Here are my thoughts on Austin and why we might be leaving for SA (Houston: lawyers, college)

[The_Man74]

Originally Posted by TXEX06

Nothing too slow nowadays about San Antonio's urban core. Always something going on in San Antonio now. San Pedro Creek redevelopment and Hemisphere Park redevelopment are making huge changes to downtown San Antonio. I live in Southtown and everyday of the week there many things going on. I'm actually going to the Aztec on Thursday to see the Cold War Kids and Strumbellas before they play ACL this weekend. A much more intimate theater and tickets only costed $25. The suburbs are just like any other cities suburbs.

hey that's good to hear/know

I was just in SA like 2 weeks ago and yes it has blown up per say

But I would hope that SA retains it's "charm" over the years.. It seems that whenever I go home it is getting bigger and bigger

[TXEX06]

Originally Posted by The_Man74

hey that's good to hear/know

I was just in SA like 2 weeks ago and yes it has blown up per say

But I would hope that SA retains it's "charm" over the years.. It seems that whenever I go home it is getting bigger and bigger

I think the HIstoric Design and Review Commission and the city itself will never let it lose its charm. There was a little battle local developers had to fight about redeveloping a vacant dilapidated art deco warehouse in Southtown that had an historic designation. http://therivardreport.com/zoning-hu...t-in-southtown

Lone Star Brewey is going to be bogus too.
http://lonestarbrewerydistrict.com

But, shhhhh San Antonio is lame compared to Austin.

[daisyschic]

Originally Posted by KathrynAragon

You moved from a tiny midwest town to the state capitol of Texas and you're surprised that the cost of living is higher? You could have moved to the state capitol of ANY state and the cost of living would probably be higher than Zanesville, Ohio, with it's population of under 30,000. The unemployment rate is about 13 percent in Zanesville! It's lower in nearby Columbus, but the unemployment rate in Columbus is still nearly double that of Austin.

I did a very quick, cursory check with about three online cost of living comparison sites, and all of those sites point to the cost of living being higher in Austin than in Columbus (Zanesville doesn't even register anywhere). What sort of research did you do on the comparable costs of living before you packed it in in Ohio and moved to Austin?

Most of the time if a place has a higher cost of living, then that place NORMALLY has jobs in place to support the higher cost of living. That's not the case here in Austin, not one bit. They have a high cost of living, but low paying jobs.

[The_Man74]

Originally Posted by daisyschic

Most of the time if a place has a higher cost of living, then that place NORMALLY has jobs in place to support the higher cost of living. That's not the case here in Austin, not one bit. They have a high cost of living, but low paying jobs.

I know

That was my point

I was just down to visit my brother a few weeks ago...

Be glad though, Austin retains "somewhat" of the Texas charm, although you will like San Antonio better(San Antonio, along with FW and Houston, is one of the remaining true Texas/southern cities left in Texas, regarding the "big cities" that is)....

The big thing with the job market, as I explained earlier, is that the city is simply not big/developed yet. It has grown A LOT, even just this year honestly lol. New restaurants, businesses, chains, etc all along 35(and the traffic has actually improved a little... I could notice it when I drove through)

But as far as job market and economy... I would give it another 1-2 years for it to improve because there are just too many people who graduated from UT, St. Edwards, Southwestern, Baylor, UTSA, St. Mary's, Texas State, etc... who are ALL fairly close to Austin(there are more universities I can't think of right now) and the job market is too packed right now. For reference, I, myself, would have trouble getting a good job(~70k+) in Austin and I have family there and went to a top 3 Texas school... so it's not exactly "intended bias"

[KathrynAragon]

Originally Posted by daisyschic

Exactly, we have gotten this vibe quite often in Austin, and what I don't like is when people who are from Austin is to sit there and say that this stuff doesn't happen is total bs, or that I'm making this up, either they must have other motives, or they just don't want to believe what has happened to us. But I think it is very presumptuous for anyone to sit there and say that this stuff doesn't happen. Right?



We plan on visiting SA again this weekend to get more of a vibe for that city. When we were down there before, I can notice a huge difference in how people act down there. Maybe, I'm wrong but the people seem to be ok with people wanting to live there and they seem to be more accepting.

We both would like to land good jobs before we move down there. I think we can find better jobs there, than we can in Austin, but we will try to be open to putting in Resume's to Houston and Dallas. We both liked Dallas, but the thing with Dallas it didn't seem like there was a lot of parks or hiking paths. Houston, we both have no idea about Houston, neither of us have been there.

I hope you're bilingual. San Antonio is over 60 percent Hispanic.

[KathrynAragon]

Originally Posted by daisyschic

Most of the time if a place has a higher cost of living, then that place NORMALLY has jobs in place to support the higher cost of living. That's not the case here in Austin, not one bit. They have a high cost of living, but low paying jobs.

These things are very easy to research before one packs up and moves. And you haven't answered my question that I've posed to you on several threads - did you and your boyfriend have jobs lined up before you moved from that little town in Ohio to Austin?

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by The_Man74

I know

That was my point

I was just down to visit my brother a few weeks ago...

Be glad though, Austin retains "somewhat" of the Texas charm, although you will like San Antonio better(San Antonio, along with FW and Houston, is one of the remaining true Texas/southern cities left in Texas, regarding the "big cities" that is)....

The big thing with the job market, as I explained earlier, is that the city is simply not big/developed yet. It has grown A LOT, even just this year honestly lol. New restaurants, businesses, chains, etc all along 35(and the traffic has actually improved a little... I could notice it when I drove through)

But as far as job market and economy... I would give it another 1-2 years for it to improve because there are just too many people who graduated from UT, St. Edwards, Southwestern, Baylor, UTSA, St. Mary's, Texas State, etc... who are ALL fairly close to Austin(there are more universities I can't think of right now) and the job market is too packed right now. For reference, I, myself, would have trouble getting a good job(~70k+) in Austin and I have family there and went to a top 3 Texas school... so it's not exactly "intended bias"

This has been the case since I first came to Austin - in 1969. We used to joke that Austin has more bartenders with law degrees and more attorneys per capita than anywhere else in the country, because they'd come to college here and when they graduated would rather take a job tending bar than leave.

[Gunion Powder]

Originally Posted by KathrynAragon

I hope you're bilingual. San Antonio is over 60 percent Hispanic.

Most of whom are native Texans. You don't really need Spanish there.

[The_Man74]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

This has been the case since I first came to Austin - in 1969. We used to joke that Austin has more bartenders with law degrees and more attorneys per capita than anywhere else in the country, because they'd come to college here and when they graduated would rather take a job tending bar than leave.

that's a good joke and I understnd as Austin is a very, very fun and beautiful city

I would imagine though that the market will/should improve as I'm paying more attention to expansion into Kyle... or anything basically south of Slaughter Lane and down until San Marcos. The expansion when I last visited impressed me as it shows there's at least initiative.

If Austin straight up engulfs Leander and Georgetown too, it would probably really even out the Job market. And that may take a few years but who knows?

[L210]

Originally Posted by The_Man74

I agree with you on this

But it's not really that...

I think it's more so just the job market.

Austin is still a fairly young(and smallish) city. There aren't exactly as many high paying jobs in Austin as you would find in Houston, Dallas or San Antonio... at least NOT YET.

So many times an employer, especially if they're Texas natives, would most likely be more favorable to a Texas native or someone who went to school in the area (UT, St. Edwards, Southwestern, etc) which I can understand. Say you have one position in your Austin based start up and you've lived in Austin all your life... I can understand if a hiring manager wants to hire the UT grad over Candidate A and Candidate B from out of state from some school you never heard of if the skill set is the same. I can understand that. Sure it's somewhat biased but there's not as many jobs there

It's just there are simply not as many "job openings"...YET... in the Austin area. It will be interesting to see how things shape up as Austin continues to grow/develop


Austin is the city where you can find people with Bachelor's degrees working at malls and it's pretty prevalent as there just aren't as many job openings. I've known people who graduated from UTSA who got offered $13-14/hour and took it simply because they "wanted to live in Austin". And I understand that as Austin is a great city but the job market will just be very tough

The median income in Austin is much higher than San Antonio's. I think it's also higher than Dallas and Houston's, so I don't know why people keep repeating the inaccuracy of Austin having less high-paying jobs. I'll repeat, Austin also has a much higher GDP per capita than San Antonio.

As far as job openings, there have been articles written on SA's lack of entry-level, IT jobs. I can only give my experience with the public sector for CJ and social service jobs. Other than federal government positions, Austin has a lot more public sector jobs than SA, and those jobs pay a lot more. As I demonstrated earlier, those in the CJ field can make $10k -$18k more in Austin.