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Please don't come to Austin. I moved from SF to Austin a little over two years ago, and I want to make it clear that it's terrible. The food is bad, the people
by jonstokes 10y ago
Please don't come to Austin. I moved from SF to Austin a little over two years ago, and I want to make it clear that it's terrible. The food is bad, the people are lame, and all the musicians are out of tune. I hear Chicago is where it's at, so please go there. Or New York. Or anywhere else, really. Just don't come to Austin.
- chillaxtian 10y agothe grass is always greener on the other side.
- jonny_eh 10y agoThey were being sarcastic.
- threeio 10y agoBut were they? Really? 100+ temps in the summer... landlocked in Texas.
- vonmoltke 10y agoBut with really cold rivers and natural springs.
- cylinder 10y agoI'm not being facetious, Austin is quite overhyped.
- WalterSear 10y agoI've been told that a lot of the hype comes from the hours of travel through Texas that you have to do to get there. "It's like an oasis of dirty water in the sahara," a former Austinite once told me. I'm sure they were being hyperbolic.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- swozey 10y agoLandlocked? There is water EVERYWHERE in Austin. There are 7 miles worth of Greenbelts that cut through the entire downtown/urban area. We have Lake Travis and Lake Austin. The Colorado river (Town Lake) is right beside 1st street. We have Barton Springs just south of 1st street. We're also getting a surf park (Nland) this year and have a ton of wake-boarding/cable parks. An hour south we have Dripping Springs and Wimberley with Jacobs Well, Blue Hole, Hamilton Pool, Krausse Springs, etc. If you think Austin looks like the rest of Texas, here are some examples; Hamilton Pool; http://yestotexas.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/hamiltonpool.jpg http://yestotexas.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/hamiltonpoo... Blue Hole; http://ww3.hdnux.com/photos/27/63/44/6240562/3/920x920.jpg http://ww3.hdnux.com/photos/27/63/44/6240562/3/920x920.jpg Greenbelt (twin falls); http://www.austinmonthly.com/Twin%20Falls.jpg http://www.austinmonthly.com/Twin%20Falls.jpg I'm breaking Austin rules by talking about these, but hey, I already own a house, so move on in and make my little house even more ridiculously valuable!
- ethbro 10y agoIn contrast to parent, that makes Austin sound great! I'm packing my bags and moving there now, thanks!
- threeio 10y agoThere is a difference between having water near you, and being trapped inside the Republic of Texas. I've spent time there, it wasn't for me.. thats all I'm saying :)
- wavefunction 10y agoTake those photos and add enough people that it's standing room only.
- SEJeff 10y agoExcept for TX, where it is always brown unless you water it excessively ala Los Angeles.
- enraged_camel 10y agoAustin is green. Like, very green. I was genuinely surprised when I moved here last year.
- vonmoltke 10y agoOnly if you insist on having lawns of non-native grasses like Los Angeles. Texas from the Ft.Worth/Austin line east is naturally green and grassy, as is the Hill Country just west of Austin.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- caniszczyk 10y agoshame on you for even mentioning Austin :)
- dkopi 10y agoPerhaps Austin needs a lot of zoning laws and bureaucracy to prevent more people from moving there. Worked really well for SF.
- muzz 10y agoHard to tell if this comment is sarcastic or not
- equalarrow 10y agoHah, how true..
- easuter 10y agoI hear you'll have a lower life expectancy in Chicago...but that's just what I gather from the news :(
- zem 10y agoon the plus side that won't disenfranchise you!
- ocdtrekkie 10y agoIt's not actually that bad. But we probably make more of an effort to be aware of our surroundings. I've never been robbed, but I've known from a young age that you never leave anything valuable visible in your car.
- jimbokun 10y agoI thought he was referring to all the beer, brauts, and deep dish pizza. http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/bill-swerskis-super-fans/n10094 http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/bill-swerskis-s...
- hnal943 10y agoIf you want that, come to Milwaukee!
- 35bge57dtjku 10y agoMilwaukee was nice. :,(
- legitster 10y agoAnd definitely not Seattle.
- mey 10y agoNot sure if Portland stole Austin's drawbridge syndrome like Keep Portland Weird, but I see the same attitude here. Portland is great, but it is changing. Housing is growing fast, transportation is not keeping up with the growth and the city is not doing enough to solve the homeless problem. Conversely, amazing food, everything you want in a metro but not the size of NY, excellent outdoor options and a growing tech scene.
- Touche 10y agoThere's a lot of "up and coming" cities in the U.S., I'm guessing there must be a massive exodus from all of the traditoinal "big" cities like Chicago and Boston. Add to the list: * Nashville * Pittsburg * Charlotte * Orlando * San Jose (at least in terms of population, not sure about industry) It's an interesting phenomenon given how in the developing world there are more super large cities, are we going the opposite direction?
- intrasight 10y agoNashville, Charlotte - too socially conservative Pittsburgh - great city! Orlando - too small and isolated to be a contender
- sideband 10y agoI don't understand the comment about Orlando. The metro area is the same size as Pittsburgh's, and it's a 90 minute drive from an even larger metro, Tampa.
- pacomerh 10y agoYou just put Austin in everyones head now. hehe
- zappo2938 10y agoI just want to add that Fort Lauderdale is a horrible, horrible place too. We don't have a tech industry here so you won't find work.
- Cyph0n 10y agoMaxim and Motorola seem like nice places to work, for me at least ;)
- coev 10y agoCBS sports is a major tech employer here (if you really like perl).
- vonmoltke 10y agoI'd like to move home, but my wife hates South Florida. :(
- bubbleRefuge 10y agoI'm moving back and keeping my SV job . Will travel back and forth. Keep working it, I got mine to agree.
- bubbleRefuge 10y agoAgreed. But you can find work doing C# .net contracting via recruiters. I've got a friend who's been doing it for 10 years and is never out of work very long and bills at good rates for the area. He was telling me a funny story: he interviewed for a spot in an IT department of averaged sized non-tech company and they said he had to wear slacks, collared long sleeve blouse, and name tag to work every day. lol. He said no thanks.
- tzakrajs 10y agoTo add to your list: the bigotry of the Texan people seeps into Austin, the job market is tiny compared to the Bay, it is in a state where Republicans call the shots regarding social issues, their tech job market is dominated by contracted talent firms, and it gets hot as hell.
- tyingq 10y ago>> the bigotry of the Texan people A somewhat interesting counterpoint: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/28/the-most-racist-places-in-america-according-to-google/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/28/the-m...
- dpark 10y agoI seriously question the validity of that study. Racism has many forms and targets. You can't capture an objective measure of racism by looking purely at trends for the "n-word". You're capturing the researchers' bias as much as the subjects' racism. A foreign exchange student from Germany once remarked to me how she found it so odd that white and black students largely segregated themselves in the cafeteria (this was high school in rural Tennessee) and that she couldn't understand the racist tendencies that lead to this. Then I studied in Germany and realized that 1) there are very few black people there [1], and 2) plenty of Germans are racist against other populations, especially Muslims. I wonder what this study would find if it expanded the "racist term" set. Maybe Texans are very racist against Mexicans. Maybe Washingtonians are especially racist against Asians. [2] [1] It's not hard to overlook racism directed at a tiny fraction of the population because you just don't see it much. I didn't think there were really people in the US racist against Jews until I was an adult and encountered people who grew up around sizeable Jewish populations. [2] I'm not asserting either of these as fact.
- gwright 10y ago> plenty of Germans are racist against other populations, especially Muslims I don't mean to pick on you in particular, but your comment is an example of a pattern I've noticed over the last few years that results in confusion more than clarity -- using the term 'racism' outside of the context of 'race'. In most cases, I think 'prejudiced' or 'bigoted' is probably a more accurate label when you are talking about irrationally negative attitudes towards religious, political, cultural or national groups. Not all negative attitudes are necessarily prejudiced or bigoted. Religion and politics exist in the realm of ideas -- one person's 'bigotry' can be another person's rationality and of course reasonable people can agree to disagree without there being any prejudice or bigotry involved.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- davidw 10y agoPlease do come to Bend (although not all at once - at 80K, it's not big enough to absorb that many people at one time). But bring your anti-NIMBY hat! It's time the US grew up a little bit and realized that moving to "the next place" and repeating the same patterns that made the first place too expensive isn't going to work.
- techchick85 10y agoYay! Bend is gorgeous, I'm from Portland, Oregon and at least it's still affordable. Great food, music, housing, nature, etc.
- andrewfree 10y agoYea it's pretty terrible here, hate it.
- thearn4 10y agoAlso: Cleveland as well. (... jokes on me, you were all going to keep away anyway)
- plandis 10y agoEven after factoring in for cost of living adjustments Cleveland isn't worth it for me. It's still a huge pay cut and while there are a few interesting start-ups, big businesses still dominate (Progressive, GE, Philips, Key Bank, The Fed, IBM, etc) and don't have the standard developer-friendly attitude of a lot of west coast tech companies do. I say this as someone that graduated from CWRU. Cleveland doesn't want developers badly enough to increase wages and benefits. This is all super unfortunate since I still fly out to Ohio several times a year to visit family and it would have been nice to stay in the region.
- tzakrajs 10y agoMy nana tells me Cleveland is up and coming and that I should move back home. But Cleveland is a city that will always be "up and coming". Perpetually fighting the reality that they are one of the most average cities of all time. I love Cleveland and I am glad I was raised there, but I can't come up with a convincing reason to go back.
- thearn4 10y agoIt has a weird gravity that tends to bring people back, but I agree there isn't a ton of incentive to come back or anchor here unless a great job opens up (which did so for me but ymmv). To be fair, I think that all of the rust belt cities sit on an economic spectrum that runs from Flint/Youngstown all the way to Pittsburg/Chicago. Cleveland has teetered towards both sides at different times. It's trending towards a more healthy post-industrial identity now, but could really use a shake-up in the city leadership.
- vgeek 10y agoOhio as a whole is boring. Hardly any outdoor activities and the only scenery is corn. I guess if you like amusement parks, but besides that, it has to be one of the most generic/bland populated states.
- jsonne 10y agoI'm going to clarify that I'm not picking on you, but I loathe this attitude. I see it in Denver constantly. I moved here, but now we're full up. Ironically, it mostly comes from people that are transplants themselves. It's rather elitist to tell people where they can and can't live especially with the "forget you, I got mine" dynamic going on from the transplants themselves.
- krstck 10y agoDenver has so many wonderful things, but this undercurrent of "I hate all the new people" is so gross. I've encountered it in situations where I'm literally handing money over to someone who is bitching about people moving here.
- wahsd 10y agoLet me guess; you are one of those new people and are resentful that people you are freeloading and mooching off of are resentful that you are destroying the community and society they built over time. Its the same thing in Austin, even though Austin has really be fully deconstructed at this point and it is nothing like the nice place it once was. It's become ever more exclusive, ever more restricted, ever more douchy and pretentious, ever more expensive, ever more packed with people that are trampling everything. What's actually disgusting is people like you who are incapable of understanding why people would rightfully be resentful about freeloaders and moochers trampling and disrespecting things they created and have a bond to. It's easy being a freeloader and moocher, but it really does undercut any incentive to create anything. I suspect that in the future we will see examples of restrictive legislation or policies that will rightfully penalize newcomers and mooching types that started swarming to the next version of Austin due to the internet brigading effect.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- seibelj 10y agoI can't follow any of this. I'm not sure how moving some place, getting an apartment, getting a job, paying taxes, etc. (aka "living") constitutes "mooching and freeloading". I think you need to take Rhetoric 101 again.
- mud_dauber 10y agoOh, and the breakfast tacos are terrible. :)
- jsprogrammer 10y agoPerhaps Austin is in need of an influx of new people to fix the problems you have been observing?
- npx 10y agoYou can keep Austin. I'm gonna go gentrify your home town!
- joesmo 10y agoAre you joking or is this a do as I say not as I do suggestion?
- linuxlizard 10y agoDon't go to Austin. Come to Boise, Idaho instead. https://www.tsheets.com/living-in-boise/ https://www.tsheets.com/living-in-boise/ (I don't work for T-Sheets but have friends that do.) We have a great high tech community that is searching hard for more engineers. Great outdoor activities for those few minutes you want to spend away from your keyboard. Low traffic, good wages, great biking environment, decent weather. Move to Boise!
- bubbleRefuge 10y agoI second this. Lived in Boise for 3 years last decade and its all true. Its a blue city in a red state.
- notliketherest 10y ago"We have a great high tech community" I've been seriously considering moving back to Boise (lived their 05-09). Can you name a few companies or startups that are part of the scene?
- linuxlizard 10y agoT-Sheets. Clearwater Analytics. Whitecloud. Cradlepoint (my current employer). MetaGeek. HP and Micron are the giant tech employers here. Microsoft has a small office here (purchased a local start-up a few years ago). Healthwise. Lots of small tech companies here.
- rosalinekarr 10y agoCome to Chattanooga. We have municipal fiber, cheap housing and no income tax. Our state government is so conservative businesses can get away with pretty much anything, and our city government is so liberal there are funds and grants for just about everything. As long as you can get over the occasional rebel flag bumper sticker, it's the promise land.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dmode 10y agoI know you were being sarcastic, but Austin is very overrated. Low VC funding, small city, surrounded by Texas. Ironically, in another related study, the #1 place people want to move to from Bay Area turned out to be NYC - an even more expensive place. I guess the thought there was might as well stay in a big city if we are paying that much money