metro.
Sorry but outlets are everywhere and sell items not up to par for stand alone boutiques, which retailers are far more selective in choosing where to open.
The shopping comparison is a perfect example of how despite the anecdotal similarities there are between these 2 metro areas, they are still very, very different.
Quote:
Originally Posted by whereiend
You can discount this, but it's a really big difference..
Except I don't think it's nearly as big of a difference as you think, because income in San Jose is bigger.
Housing data from the National Association of Realtors and income data from the US Census Bureau.
Median Home Price, Q1 2021
$1,187,214 Santa Clara County, CA
$456,690 Travis County, TX
Typical Monthly Mortgage Payment, Q1 2021
$4,505 Santa Clara County, TX
$1,733 Travis County, TX
Now this might seem daunting for the median household income in San Jose, and indeed it is...
Median Household Income:
$133,076 Santa Clara County, CA
$80,726 Travis County, TX
Remaining Median Household Income Minus 12-months of Mortgage Payments:
$79,016 Santa Clara County, CA
$59,930 Travis County, TX
Keep in mind this doesnt include property taxes which are actually higher in Texas, so...
As I've done in the past, I've looked at more precise data that looks at people actually more inclined to be in the market for a house, here is one example:
Median Income, Married Couple Family with Children Under Age 18
$200,942 Santa Clara County, CA
$128,241 Travis County, TX
TYPICAL ANNUAL MORTGAGE PAYMENTS
$54,060 Santa Clara County, CA
$20,796 Travis County, TX
MEDIAN INCOME REMAINING AFTER MORTGAGE PAYMENTS
$146,882 Santa Clara County, CA
$107,445 Travis County, TX
So this at least shows us that numbers actually can add up for the median family with kids, even if they are tight, but keep in mind a whole heck of a lot of people in the San Jose Metro earn way more than $200,000 as well.
Quote:
This isn't "Austin is better if you are poor". At literally any price range, I prefer what you get in Austin over what you get in San Jose.
Yes, and more power to you and your preference, but I would rather raise a family and put kids through school certain parts of the San Jose area over ANYWHERE in Texas, no matter the price. To each his own.
Quote:
As my net worth goes to infinity I'd eventually not choose either of these metros, but there is really no point on the scale where I'm looking enviously at San Jose. It's simply outrageously priced. If it was Malibu or La Jolla or an urban neighborhood in SF, etc, etc, that'd be one thing, but, outside of the employers/career component, I'm not seeing the value in San Jose.
Well that's okay because the San Jose Metro Area has the highest density of ultra high net worth individuals in the world.
Apparently, lots of people in the infiinity income bracket see a lot of value in San Jose.
Yeah I get what you are saying. Neither city has a lot of 80+ or 90+ walkscore areas, but maybe Austin has more there, I'm honestly not sure. What I meant is that I think the SJ metro has a lot more semi-walkable areas, as it has fairly dense suburbia compared to Austin which has a lot more low-density suburbia that requires car trips for even the most basic of tasks.
I agree with this. Downtown Austin on a weekend might even comparable favorably to San Francisco in activity level, but most of the people would have Uber-ed in from outlying parts of the city and metro.
Yea, if you look at walkscore, there are much more people living in 90+ neighborhoods and in 80+ neighborhoods in Austin/Travis County than San Jose/Santa Clara County. I think dense suburbia doesn't really fulfill much of anything particularly well in regards to being bustling, walkable, or conducive to nightlife.
There's been a significant uptick of people living in and staying in hotels within the more urban parts of Austin because there's been a lot of construction for such.
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