Austin is hot, over 100°F for a long time in the summer, snowless 4 years out of 5. It has a deliberately bad highway system leading to a three-hour rush hour

Austin is hot, over 100°F for a long time in the summer, snowless 4 years out of 5. It has a deliberately bad highway system leading to a three-hour rush hour from 4 PM to 7 PM on weekdays. Granted, anyone from Los Angeles would probably laugh at this plaint, since even in rush hour, one will still make it home at some point here. There's a little light rail, and an unimpressive but functional bus system. Be warned that bicycling in Austin can be challenging in some areas. Austin's surrounded by bible-belt, republican Texas, but - in part due to the large university-derived community - has a diverse and surprisingly democratic/unaffiliated contingent in the city itself, including fringe religions and spiritualism (Wicca, etc), and a wealth of musicians, artists, and digerati. (We've likened it to West Berlin surrounded by East Germany before 1994) Restaurants are legion, we have Frys Electronics, Alamo Draughthouse (cinema + dining + local attitude) and lots of 3D cinemas, maker shops, etc. Consumer ISPs here are Time Warner, Uverse, etc, although getting both a static IP and good customer service from them is a faint dream, and Austin is not a mecca of cheap Internet, sadly, although offered speeds are pretty good. ISP options are a little wider along IH35, including Grande and possibly others. Google networking is coming in 2014. There are a lot of good options here for server colocation. Houses are easily available under the $200k mark for ~2k sqft in some fairly nice areas farther from the city center, with property taxes perhaps being around[ $4k/y on such - however, prices scale up substantially in some areas, especially deeper in town. There's a sales tax just over 8%, but no state income tax. There are a number of nice outdoor areas, some scenic views in the western, hillier side, parks, a (smallish) river through town, Lake Travis nearby (both are typified by rather murky green water), and so forth, although more popular in summer with those who can take the heat. The downtown area has scads of live music performers and dancing available. We have an active local faultline, the Balcones Fault, but the most notable earthquake on hit a 3.0 in Irving, TX, and Austinites aren't aware of any local earthquake activity. Burning Man isn't here, but we do have a Burning Flipside event popular with much of the same crowd. Austin is rife with startups :-)