re: Is Austin really the best place to live in America?

Yes

/thread

What equates to quality of life for you?

I think crime/safety, education, and employment are the basics. Austin scores high in those 3.

The traffic thing I don’t understand. Traffic is bad in almost every mid size city.

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its a lot of Californians that are taking the Texas ouf it and just TRYING HARD to be the weird hippie thing,,but now its done for money

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It’s certainly true that we have a lot of CA folks moving out here, but you really get two different groups.

1) The Conservative or Libertarian that wants to move away from CA, and they generally settle outside Austin proper and assimilate quickly to Texas. I’ve met and live near many of these.

2) The Liberals that want the same left ideals they had in CA, but in a bigger/nicer home and with no state income tax - can’t fault them for the last two. These group typically stays in town.

The “Keep Austin Weird” mantra was not sustainable...and I’m completely fine with that as I believe it, and the people backing that mentality, held the area back from growth. And, as the old saying goes...”If you’re not growing, then you’re dying”.

The city will continue to grow for years to come, and there’s really not much that could stop it except for a cataclysmic IT crater. Hell, even the housing bust didn’t damage the economy too much.

Given where it’s situated - in the middle of the Dallas-Houston-San Antonio triangle, the fact it’s the state Capital, a top tech hub (now center of Army’s tech), the future looks bright.

With all of that, many people will have to adapt to the “new” Austin. It’s not a hippie commune any longer...and that’s okay. It’s better.

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but like any other Democratic run major metro

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See...this is where you are wrong.

The city is Liberal, the the metro is Conservative.

I couldn’t live in Austin. I’ve lived on the north shore of Lake Travis for 15 hrs . In the last year 200 or more homes have been built in my area and mostly Californians have bought them . You can tell by the new Porsche’s, Lamborghinis etc on the road . We’ll see how things go now that schools started.I may cash in and move to Marble Falls. It’s like Atlanta in the early 80s . Everywhere is growth and the city doesn’t know how to keep up.

That list is so full of shite. San Fran and Portland are horrible

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It’s certainly true that we have a lot of CA folks moving out here, but you really get two different groups.

1) The Conservative or Libertarian that wants to move away from CA, and they generally settle outside Austin proper and assimilate quickly to Texas. I’ve met and live near many of these.

2) The Liberals that want the same left ideals they had in CA, but in a bigger/nicer home and with no state income tax - can’t fault them for the last two. These group typically stays in town.

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I dont disagree,, when I refer to the CA transplants I was referring to that same type,, as you said the City of Austin,, the Austin proper has the same or better access to the area outdoor activities are ore family and business-oriented.

For me, the personal change is Dripping Springs where my Dads land is,, it used to be Country ,no light pollution, empty roads,, if you were on Hamilton Pool road you lived there,, now thats developed and the charm has been replaced by a chilis and applebess

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That list is so full of shite. San Fran and Portland are horrible

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You are probably right. However while San Francisco as a city sucks, the suburbs are super nice and quality of life is high. Sure it’s expensive with high taxes, but so are the high-paying opportunities there, as long as you aren’t one of those street shitting homeless person.

No. ATX is cool but it’s not what it was even 5-6 years ago. And even then there was a sense that the city had already jumped the shark. I go back now and half of my favorite places are gone and replaced by condos.

We used to say “Don’t Dallas my Austin”, but it’s been Dallased, just walk down east 6th for proof.