Anyone from San Jose or Silicon Valley, ever move or go to Austin Texas? How is it?

[RockhetHD]

my apologies but your assumptions on Austin were vastly invalid. It seems your unfairly labelled the city. I live in SJ and work for AMD. I have had the pleasure of coming to Austin 4 times for work and pleasure since making the post. So yes I have experienced Austin during a Non SXSW time. Its a great place. Austin is a great place with affordable housing and a friendly attitude. I like the active outdoors culture of the City of Austin. I like how the Austin has major hike and bike trails on the lake that goes through downtown.
Lets face it home ownership is a important quality to us all. It is very to accomplish this goal in the Bay Area.
So we look to other places in the US that are affordable and that offer most of the California lifestyle with affordable housing. Lot of California transplants are here for a reason. Austin has some very affordable housing and Condo options. It is very affordable to fine your dream home in Austin whether it is a downtown loft/condo or a home with a hill country view. Also, when researching the salary.com pay chart for Austin, Austin seems to pays IT/ High-Tech jobs pretty well, not as high a the bay area but pretty good to live in Austin that has such a low cost of living.
I have found that Austin pay about 11,000 less than the Bay Area for equal jobs and take in consideration that Austin, Texas has NO STATE INCOME TAX. Thats Awesome!
Although i live in San Jose, it is because of work reason not personal choice. SJ is a wasteland. If i had the choice SF or Austin would be my home. But SF is just to expensive for the normal working class person and I make over 100k a year as a software engineer. So the next Best choice is Austin.

Austin is a great city, u are just biased for whatever personal reasons............. Also in your personal message to me you gave the impression you knew the ins and outs of life in SJ, Thank-you for finally admitting that you don't know anything about life in SJ. Most of us don't live in SJ by choice. We live here for work and job purposes!
By the way dont post about Austin when you live in Houston. You have no clue what you are talking about.

[krudmonk]

Most people don't live in SJ by choice? Lst I heard, this was the richest metro in the country by per capita income. I think people here could live wherever the hell they want, even the vaunted San Francisco. Not everyone is dumb enough to settle for a plastic apartment complex up by 237, though.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy yourself in Austin, with the non-wasteland culture that is indie rock and college football. We'll revel in having one less awkward techie to stand in the corner of the bar and creep out the women.

[sonarrat]

Originally Posted by krudmonk

Most people don't live in SJ by choice? Lst I heard, this was the richest metro in the country by per capita income. I think people here could live wherever the hell they want, even the vaunted San Francisco. Not everyone is dumb enough to settle for a plastic apartment complex up by 237, though.

I even know plenty of people who live in those plastic apartment complexes around 237/Fair Oaks.. and my sister lived in that complex facing the on-ramp from Lawrence onto 101.. they seemed contented enough. They at least had nice accommodations inside, never mind you couldn't leave anything on the patio because it would get covered in road dust within hours.

I don't really understand why all the nice new apartments are right next to freeways or railroad tracks. For that matter, all the new housing, period. I suspect the next batch will be next to the dump since Tesla decided not to take the land lease.

[AK123]

Originally Posted by RockhetHD

Hey look , stop trolling on this site and just try to stay dry in Houston with all that humidity.
You wanna talk about a nonprogressive place? Your in freaking Houston!
Austin is a nice place that is affordable and fun, PERIOD!

Have you ever lived in Austin or Houston? Have you ever even visited Houston?
The other poster was right, Austin is a bit overrated. It markets itself quite well, but doesn't always live up to the hype. If you want to disagree, fine, but take it from someone who has actually lived there (for many years), when you've only just visited.
I've lived in both cities, and prefer Houston. It's almost like comparing Sacramento to L.A. or Albany to NYC. I think if you're going to call it non-progressive, you should back up your reasoning. Especially when you jump on the other poster for saying something about a city in which she currently does not live. You are doing the exact same thing! At least Houston has some sort of public transit; Austin has nothing of the sort and has just as much sprawl, parking lots, and conservative suburbs as Houston does. Don't fool yourself. Now in the city core, things are different (and I'm talking about both Austin and Houston here... though I've never seen anything quite as weird/progressive in Austin as Houston's Montrose district.)