6 ms·
I lived in the Valley for 10 years, and have now lived in Austin for 7. While certainly Austin has its problems (traffic, heat in the summer, and allergies wou
by ericabiz 8y ago
I lived in the Valley for 10 years, and have now lived in Austin for 7.
While certainly Austin has its problems (traffic, heat in the summer, and allergies would be my top 3) I find Austin is handling high growth far better than California did.
We do have older, homeowner NIMBYs here, including my local neighborhood association. The difference between here and California is that the NIMBYs don't have as much power here. They fought an apartment complex in my neighborhood and lost--now hundreds of new people are able to live closer in to downtown.
The current fight over zoning is allowing "granny flats", or back yard buildings. It does look like the NIMBYs are going to lose on that one as well.
There are also a lot of older houses being torn down, developers splitting the lot, and building 2 houses on the lot. These older houses aren't historic; they're 1950's-1960's suburban sprawl. I did not see California allowing these types of development as easily in the 10 years I lived there.
Overall, Austin has a compelling mix of factors that keep people moving here. The weather is great 9 months out of the year, and if you're in tech, it's not uncommon to work from somewhere else in the summer, or take some time off.
You're actually able to raise a family here without insane waits or crazy prices for daycare.
The community overall is more laid-back than SF because you don't feel the need to work 90 hours a week just to be able to afford a 1BR apartment.
Plus, we have breakfast tacos. :)
I've traveled through most of the US at this point, and lived in several different areas, and still think Austin has one of the best communities of people I've ever seen...which is why I continue to live here and advocate for smart tech folks to move here.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago> Austin has a compelling mix of factors that keep people moving here. I think it has to do with it having a lot in common with certain other places but lacking certain things that make those other places highly unattractive. 80% of the upsides and 10% of the downsides at a fraction of the price of the alternative is a going to be attractive to a lot of people who can't justify the other option.
- benatkin 8y agoThe population of Travis County was only 212,136 in 1960 and is now 1,226,698 so there probably aren't that many historic buildings that can't be redeveloped. I think it's probably the lack of air conditioning that kept the population low until recently.
- chrisco255 8y agoWasn't Silicon Valley a bunch of orchards in 1960?
- cat199 8y agoAir conditioning was not a rarity in TX from mid-60's or at latest mid-70s onward. this has far more to do with Dell computer/TI/IBM/etc. reinvesting locally into developing UT grads into tech hub, UT as grid supercomputing facility, 'insourcing' SV devwork, and insane local promotion by hollywood/sv/media/local investors into SXSW festival which brought more attention/tech growth to the area. Most of this has happend from mid-90s onward, esp. post dotcom bubble- prior to this Austin was mostly a sleepy college town and local administrative center supporting a state economy more centered around oil/gas and agriculture in houston/dallas
- sevensor 8y ago> Plus, we have breakfast tacos. :) I miss a lot of things about living in Austin, but that has to be right at the top of the list. Right next to that other giant of Texas breakfast cuisine, the brisket kolache.
- wrigby 8y agoKolaches have to be one of Texas' best kept secrets. I discovered them after I moved to NYC (from DC) because a friend from Texas is opening a kolache bakery in Brooklyn, and man... what a treat. I highly recommend everyone travel to Texas and try a kolache from a roadside stand.
- dkarl 8y agoCode NEXT was a huge loss, but I don't think the NIMBYs will be able to pull that off again, because their entire tactic was based on spinning people's lack of interest into a conspiracy to change the code by stealth. The city is licking its wounds, but there will be another go at overhauling the code, and there will be plenty of public interest next time.
- chaostheory 8y agoYou're right about everything but the weather. It's only good for about 2 months of the year. 10 months out of the year it's either too hot or too cold. Air conditioning is a must. If you love Bay Area weather, you might want to stay in the west coast instead. Portland seems to be a good alternative.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- gshulegaard 8y agoAs someone who moved to Portland from the Bay Area ~2 years ago the weather is significantly more variable. It gets colder, has a longer (and wetter) winter, and has fewer overall sunny days. I love Portland and I don't doubt that it is a smaller variation from the Bay compared to Austin, but I just didn't want people to get the impression that Portland has Bay Area weather.
- rconti 8y agoAre you in SF or Daly City or something? Most of the bay area has vastly more sunny days than Portland (??). Hell, even SF proper should have more sun than portland. Actually, from google, Portland has 144 sunny days vs 205 national average vs 259 in San Francisco. And only 257 in San Jose (?).
- alehul 8y agoI think those descriptions are meant to be about Portland rather than SF (where the commenter moved to a couple years ago). Would be perfectly accurate in that case. :)
- gshulegaard 8y agoThis.
- chaostheory 8y agoLooking at the climate graph, Portland’s weather looks similar to sf Bay Area weather. Personally I don’t mind rain as long as it’s not hot
- dajohnson89 8y agoWhat's the roadmap for mass transit looking like? Texas is such a car-heavy state.
- pault 8y agoMass transit is currently virtually non-existent and it appears that every new proposed transit project is defeated by voters.
- criddell 8y agoDo you really want to sit in a bus shelter when it's 102 degrees out? Worse, you can't walk from the bus to your office without getting sweaty and smelly three months of the year. A car (or truck) is a necessity here IMHO. I do ride my bicycle, but only because I have a shower at work.
- notfromhere 8y agohaving a car only city basically guarantees that 15% of your post-tax income goes to transportation costs
- criddell 8y agoI bet people around here generally exceed that. It's not that uncommon for people to have their cars and then also a pickup truck and boat or motorcycle or something like that for weekend activities. Car culture is very strong here.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jtmcmc 8y agothen have an underground subway? a car only city is a bad thing.
- criddell 8y agoIf you don't like cars, then you probably don't want to move to Austin. I suspect the meager public transportation offerings here are going to get worse, not better. Austin has a good climate for self-driving cars and I think when they hit the market, they are going to fuel sprawl like crazy. I know if I could buy a self-driving car, I'd move another 30 minutes out of the city to get more space.
- pkaye 8y agoI see a lot of dense 3-story housing complexes being build in the south bay. For example along Montague expressway near the great mall near the new BART station Many mixed residential/commercial buildings also. I think the real problem area of housing expansion is San Francisco which is not doing much of this.