Anybody here from Austin, TX?

[Nancy2015 2]

Hi

Hubby and myself have been thinking a lot about getting out of the SF Bay Area for good - it's not for us, common folks, - way too pricey. The only problem is - we don't quite know where we're going What we do know is that we will be moving somewhere where there's no winter and lots of jobs.

I've done some research, watched some Travel Channel shows, and we have sort of come to the conclusion that Austin, TX will be our # 1 choice. Seems like one can rent a one bedroom for $600-700 a month (cheap!!), buy a decent house for $250K (unbelievably cheap), and administrative jobs there pay almost as much as in the Silicon Valley. But what we like best is the "Keep Austin Weird" slogan We are both weird, and we want to fit in

We are not moving anywhere till 2009 - hubster will be going to school for a while, and I want to be done with my removal of conditions. But any input about Austin will be more than welcome and greatly appreciated.

Thank you!!

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Recent Thread on Austin,

[Ban Hammer 13,337]

jewel, check with homesick american - she's from austin.

[Otto 83]

I'm from Austin - your numbers are about right - but will be even higher in 2009...

Its a great city to live in.

[homesick_american 1]

jewel, check with homesick american - she's from austin.

Actually, I'm from Dallas.

I lived in Austin for six years non-consecutively, though...1993-1997 (student at UT) and 1999-2001.

To the OP:

Austin is not the same place it was 15 years ago when people started to "discover" it. It has lost that quiet charm that it used to have, and if you think it's laid-back and cool now, you should have seen it back in the day.

In my opinion Austin is done...ruined...wrecked...by the self-consciously hip people who have moved there and made it into a focking joke. People who think that if you have a purple mohawk and a tramp stamp tattoo and you smoke strawberry bindi cigarettes while beating on bongo drums, that makes you unique. Uh...those people are a DIME a DOZEN. You ought to see the parade of "uniqueness" at Eeyore's birthday every year. I just wanted to scream out to those people that it is not 196 f*cking 9, they are NOT hippies, and everyone is basically laughing at them.

Then there are the corporate yuppie em effs with their suburbans and babies as fashion accessories ruining every restaurant in town by bringing their progeny with them EVERYWHERE THEY GO, including pricey restaurants at 10pm on a Wednesday night. You can't escape them. Either you're surrounded by the self-consciously hip idiots or the yuppie f*cks, or you're in the ghetto.

Plus, and you should know this, Austin's real estate is basically the most expensive in Texas. The cost of living in Austin is higher than any other large city in the state, rents and house prices are more per square foot, and you wouldn't even want to live in a neighborhood where you could get a one-bed for $600 a month. :lol: :lol: :lol: 10 years ago when I was a senior in college my roommate and I had a 1 bedroom apartment in the GHETTO that cost $500 a month. In 2001 I was paying $900 a month for a small 2-bed apartment in a medium-OK complex right off Jollyville and Duval. Really nice apartments were in the four figures per month. It'll definitely be cheaper compared to San Fran, but you gotta remember you'll be making less money too. Plenty of Californians have invaded Texas in the last couple of decades and have found it to be much tougher than they thought it would be.

Don't get me wrong...I don't hate Austin. I like it...I like it very much. It has some of the most jaw-dropping scenery of anywhere in America. However, it is ruined for me because the secret's out, the place has filled up with people who have completely ruined the chilled-out vibe of the place. Now it's just like any other big city, and that's the tragedy of it.

When we get back to Texas, we won't be going back to Austin. We're going to Dallas instead. Dallas is not cool, never has been, and it's not overrun with people doing their best to out-weird each other, or yuppies pretending that they're into recycling and organic vegetables. Dallas is real: what you see is what you get. People there are shallow and materialistic and make no effort to pretend to be anything else. I respect that. Austin is a satirical version of its former self and it's filled to the brim with poseurs. If you're shallow and materialistic, just be shallow and materialistic. Pretending that you're not is worse in my opinion. Plus, I always found way more to do in Dallas than Austin, and Dallas is definitely a more fun place to be a kid. :thumbs: I had a fantastic time growing up in Dallas; I'd have been bored sh!tless in Austin. When I went back to Austin in '99-'01, I was drawn mostly by the fun memories of being a college student there and completely ignored the fact that every weekend in Dallas was a party, a blast, something to do, something to see, somewhere to go. In Austin I mostly sat on my a$$ because I wasn't interested in going to yet another outdoor hippie music festival, food festival, or some other outdoorsy thing. It's just too focking hot in summer for that #######.

It is beautiful, though...and the people are friendly. Don't get me wrong...I DO like the place. I just don't love it anymore because of what it has become.

[cartaverde 12]

My other half is from Austin.

And I'll definitely be living there as soon as I've got the papers and stamps for passport ready.

[Nancy2015 2]

Thanks a lot, folks!

And a very special thanks to Homesick American!

It all gives me some food for thought...

[homesick_american 1]

Thanks a lot, folks!

And a very special thanks to Homesick American!

It all gives me some food for thought...

Don't take my word for it entirely though...go there. Spend some time there...especially in summertime to see if you can handle the heat. If you like it and think you'll be happy there, go for it. Don't base a decision like this just on my opinion, but be aware that what happened to Seattle is now happening to Austin, and I think it's sad.

In my personal opinion, Texas's best-kept secret is now Fort Worth, not Austin. Fort Worth has a lot of the qualities that made Austin so attractive to people 15 years ago: educated population, low cost of living, mellow and laid-back atmosphere, plenty to do, etc. Fort Worth used to have a horrible but deserved reputation for piss-poor schools and high crime, but it has really turned around in the last 10 years. It's one of the fastest-growing areas in the United States; in fact Travis County (Austin) is not on the list of fastest-growing counties, but Tarrant County (Fort Worth) is, along with Bexar County (San Antonio), Harris County (Houston), and Dallas and Collin Counties (Dallas & suburbs).

Dallas is also a pretty awesome city. Not EVERYONE is shallow and materialistic there, but Dallas is an extraordinarily wealthy city with a lot of conspicuous consumption and showing off...in that respect, the TV show wasn't far off. The great thing about Dallas is people from out of state usually don't even consider it unless their company is transferring them there, so we sort of have the place to ourselves. It's not a tourist trap either, so you don't have to shove hordes of people out of the way when you're out and about. It's not an attractive city scenery-wise, but it sort of makes up for that with very distinctive architecture. It is really let down by its high crime rate and mostly bad schools, but it is possible to live in Dallas and send your kids to public schools and not really worry about violent crime. I went to public schools in Dallas and I turned out OK.

If I were you, I'd make a side trip to Dallas and Fort Worth when you visit Austin. Who knows...you may be pleasantly surprised. Keep an open mind about everything, though. :thumbs: :thumbs: My husband and I should be back in Big D soon, and if you'd like someone to show you around I'd be more than happy to.

[Otto 83]

Thanks a lot, folks!

And a very special thanks to Homesick American!

It all gives me some food for thought...

I wouldn't take much of the opinions posted as fact by any means.

[homesick_american 1]

Thanks a lot, folks!

And a very special thanks to Homesick American!

It all gives me some food for thought...

I wouldn't take much of the opinions posted as fact by any means.

*shrug* I never said I didn't like it. I just don't like the mass marketization of the place; IMHO it has been ruined by self-conscious hipsters and gel-headed, misty yuppie f*cks. I miss the Austin of 1993 before the UT student union was franchised, before the Drag was taken over by a bunch of f*cking chain stores, before Bluebonnet Plaza was torn down and replaced by a Starbucks, before Cap TX Highway had traffic lights every 10 feet, before you could drive around the hills west of town and NOT see McMansions clinging to any gradeable surface, before Macaroni Grills and hip restaurants with paragraphs describing each dish sprouted up like mushrooms after a rainstorm, before the streets were clogged with Lexuses and Boxters...y'know, back when you could make the drive on MoPac from Sixth to 183 in less than 45 minutes in rush hour traffic, back when you didn't have to use the valet parking at Chuy's Hula Hut because there were actual places to park...you get the idea. We visited Austin in 2005 and I was shocked and saddened to see what it had become. I just couldn't live there again; it hurts too much to look at what it has turned into.

I'm far from the only former Austin resident to feel this way. I know a lot of Dallas Flickrites who once lived in Austin but moved to Dallas because they just didn't want to wait around for Austin to turn into Dallas. It's like when you take off a Band-Aid...hurts less if you just rip it off quickly.

[homesick_american 1]

BTW, you know it's the beginning of the end when you have to implore the residents of Austin to keep it weird, when the weirdness used to occur naturally without any encouragement from t-shirts or bumper stickers.

[bora bora 1]

How is UTexas?

[homesick_american 1]

How is UTexas?

The University of Texas at Austin is one of America's finest public universities.

:thumbs: :thumbs: :thumbs:

I attended from 1993 to 1997 (BA, French/Applied Linguistics) and it's an awesome school.

[bora bora 1]

homesick,

what's your name?

you answered a post i made before about foreign language.

i want my master's in spanish/portuguese.

how was your program? what kind of classes did you take in applied linguistics?

what do you do?

hope you don't mind all of the questions.

[homesick_american 1]

homesick,

what's your name?

My name is classified information.

you answered a post i made before about foreign language.

i want my master's in spanish/portuguese.

how was your program? what kind of classes did you take in applied linguistics?

Some in French, some in the linguistics dept.

what do you do?

Nothing at the mo; I just finished a contract where I designed and programmed a DB and the client to accompany it. In a nutshell, I'm a software engineer.

hope you don't mind all of the questions.

Not at all. I have double minors in Spanish and Portuguese but none of the professors that I had appear on the department's current faculty listing. That's probably just as well. Some of them were real ball-busters. I got to take the accelerated Portuguese class for speakers of Spanish. I didn't feel my Spanish was fluent at that time, but I speak French fluently and I was interviewed for placement in French and Spanish. I guess they were satisfied. I was the only freshman in the class and one of only 3 undergraduates and made a B, which I was pretty impressed with. The class is Portuguese 508, which squeezes all of first-year Portuguese into a single semester. If you go to UT, I recommend that class but it is very intense. If you're not fluent in a romance language it will be tough going.

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/spanish/graduate/