Relocating to LA from Austin! Is it the right move? (Paramount: law school, living)

[timtemtym]

Austin rents to income ratio is crazy. I got a 15k pay raise in 06 going from Austin to Houston and then another 12k going from Houston to LA two years ago. So even with cost of living LA comes out ahead (in my field at least).

IS your girlfriend an education certified dance instructor? I know of several openings for dance teachers in LA Unified, and I have friends who run a dance studio out in West LA. There are surprisingly good opportunities in that field in LA. Oddly surprising!

Anyways, I spent years in Austin and this is not Austin. Los Angeles outside of the west LA/hollywood parts is nowhere near as materialistic as people assume. I knew so many folks in Austin who had their personal image/brand, trying to be weird in their own ways to stand out. That may just have been in the circles I ran in, but LA isn't nearly as odd in that respect.

[bpeeps]

Yes, Texas sucks.

[Jink]

Originally Posted by Brookside

I know both cities very well - and to sum it up: They are both extremely cool places to live if you're under 30.

I would say LA is like Austin, only bigger, with a better climate, and smog.

And far more gangs.. and crime.

[threepounduniverse]

Originally Posted by CA Dreamer

Austin is TINY compared to Houston or Dallas. It's even smaller compared to LA. Austin is a fun, cheap place to live--especially if you are the artsy type. If you want more of what you like, move to LA.

This is really a question of your personality. For as small as it is, Austin is a pretty well rounded city--great inexpensive restaurants, diverse nightlife, friendly people, great for artists & tech guys, affordable cost of living...I would imagine a city like Portland would be a better destination. You get to do exactly the same things in regards to outdoor activity except you are closer to the mountains and pacific ocean and won't have to deal with the vast size of Los Angeles to get to point A & B.

Austin is a completely different city than Los Angeles. If you want to move somewhere with a heavier shade of liberal blue but more or less the same size, move to Portland. Isn't New York the number one destination for dancers?

Tolerance relative to *other* liberal places in the U.S. IS relative when talking about Austin, even today I guess. In 1977 I was going out with a beautiful Nigerian woman who worked a a teacher at the Texas School For The Blind in Austin... I had waist-length hair tied in a braid most days. I had to punch out quite a few racist and/or Cro-Magnon corn-fed UT frat boys to keep my top-knot intact as they say... I worked at everything from carpentry to bouncer to working as an agent for a bail bondsman to a bartender during the 1970s in Austin... had many friends ranging from roughnecks in boots to UT grad students (also in boots, come to think of it, but cleaner boots) back then and because of ne'er-do-wells like my friends I wound up working and living elsewhere in TX on and off in those years, too- from oil rig decks to nightclub stages on guitar.

Even now Austin is easily the most tolerant and liberal city in TX, it’s got UT and one of the best music scenes in North America, the SXSW circus, the legacy of the old Armadillo World Headquarters- Austin City Limits, UT football “Hook’em Horns!”, UT itself (“when in doubt- build!” goes the old Austin joke), great food and (compared to the rest of Texas, most of which I’ve been through), a thriving arts scene and a wooly, goofy atmosphere… Austin used to be and hopefully still is a cultural DMZ where far fewer of the Redneck Texas Blowhards walked the Earth… there (were) far fewer Goat-Ropers and Rexall Rangers in Austin, too- although the redneck/hippie social cross-pollination goes back to the early 1970s… and 20 minutes out of town, driving or riding on Route 290’s access road towards Dripping Springs and on to Pedernales Falls SP or towards Buchanan Lake or Marble Falls and the rest of Texas Proper awaits.

I was born in Santa Cruz CA but spent most of my teenage years in Austin... mostly then at Crockett High school… 1972-81... played music, played out under the stars and played with a number of some of the most beautiful, funniest and soulful women in the world- Texas women! I learned to build houses in the Austin summer heat from Mexican workmen who spoke a little English as I did Spanish, but we shared a commitment to getting paid for work for which we were proud... and a twangy yet syrupy Texas Drawl is, at least over almost a decade to me, proven contagious… I STILL say 'y'all' and 'fix in' to'.

There’s a lot from 1970s Austin that may only be a memory… I don’t have the heart to wander the streets of Austin via Google Maps Street view so THOSE mysteries will have to wait until I take my family there one day for a week or so… Conan's Deep Dish Pizza, (no doubt long-gone) local bands like the Uranium Savages, Balcones Fault, The Lost Gonzo Band, great places like Liberty Lunch (epic Chicken-Fried Steak sandwiches), Nothing Strikes Back, Cliff Antones’ place Antones on 6th and Brazos (long gone), Club Foot, musicians like Joe Ely, Soug Sahm, the Continental Club (miraculously still there), Manny's Custom Boots, Zebra Records, Hills Cafe on South Congress, great radio stations back then like KOKE, KUT, KLBJ… I know that The 'Dillo, The Soap Creek Saloon and most of the other venues I haunted Back In The Day are long gone… I was there for the last Armadillo World Headquarters show on New Year’s Eve 1980 where Asleep at the Wheel and Commander Cody played until the wee hours. There now stands a Stouffer’s Inn high-rise where the ‘Dillo once stood, I believe.

Before some idiot tried (almost successfully) to murder the huge Treaty Oak at Barton Springs, it was a majestic shelter and great place under which to eat a sandwich and drink a (Lone Star or Pearl beer mixed with tomato juice and a little salt) ‘Red Beer’…Oat Willie’s (‘Onward Through the Fog’), two-dollar Mexican pushcart dinners on North Lamar, Vietnamese pushcart lunches on The Drag, motorcycles through the Hill Country with guitars and amps lashed to them, Willy Nelson's bodyguard Snake running his Mercedes up onto the Austin Golf Course when they were hammered, John Lennon's death and the line of candles running from the Treaty Oak all the way over the hill all night... 6th Street, spaced-out but maniacally unskilled UT student drivers… even back then people complained about the traffic especially between San Antonio and Austin, the ‘dog-bone’ shaped Megalopolis they said… 6th Street, crazy floating parties and water hilarity on Lake Travis,Hippie Hollow, hunting in the oaks in the hills north of town, rednecks and hippies at Willie Nelson shows, etc., etc… sorry about the Nostalgia-Fest… Austin WAS weird long ago… I hope that these days it has retained some of that marinade from back then.

Anyway, I know I experienced ‘…one of the most amazing cities in the country’ back then. If Austin now even has ONE PERCENT of the ‘wild hair’ it had back then it’s still a little more skewed that the rest of Texas, no doubt!

[jamills21]

Originally Posted by Jink

And far more gangs.. and crime.

and far better food, beaches, music, art, women, diversity, recreational activities....what's your point? I know you would rather stay in Austin but it makes no sense to belittle a city you have yet to live in.

[Jink]

Originally Posted by jamills21

and far better food, beaches, music, art, women, diversity, recreational activities....what's your point? I know you would rather stay in Austin but it makes no sense to belittle a city you have yet to live in.

Disagreed apart from the beaches... which for the most part are nothing but cesspools. I'm not "belittling" Los Angeles. Read the stats. I am bitter about leaving Austin and Texas, though.

[jamills21]

Originally Posted by Jink

Disagreed apart from the beaches... which for the most part are nothing but cesspools. I'm not "belittling" Los Angeles. Read the stats. I am bitter about leaving Austin and Texas, though.

Yeah...You don't know what your talking about.

[nslander]

Originally Posted by jamills21

Yeah...You don't know what your talking about.

Actually, he's exactly right.

He needs to stay in Texas.

[Gurbie]

Originally Posted by Jink

Disagreed apart from the beaches... which for the most part are nothing but cesspools. I'm not "belittling" Los Angeles. Read the stats. I am bitter about leaving Austin and Texas, though.

I re-read your OP. Now I'm confused. You're bitter about leaving Austin??? So STAY THERE, for chrisakes!

[Jink]

Originally Posted by nslander

Actually, he's exactly right.

He needs to stay in Texas.

Fair trade. How about I stay in Texas if you convince your fellow Californians to stay the hell out of Austin. Deal?