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Silicon Valley Is Flooding into a Reluctant Austin
- xwdv 6y agoWhen visiting Austin what are the number one places a Silicon Valley resident should go to for networking?
- EarthLaunch 6y agoSan Francisco. Just kidding. Although that's what I did. It's weird right now due to Covid, but obviously incubators like Capital Factory or (if it's still going) Tech Ranch. Apart from that, well, culture is online now.
- biggieshellz 6y agoAustinite here. Don't make not-work into work. Please leave your hustle culture in the Bay Area. Find a good restaurant, bar, or music venue like everyone else does and spend time being a person, not a tech person.
- xwdv 6y agoI don’t really enjoy those things in the age of COVID.
- TypeCaste 6y agoAre the tax benefits of Texas offset by Austin's rising home prices, and the proportional increase owed in property taxes?
- rossdavidh 6y agoThe cost of housing in Austin is definitely higher than surrounding parts of Texas, and rising. However, nowhere near Silicon Valley levels.
- voidfunc 6y agoYou can basically take your state income tax savings and pay a not insignificant portion of your rent.
- pdq 6y agoAustin's property tax rate was just raised to approximately 2.2% of the home value annually. Even though Austin's property values are lower than California, the percentage is much higher (California is approximately 0.7%). This is a large annual burden, especially since property values are re-appraised annually, so as property values keep going up, your taxes go up as well. There is no state or local income tax though, so high income earners save on that.
- ec109685 6y agoYes agreed. Texas has high property taxes: https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-the-highest-and-lowest-property-taxes/11585 https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-the-highest-and-lowest...
- lotsofpulp 6y ago> so as property values keep going up, your taxes go up as well. Taxes go up because government spending per taxpayer goes up. I have some properties where the values go up and property tax rates to go down, resulting in declining property tax paid. But it’s rare, and doesn’t last for too long.
- bradlys 6y agoAverage as far as SV goes is closer to 1.1-1.6% btw. If there’s no prop 13 equivalent in TX though, that could really help keep home prices in check along with high property tax (and maybe incentivize changing the land use along with getting people out of large homes they’re not using anymore).
- Snoozle 6y agoI used to live in Austin in 2007 until 2013. Even back then the transition to tech hub was well underway. We went from the Portland of the south to a yuppie paradise in fairly short order. Who can say whether the changes are good or bad? They're going to happen either way. We traded weird restaurants and way too much hipster music for tech bros and planned areas like the domain. They both have their charms and their annoyances. On a related note, we live in an age of mass communication. Cities that become cool become migration magnets due to widespread knowledge and relative ease of relocation. See: Boulder Portland asheville nashville bend boise missoula Austin tacoma, others I'm sure. I view it as a net negative because part of the reason these 'weird' cities came to be was the needs of the locals who already lived there. Nowadays some liberal musician will just move to city X instead of giving their personality to the area around them.
- rossdavidh 6y agoI mostly agree. I should point out, however, that my wife and I both came from small towns in southern Illinois, which are the same size (actually slightly smaller) they were decades ago. It isn't better.
- atdrummond 6y agoFrom Quincy here. Absolutely agree. I spent a decade working to get FTTH and new schools built there and it basically sapped my entire drive to do anything more.
- jseliger 6y agoAustin prohibits adequate housing from being built: https://austin.curbed.com/2020/1/30/21115370/austin-housing-development-missing-middle-affordability-zoning https://austin.curbed.com/2020/1/30/21115370/austin-housing-..., which is likely driving up the cost of living in the city—just like California. Without liberalizing zoning laws, Austin will likely continue to see the exact same effects as California. This can be changed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16704501 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16704501 if enough people want it to change.
- rossdavidh 6y agoSo, I'm an Austin resident, and programmer, who lived in the south Bay from 1989-1992 before moving to Texas. So, I am feeling a little ambivalent, and also hypocritical, about the recent influx of Californians. But, I can tell you that the basics of the Bloomberg article definitely seem to be legit. Lots of California license plates on cars in Austin lately.
- politelemon 6y agoI'm seeing a lot of "ifs" and "shoulds". As an outsider looking in, it appears there's nothing in place to prevent the SV problems from arising in Austin. Do these tech companies realise what's going to happen, or is it going to be wrapped up as part of the cost of doing business, before they move on to someplace else. I'm now imagining a tornado of tech companies travelling across the country ravaging economies in its wake, with a periodic exodus of tech folk travelling in a procession of Teslas slowly making their way in Boring tunnels. Maybe all that is just extrapolation and there are examples of tech friendly cities which haven't been affected in the same way.
- rossdavidh 6y agoNot sure if Austin will do what's needed, but one thing I can say is it is a big topic of discussion, by old residents and new. So, this doesn't by any means guarantee effective action, but it's certainly on everyone's radar.
- spaced-out 6y ago>I'm now imagining a tornado of tech companies travelling across the country ravaging economies in its wake, with a periodic exodus of tech folk travelling in a procession of Teslas slowly making their way in Boring tunnels. You know, a lot of us are just people in their late 20s/early 30s, looking for a place to settle down and raise a family.
- aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 6y agoJust what a modern-day Viking would say, looting and pillaging mid-sized cities in your electric-powered longboat!
- throwaway6734 6y ago>travelling across the country ravaging economies in its wake What ravaging is happening?
- jasonladuke0311 6y ago
- DivisionSol 6y agoI am moving to Austin very shortly from the Bay Area. Rent is 1/2 as cheap for 2x the sq ft, and property values still currently with in the stratosphere (unlike the Bay Area). No income tax. Hopefully Austin acts quick and starts building new/upgrading existing buildings to accommodate the growth that's happening.
- rossdavidh 6y agoWell one thing that helped a bit is that the governor did not allow the city to stop construction at any point, even when lots of other stuff was locked down last April. But, even with non-stop building, it's falling behind.
- voidfunc 6y agoA move to Texas isn't in my future but I have thought about moving to Washington to avoid state income tax. With a 300-400K+ developer income I could basically take the state income tax I am losing and put it towards rent or a mortgage. Plus for someone like myself who is pretty thrifty and doesn't buy much "stuff" I don't get badly penalized by the slightly higher sales tax.
- aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 6y agoOne of my coworkers moved to Vancouver, WA a few years ago. No income tax, and Portland is just a few minutes away, where there’s no sales tax.
- medium_burrito 6y agoWe'll have an income tax within a few years. The capital gains tax will be have a friendly challenge lawsuit in a very friendly state supreme court, and that'll be all she wrote. As a WA resident, I would not bet on the state long term. Housing is expensive, tons of crime, tons of homelessness, and our politicians are almost as dumb as those in CA/OR. As a few others have mentioned, Miami is an interesting bet if the whole "everybody goes remote" doesn't happen.
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- symlinkk 6y agoPlease fuck off
- rel2thr 6y agoI live in austin, from Texas, all my family is here so I’ll never leave But as a neutral person, the west coast just seems so much better in terms of nature and stuff to do. I get the austin makes sense cause it’s cheaper, but after a few more years of 10+% growth it won’t be Guess the grass is always greener
- ghaff 6y agoI don't live in either place but have spent a fair bit of time in both. Especially the SFBA but much of California generally seems a more pleasant climate and more options for the activities I like to do.
- igetspam 6y agoLived in the bay for 30 years before heading to TX. We're not staying but that's politics. Not going back to CA either, for the same reason. One thing I never knew about TX is just how beautiful it is. Natives don't seem to notice but it's truly breathtaking in many areas.
- lostandbored 6y agoAs a "native" Texan, whose family has lived in the state for seven generations, it is really beautiful. Especially during road trips as the state changes from east to west. Gonna miss it when I leave.
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- ActorNightly 6y agoIm hoping the growth will be stunted by the rest of Texas between the Major Cities. Completely different crowd. Also things like power grid failures are good at keeping things afforadble.
- robotron 6y agoI wouldn't count on rural Texas stunting any growth. It's where the suburbs of tomorrow and current/coming new housing builds are.
- jdhn 6y agoI've always been surprised that Reno isn't mentioned as a place for Silicon Valley to go to. It's only a 4 hour drive/1 hour flight to SF, near Tahoe, no income tax, and drastically lower property taxes than Texas. Couple that with the increase in remote work, and it seems like a no brainer. That being said, I can't deny that I've been thinking about moving to Austin myself. The job ecosystem is there, housing prices are still cheaper than NYC, SF, or Seattle, and I personally like warmer weather.
- ericmay 6y agoI find the Reno thing bizarre myself. Would love to know why it’s not as big.
- ghaff 6y agoNot sure why Reno as opposed to Las Vegas. Reno's closer to Tahoe but Vegas is closer to a bunch of recreational areas. Neither city has a real downtown in the sense that SF or Austin do as far as I've ever seen. So you're almost definitely living in essentially car-dependent suburbs if that's an issue. (Though you often are in either SV or Austin anyway.)
- jasonladuke0311 6y agoVegas is a miserable inferno six months out of the year. There is no spring or fall to speak of, though winters are really mild. Education is terrible. Everything is urban sprawl garbage construction. I lived there for 35 years until moving to Denver this winter. You couldn’t move me back to Vegas at gunpoint.
- ghaff 6y agoBut is Reno any better?
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoPretty sure the summers aren't as bad as Las Vegas. I can't answer for any of the other issues.
- dehrmann 6y ago> “They just keep coming,” Congrove says. “The fleece vests, the tech bros—that’s definitely imported from California.” Not sure if California or New York gets to claim the Midtown Uniform as its own.
- paxys 6y agoSo these folks are leaving California to basically build another San Francisco/Seattle but without the benefit of good weather and stuff to do outdoors.
- refurb 6y agoUnfortunately mortgage companies don’t accept “sun dollars”.
- brandonmenc 6y ago> The last problem he believes could be solved by Musk’s Boring Co., which aims to build underground tunnels to funnel traffic to its Texas Tesla Gigafactory and could theoretically create a network of them to help alleviate Austin traffic. I was taking him seriously until that line. This is such a pipe dream. disclaimer: I have lived in Austin for 5 years now
- m463 6y ago> This is such a pipe dream. :) what's the water level like in austin? I know some places in texas you dig down and you hit groundwater.
- rossdavidh 6y agoWater availability has careened wildly in the last 20 years. At one point our reservoir was over 50 feet below full, and it looked like we were headed into long-term sustainability issues. The wildfires in 2012 distracted Rick Perry while he was trying to run for president. Then, we had 30 days in a row of rain, which was unprecedented, and the climate turned into New Orleans for a few years. It's in between now, perhaps headed back towards desert? The line between west Texas desert and east Texas just-about-Louisiana, moves back and forth over the years, and the reservoirs (and ultimately the groundwater) levels move accordingly.
- tasty_freeze 6y agoFor millions of years, this part of Texas was under water. Much of Austin is a thin layer of dirt on top a a bed of limestone. Limestone is a relatively soft rock, but it isn't nearly as soft as dirt and clay. Boring machines can cut through it, but I'm sure it raises costs. I lived in the south SF bay for 20 years before moving to Austin 17 years ago. One plus is the dramatic lightning and rain -- it is quite a treat compared to the milquetoast weather of San Jose. One negative that many Californians might not be ready for is the heat. I hope you like sweating and damp underwear. Before moving here, spend a week in July or August to figure out if you really want to spend 3 or 4 months of the year like that. The food situation here has improved a lot while I've been here, but it isn't anything like San Francisco.
- fumar 6y agoI was very close to moving to Austin for the lower cost of living and retaining a tech salary. I ultimately decided against uprooting my family in California. I like Austin but my body likes the Mediterranean weather of Southern California and Austin weather is not that.
- drivingmenuts 6y agoI’ve been in Austin 18 years and I personally loathe each and every summer. Once in a while, there’s one that isn’t a sweltering Hell, but it’s not often.
- RhysU 6y agoThe trick in Austin is to remember that 9 months of the year are pleasant not that 3 are awful.
- almost_usual 6y agoThat’s not that bad considering 3 months of the year the air in the Bay Area is smoke.
- ghaff 6y agoThere was one time when I spent a weekend in Austin in August. (Think I was bridging 2 events in the city.) I remember distinctly having to manage how I spent my time to avoid the worst of the heat.
- pram 6y agoI've lived in Austin for a long time now (I'm from Texas) and the one thing few people bring up is the drought. You'd almost think it's a non-issue compared to taco shacks getting gentrified or whatever. Lake Travis and such were practically empty for a period of time, and it was very dire and cataclysmic feeling. Even worse than the winter storm, because it lasted years! The water situation is an impending disaster for central texas, and more population and industry is making the inevitable worse.
- nickysielicki 6y agoI'm surprised that Houston isn't considered as a reasonable alternative for Austin. It has all the benefits of the Texas state government, but the cost of living is basically half of what it is in Austin, or a third of what it is in SV. There are no zoning laws, which means that it can expand endlessly and has a similar feeling to other cities without zoning laws, ie: you'll find a dive bar in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Montrose has such an awesome, dirty, authentic feeling. I could gush forever about Houston. The city already survived the oil booms of the past and retained a unique feeling -- the injection of tech money isn't going to change that. Between NASA's JSC, Rice University, and the University of Houston, there's a half-decent talent pool to draw from. For a deeper talent pool, it's just a few hours away from all of Austin, Dallas, and College Station. "Houston is a cruel, crazy town on a filthy river in East Texas with no zoning laws and a culture of sex, money and violence. It's a shabby, sprawling metropolis ruled by brazen women, crooked cops and super-rich pansexual cowboys who live by the code of the west—which can mean just about anything you need it to mean, in a pinch." - Hunter S. Thompson
- drivingmenuts 6y agoHouston is also hotter than the forges of Hell in summer and almost as humid as New Orleans, mixed with the occasional hurricane which is usually a total disaster. Culturally, Houston has never been marketed as the weird, offbeat town that Austin used to be, which makes it less attractive to Californians seeking new experiences. While there used to be money in Houston, and there probably still is, it’s oil and shipping money, old and conservative, which had its dreams crushed after the oil booms of the 80s. Enron was the hammer that drove the final nail in the coffin holding the withered, dessicated corpse of Houston. Sooner or later, it will be Austin’s turn.
- rel2thr 6y agoOn paper it’s good I agree, there’s potential, but there’s not a critical mass of tech jobs. Austin has a 30+ year head start on marketing
- alach11 6y agoAs someone who lives in Houston, the cities just have completely different appeals. Austin has invested heavily in green spaces, and has way more to do nearby.
- gumby 6y agoI lived in Austin in the 80s when it was a small, fun place. It had become unrecognizable only a decade later. The arrival from the Valley only looks like a flood because the Austin region is still a small place. Net migration from the Bay Area in 2020 was about -0.16%.
- m463 6y agoYou know, the tech folks in Silicon Valley aren't native either.
- client4 6y agoMontana and resort towns are suffering the same influx of remote workers / people buying vacation homes to work out of half the year while pricing out locals.
- andyxor 6y agoI hope they don’t bring liberal idiocy with them, seeing Texas turn blue would break my heart.
- robotron 6y agoAnd it would fill mine with glee. Lifelong Texan.
- mkoubaa 6y agoIt's good to remember that the only native Austinites are the Tonkawa and the Apache
- toomuchredbull 6y agoWhy is it good to remember that? Is it even true? How many generations does it take to become from some place?
- theYipster 6y agoI've spent a great deal of time in Austin, and a great deal of time in the SFBA. Yes the fires are terrible, and the homeless encampments are out of control, but still, my view is you get what you pay for. Case in point, drive a bit outside San Francisco, and you get Napa and Sonoma! Drive a bit out of Austin, and you get that gaudy Mexican restaurant with lousy food overlooking Lake Travis. In all seriousness, Austin has its charms, but the city has done a terrible job keeping up with infrastructure (especially compared to the DFW Metroplex.) It's also very isolated and its hipster (+ tech-bro) culture can be quite suffocating, especially as there is little else nearby to escape to save San Antonio (which, granted, is a great town.) The airport, while it's been expanding, is also problematic in that it's a hub for no airline, while two of the largest airlines have hubs just 200-300 miles away. This means that flying to/from Austin takes an unusual amount of connecting (unless you can time your schedule to make the smaller number of non-stops.) It's especially problematic flying to/from NYC, where there are a gazillion flights to/from Houston or Dallas, but only 2-3 from Austin. And while Texas can be pretty in places, Texas-style sprawl (marked by non-stop big box stores and car dealerships lining the freeways for miles and miles and miles on end--as far as the eye can see) is inescapable even in Austin. The downtown is pretty to look at, especially from across the river, but nothing special once there (except for 6 street, which is tourist central.) Then there is North Austin, and the monstrosity known as the Domain (a complete failure of scale, design, and well--basic wayfinding.) The Less said about that (except that it looks and feels just like every other life style center that sprouted up in America in the last 15 years,) the better. The population boom in Austin is not new, and Austin's biggest problem is it's inability to build infrastructure to keep up. For years, traffic has been snarled on 35, 183, and Mopac. In the time it has taken for the DFW Metroplex to build two rail-lines to its airport + a whole network of express lanes on it's highways (including the wonderful sunken portion of I-635,) Austin adds a single lane express lane on 7 miles of Loop-1. Oh, there is SR-140, but it's so far out of the way, the 85 mph speed limit rarely if ever makes up for the time getting to or from the road. (And if I recall, the private company that funded and built the road as part of Texas's favorite public-private-partnership system went bankrupt.) So yeah, SFBA > ATX.
- ActorNightly 6y agoIts kinda amazing, but almost every single sentence in your post is either incorrect or at best very biased. In the end, if you think SFO is great, you are a certain type of person that is allways going to find something wrong with a place like Austin.
- 02020202 6y agoparasitic commies killed the old host. new they need to feed off of a new one.
- Tangokat 6y agoI think we're going to see more and more people "vote with their feet" by moving to places that suit them better instead of trying to change where they are. It is so much easier today than it has ever been. It should mean competition between cities/states/countries to attract the best people which is good.
- yourapostasy 6y agoI'm surprised no one has mentioned the allergies so far. I've heard of more than one SXSW trip ruined by them, they're apparently quite epic.
- spacemanmatt 6y agoAustin native, here. Things I hate about Austin: 1. PACs keep shouting down mass transit every time there's a ballot measure 1a. takes forever to get across town at 8 and 5 1b. I hate driving. I have worked in Chicago, and I'd like my commute time back for reading email, etc. 2. Housing and schooling are wholly inequitable 3. Broadband access is wholly inequitable
- mattchr 6y agoYou realize Austin just passed a gigantic transit plan in November, right?
- jl2718 6y agoWaste of money. Not going to work. Disaster incoming. Austin is the right size for busses and bike lanes, not trains. This is California exporting their foolish idealism.
- gaspard234 6y agoAnother Austinite here, we are experiencing massive growth and the line about not being the right size is foolish. The anti-development crowd said the same thing during our last rail vote when the city was half the size in the early 2000's. If we had built then traffic wouldn't be as bad now.
- jl2718 6y agoMost parts of Los Angeles are not even dense enough to make rail effective for the investment. Think about it this way. There are about 100 busses in Austin right now. The $7B rail network could easily buy 10,000 new busses, fully-loaded cost of 10-year service life. Or put another way, free bus service for 100% of Austin’s commutes, forever. Maybe block off a special lane for busses and you get pseudo-rail at 1% of the cost. Maybe think about rail when the demand is proven. The pneumatic tire is an amazing invention for flexible human transport. Light rail is almost always a waste of money, and it will probably never even get built, and if it does, it will take forever, and create more traffic than it solves. But if you can credibly suggest otherwise with a single example of a low-density light rail system in any comparable city that got better ROI than busses and bike lanes, I will consider that I may be wrong. https://youtu.be/ZDOI0cq6GZM https://youtu.be/ZDOI0cq6GZM