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The Astonishing Transformation of Austin

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Re: The Astonishing Transformation of Austin

#61

Post by dylan604 »

jasondigitized wrote: post #52
dylan604 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vibe from Austin has always been weird to me. "Thanks for visiting, don't move here" or whatever their saying is to that effect. Yet, so few people are from Austin. To me, Austin has always been that poser city trying so hard to be cool and noticed by the other cool cities, but when you try to get to know the city it's just a facade of cool and the rest is just empty and hollow

How does a city try to be cool? And is there a threshold? Is NYC like 89.8% cool and Asheville 67.7% cool? Austin has all kinds of cool sh*t. 17.3% of stuff in Austin is cool. But the rest is a facade.

>How does a city try to be cool?

there is no try. only posers try. that's the point

Re: The Astonishing Transformation of Austin

#62

Post by hwbehrens »

jasondigitized wrote: post #55
burlesona wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would not recommend. It's a great city if you like paying almost as much as SF for housing and getting: - High heat and humidity for 8 months out of the year - Mosquitos that make the few nice days out much less nice - Surprising ice/snow storms in the middle of the few months of nice weather - Having to drive everywhere in heavy and hostile traffic - Risking your life if you want to walk or bike somewhere - Being su…

Not bad points but you didn't mention how incredibly friendly and safe the city of Austin is. Austin bashers always fail to mention the intangibles that make Austin Austin.

> incredibly friendly

This has NOT been my experience as a relatively recent resident. Literally the first questions anyone you meet asks is (A) when you moved here, (B) from where, and (C) why. One of the first people I met practically spat in my face when I told her I moved for work in tech, possibly saved only by the fact that I didn't move from CA.

I don't blame them for the hostility, they're being priced out of their homes thanks to the property tax situation, but you can't call them "friendly" when everyone sees you as an invading barbarian to be discouraged at all costs.

I've lived all over, and Austinites are by far the most actively hostile people I have ever encountered. (Followed by the Maastrichtenaar, who also didn't much care for foreigners.)

Re: The Astonishing Transformation of Austin

#63

Post by selimthegrim »

DanCarvajal wrote: post #56
selimthegrim wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you recommend Bartlesville/Tulsa?

Honestly, Tulsa and Oklahoma City are pretty darn good these days and represent good options for a lot of people. Oklahoma also sneakily has a lot of great outdoor recreation and some of the best bouldering in the U.S. Oklahoma is interesting, it's got some unique issues but I feel like most people born there never really leave.

This sounds like Louisiana.

Re: The Astonishing Transformation of Austin

#64

Post by AndrewKemendo »

dougmwne wrote: post #45
ngoldbaum wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at Boulder for an example of what happens when you institute strict limits on growth.

And what is Boulder like?

Aside from the areas around CU Boulder which have the normal amount of college things, it is very quiet, bucolic and great for cyclists.

Re: The Astonishing Transformation of Austin

#65

Post by 71a54xd »

fintechjock wrote: post #31
71a54xd wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is basically my exact position as a native austinite - personally the transformation was complete for me when Magnolia's on Lake Austin blvd closed. Now it's all just Tesla's with CA plates

Nothing like Magnolia’s after midnight when you’re a high schooler and have nowhere else to go And they shut down the wrong Magnolia’s!

They also used to hire a hippy to do groundskeeping who would come around with a 5gal bucket (painted with dinosaur stencils) and carrying his pet Bearded dragon named Greg.

I ran into him one time meeting a business associate at Mags on Saturday. I initially just saw Greg, and exclaimed "wow who's lizard got loose" and this guy just came out of nowhere and said "oh, that's greg we do landscaping around here - he just likes to take in the sun while I pickup leaves" and proceeded to talk my ear off about how we needed to go "solar as a society" and how he disliked Donald Trump. It's by far the most "austin" thing to happen to me in recent memory, incredibly wholesome and positive and it all happened on the side of Mags with the big Limestone pavers in 2019.

Good times.

Re: The Astonishing Transformation of Austin

#67

Post by uoaei »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #64
dougmwne wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what is Boulder like?

Aside from the areas around CU Boulder which have the normal amount of college things, it is very quiet, bucolic and great for cyclists.

And also hell to find housing!

Re: The Astonishing Transformation of Austin

#68

Post by 71a54xd »

mikebenfield wrote: post #30
71a54xd wrote: post #21

[flagged]

You could just support new housing development and sane urban planning. Then maybe Austin will still be a pleasant and semi-affordable place to live in 10 or 20 years. Lots of moderately wealthy people moving in could be, in some ways, a boon for Austin, if you don't do everything exactly wrong. (The alternative is to refuse to build new housing or do any reasonable urban planning out of resentment towards newcomers,…

My comment has nothing to do with that - the city council has been a joke for decades. Their strategy up until now was literally "just slow down the process of giving building permits, that way growth will happen at a reasonable pace". We can see how well that played out haha.

Re: The Astonishing Transformation of Austin

#69

Post by 71a54xd »

kyteland wrote: post #59
mikebenfield wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could just support new housing development and sane urban planning. Then maybe Austin will still be a pleasant and semi-affordable place to live in 10 or 20 years. Lots of moderately wealthy people moving in could be, in some ways, a boon for Austin, if you don't do everything exactly wrong. (The alternative is to refuse to build new housing or do any reasonable urban planning out of resentment towards newcomers,…

As someone leaving Austin after 10 years, one limiting factor to growth here is water. All of the municipal water for the metro area comes from Lake Travis. There's a hard limit to how much growth the city can support even if infrastructure and housing was prioritized.

Not really, most of it comes from the Edwards aquifer and the CO river (which Lake Travis is a damned portion of).

If we stopped selling so much water to rice farmers in east texas at a hilarious discount per acre foot we wouldn't have a shortage. Utilities also haven't lowered water prices since they hiked them during draught conditions even though we've had a surplus of supply for years now. Rice farmers are still paying pennies on the dollar for thousands of gallons.

Re: The Astonishing Transformation of Austin

#70

Post by 71a54xd »

asdajksah2123 wrote: post #44
chrisco255 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So will you be going back to NYC? I love to visit NYC whenever I can, but it does seem to "churn" a lot of people out, with folks staying for a few years then leaving. For me, the weather is mainly bad in the peak of summer. 9-10 months of the year or so, it's great. The cedar pollen is pretty bad though, so if you have allergies I can understand.

NYC is currently too expensive to raise a family. That's why people tend to leave. NYC has less housing stock now than it did 2 decades ago, despite the population having grown by several Austins in that time. The pandemic seems to have spurred a lot of political will to increase housing fairly significantly. We will need to see if this will translate into actual changes.

Living with roommates past 27 is also kind of a deal breaker, along with paying $5k for a dilapidated 1br apt, enforced by the asinine dating market as well. By asinine I mean most women expecting male suitors to make over $400k, have their own apt and have a social life by age 26 even when they themselves go broke just paying rent.

Also, the lack of housing is largely a result of landlords just not listing about 40% of their properties. Corporate landlords are just as guilty of this. It is genuinely more corrupt and rigged than the jewelry / diamond industry.

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