Austinite 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.
Austin'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.
> 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.
Average 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).
I 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:
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.
I 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.
From 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.
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 if enough people want it to change.
While Austin's zoning laws could definitely be better, there is tons of housing being built even now. I see large numbers being built at the edge of town. Not saying there's not problems, especially for new construction in old neighborhoods, but it's not like there isn't a lot of construction happening.
Sprawl is an environmental disaster. On top of land-use changes, it also causes longer commutes, both of which produce more CO2 than upzoning and densifying city centers. Unfortunately, it's in most property owners' best financial interests to rent-seek by blocking any new development, especially considering Texas passed our own version of California's disastrous Proposition 13 in the last legislative session.
Well, for one, while there are some conflicting results, there is lots of research pointing to high-density housing leading to elevated rates of violent crime.
Increased traffic and related issues if housing is added without new roads, traffic signals, etc... Increased 911 response times, food deserts and the related social problems, air quality problems for increased traffic and so on. Tnstaafl
We can’t let our kids and our dogs out in the yard to play. This is hugely valuable to some people, and it’s why they chose the neighborhoods that they did. You probably got to do that as a kid.
Nothing to do with rent seeking. The only thing increased property value does is make property tax and excise tax go up. Nobody cares about that. We don’t want a condo building dropped on both sides of us. Who would?
There is a place between sprawl and skyscrapers: 4-6 story buildings are considered ideal by city planners (IIRC) because you get pretty good density (i.e. low distance to work/shopping and so on) while still feeling familiar (you know your neighbours, there are public spaces to hang out on or do sports etc.).
Copenhagen ist built almost completey like that and has a population of about 800k. It feels great: Quite urban, with many cafés and small shops, while still feeling friendly and human. Much of Berlin is also like that.
They are starting to do some of that in Austin. The lower levels are supposed to be businesses, but the rent on them is way too high and the businesses go under regularly. Something still not worked out about that.
You're not wrong, but the main obstacle is legal (lawsuits), so it's either build nothing, or build at the edge of town. But there is some high-density stuff in the center of town in the last 10 years or so.
It's true. There are subdivisions going up everywhere in Hays and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight. And you can't be more in the nose than a place called "Caliterra" unless you called it "CA Expats Welcome Here." I have 2.8 unrestricted acres in Driftwood that I bought a year ago and after I sell the other house I tent out in a Subdivision up the road, I'll squat in this alone until I can avoid the capital gains and likely sell it for a significant profit. The greater Austin area is exploding with houses and it still can't meet demand. They sell fast and generally over asking, even in the off season and during a pandemic.
This is one reason why I'm bullish on Miami. Miami has to be the most YIMBY-friendly city in the US. I moved here last November and the density is so wonderful. I'm pretty sure that I can see more 40+ story buildings from my balcony in Brickell than exist in Northern California.
They already have a massive pumping infrastructure due to seasonal flooding unrelated to global warming.
The local and county governments, unlike the SFBA, are not completely dysfunctional and TBH I trust Miami city and Miami-Dade County to handle global warming induced flooding more than I trust the City of San Francisco to handle a sunny spring day with no issues.
Also, the Dutch figured out how to live with cities below sea level 300 years ago, we'll manage.
Floridian here, travelled the country for about a decade and came back to Florida the past few years.
Until you see how other state, county and municipality governments function, you can't really appreciate how well Florida gov generally works. When growing up in Florida, I was led to believe it was the most backward ass state in the country. Didn't help I also lived in a rural county. After living in half a dozen states in a decade (and visiting many more for long periods)... no. Florida has its shit together compared to most other states. Are there problems here, absolutely. But no where near as bad as other states. Especially when it comes to environmental planning and protection. Still some problems in the Everglades area with some fucktards, but on a whole, environmentalism is more active here than anywhere else. Just the news coverage is dismal.
While I'm on the Space Coast, you're right to not be that worried in Miami. Plus, there are massive seawall projects that are supposed to start soon if they haven't already. I know they were planned for 2020, but the whole covid thing through a monkeywrench in that. Last I read, there's some $20b being spent in the Miami-Dade area in the next decade all in response to climate change. A lot of the infrastructure is getting reworked, along with water management.
It's like people think we're surprised that nature can kill us. We "worry" about it half of the year, every year. We welcome the challenge... as long as we stock up on alcohol. Then bring it on. But if those liquor stores close, it's panic time.
Very true. It surprised me how non-dysfunctional government interactions are here relative to the SFBA and the reputation of Florida in general. DMV appointments are very easy to get and you can get in and out pretty quickly. In CA, you had to camp out at the DMV at 6am to have a 50/50 chance of getting out by noon.
311 type issues in miami are handled pretty quickly, same day in some cases. In SFBA you could go months before seeing public safety issues addressed, if ever.
Every time I've had to go to the DMV in Oakland, CA, I've been able to make an appointment online and be in and out within 45 minutes.
More importantly, the efficiency with which the state handles DMV appointments is not necessarily correlated with how well they will handle rising sea levels for (probably) the rest of the century. Miami already suffers from regular flooding that causes a mixture of seawater and raw sewage to flow through its streets. I don't buy that a massive public works project is going to make all these problems go away.
>The local and county governments, unlike the SFBA, are not completely dysfunctional and TBH I trust Miami city and Miami-Dade County to handle global warming induced flooding more than I trust the City of San Francisco to handle a sunny spring day with no issues.
I'm sure a liberal application of SF/NYC money will solve any governmental competency that Miami has build up over the years. Look at how places like Boulder are faring.
> the Dutch figured out how to live with cities below sea level 300 years ago, we'll manage
They also paid for this infrastructure over the course of 300 years on a national level. How this will work for a single city in a huge state in a short amount of time is unclear to me, besides the fact that Amsterdam was built at the end of a bay, which the Netherlands then closed off using floodgates. Miami is facing open water. Lots of open water.
The problem with Miami's flooding isn't that the sea is washing over it, it's coming from underneath it due to the porous limestone. Short of raising all the buildings and roads, how do you solve that?
Miami metro (6.1m) is bigger than SF-Oakland metro (4.7m) but smaller than the SFBA (7.1m) and much smaller than the greater bay combined statistical area (9.6m), whereas the greater Miami statistical area is similar to Miami metro (6.8m). Comparing the sizes of sprawly megalopolis areas like this is hard, but it's certainly not true that Miami area is more populous than Northern California.
The "seismic issue" is a red herring tossed around by SFBA NIMBY's to justify their nonsense. Taipei and Tokyo have nearly an order of magnitude larger seismic activity than the SFBA and have no issues building lots of dense, tall buildings in their urban cores.
I was tired of the cost and dysfunction of the SFBA.
Shift towards remote work makes me far less dependent on physically being in the SFBA.
The nice parts of Miami, relative to the SFBA, are shockingly clean and safe feeling. Even the rough and dangerous parts of Miami are still cleaner and feel safer than SFBA. Miami has its share of crime but it tends to be organized and less random and to be blunt, if a bit amoral, far less likely to affect me.
I really enjoy the vibrance and density of coastal Miami. Reminds me of Singapore.
I love warm weather and beaches. The Pacific Ocean is prettier than the Atlantic, but the Atlantic is far warmer and swimmable most of the year.
I grew up in Philly, Miami isn't quite Philly / NYC / Boston but still has more of an East Coast vibe.
Tax benefits to Florida.
My 81 year old mom lives in Boca, so this is far better for family.
My fiancée is Brazilian so this is closer to her family and there is a huge Brazilian population here.
Even though I've always been politically active, the last few years have been exhausting. Miami's dominant political culture is pure apathy and its nice that not every aspect of has to be dominated by some political issue or another.
As for Brickell, its a great way to "start" in Miami. For us, we wanted a simple move where we could rent an apartment for a year before figuring out where to settle more permanently. Its incredibly walkable, safe, etc.
Miami is far from YIMBY. Transit is paltry, bike lanes are few and far between in the area despite the region being flat as a board and the weather being relatively perfect. Outside the condos and hotels along the waterfront, the area is predominantly single family zoned all the way to the everglades. Housing costs are rising as a result. There is demand for the apartments all through southbeach to be twice as tall at least, but it is zoning and the same old NIMBYism you'd find in California that is holding this area back and pushing rents higher and making commutes longer.
Transit is paltry and needs to be improved. But, the culture and political structure means that once there is sufficient demand and need it will be far easier to build.
Also, bike lanes have been improving significantly.
Boulder as well. The greenbelt and height limits are pushing properties in Boulder proper into SF-Bay prices. The surrounding cities are also feeling the push too. The whole Front Range housing market is going bonkers (relative to 'normal') with appraisal gaps of ~$80k that buyers are paying outright, no inspections, 10 day closing times. It's bananas.
Hopefully snow is an obstacle for a lot of people into moving into a number of regions. (Although some cities in the snowbelt are already fairly popular/pricey.)
If you asked someone to build a list of cities where a massive inflow of outside money has screwed things up for everyone the list would look very similar. But nobody moving in notices the decline because the all things considered state at any given time is always better than the state of the place they're leaving (or they wouldn't be relocated).
So, 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.
I'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.
Not 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.
>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.
Are tech companies responsible? It seems to me that we blame them because they're the only competent party thanks to the current state of local government. Deciding growth and development seems like the domain of local government, not corporations. I think that's the problem we need to fix, because it's a problem we, the citizens, can fix, since we're able to vote and participate in government.
The problems in SV, Austin, Seattle, etc are caused by failures of local governments. The success of big tech certainly fuels the problems, but it is the poor decisions of local citizens and their governments that resulted in the traffic, housing and cultural isssues.
I think you're missing an important element here. Big mature tech doesn't want to be in the STATE of California for financial reasons. Arizona is far more advantageous.
The issues with Austin developing many of the same housing/diversity issues as SF, isn't going to be solved, and I don't think they expect it to.
Bingo. Texas has no state income tax and has offered a lot of incentives to bring in more business.
It's the 2nd largest state in the Union, has a decent set of universities, warm (hot) weather, and several large, wealthy cities, like Dallas and Austin. Houston is set to overtake Chicago as the USA's 3rd largest city before too long.
If it happens across the entire country, it just gets called inflation (by definition, CPI averages prices for a basket of goods across the whole country). Which is to say, averaging demand over a larger number of cities is what we should all be cheering for, because it means the next generation won't have to choose between getting a job and being able to afford a home; the high paying jobs (well, average-paying after counting inflation) will be in every nearly every state in the union.
Well 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.
A 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.
We'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.
WA already has income tax, in the form of the mandatory family leave act and sick leave insurance premiums taken as a percentage of W2 pay. They also just added another 0.58% income tax in the same form, but for long term care insurance.
The long term care insurance benefit amount is pathetic too, so for any WA residents reading, you should buy LTCI ASAP by Jul 20 something so you can opt out of having that premium deducted from your pay.
I would budget paying WA at least 1% of W2 income in tax, and it’s not deductible from federal taxes in any scenario since it’s not classified as a tax.
I 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
I 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.
Lived 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.
As 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.
I'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.
Not 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.)
Vegas 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.
And this comment is why CA’s housing crisis is impossible to fix. There is no easy solution.
The main solution people propose, building more, has a very high likelihood of turning it into a suburban hellscape that people refuse to move to even at gunpoint.
We have plenty of places like that. If the option is just build more without an extremely careful plan, then just move to another city where it’s like that already. Phoenix is a nice sprawl.
Probably uncertain ability to expand their water supply.
In the Western US, certain ability to massively expand a city's water rights is really a prerequisite for insane real estate profits. SF was a mining town before Hetch Hetchy, and LA didn't blow up until they robbed the Owens Valley.
Edit: yep, Truckee River is 100% allocated as of 2015
Well, Austin is humid and really hot. Reno arguably is better weather wise, given proximity to Tahoe.
But a lot of this is network effects. University of Nevada doesn't have the CS strength of University of Texas, so you don't have such a strong tech scene.
Honestly, it's probably cooler there in the summer than Austin due to the elevation. It also gets legitimately cold in Reno with snow that will stick around longer than a day.
The average high temperature in the hottest month is only slightly above 90. Reno isnt a particularly hot city. The ~4500 foot elevation keeps temperatures cooler than you might think as compared to other parts of Nevada.
Same. Over the last ten years I keep hearing about how it was going to be the next satellite tech hub, particularly with Tesla building the Gigafactory 30 minutes away. I think Apple and some other tech built small offices / datacenters there but not much else.
On a different note, I'm up there to visit family frequently, and despite being proximate to incredible beauty (Tahoe, Truckee, skiing, etc.), Reno itself is pretty Wal-Mart suburban hellscape. There are some nicer pockets but overall very meh. Reno was hit VERY hard after the Recession and there were a lot of empty business fronts downtown for a few years; it has cleaned up and brought some new blood but it still has a way to go.
The casinos are still ever-present. Some are charming but others and are still pretty gross, gaudy, and old-school, in a bad way.
All that being said, I think Reno still has a lot of opportunity. The city owns the hot and cold seasons well. The downtown area and the river could be very cool. I'm also surprised some tech-social-gaming startup hasn't attempted to reinvigorate the gambling world to take on the absolute relics that are the casino industry. PM me if you'd be into that sort of thing.
As a Northern NV native and SF resident for the past 10 years, it’s been my experience that Reno doesn’t enter into the worldview of hip techie people in the Bay Area for a variety of reasons.
Strangely, Boise _does_, but comes with state income tax.
Reno had never been immune to “Californication” though. Resistance to it almost defines the local culture.
Plenty of that in Silicon Valley too. Being displaced by rich assholes who came for the money or some fad and will bail on the place just as quickly, leaving the area worse than they found it isn’t likely to make (educated, liberal) rich assholes many friends amongst those with roots or more vested long term interests. We live in a world of replacement and our communities should not be treated as another disposable product to be enjoyed and then discarded for whatever new shiny thing comes along. California, Austin, etc are selecting for people who take more than they give. Their growth removes community and disrupts lives, perhaps a fair price to pay for progress, but is it really progress?
> California, Austin, etc are selecting for people who take more than they give.
How is this measured? Any should someone born in a community without access to high paying jobs or less desirable weather/amenities not be able to move elsewhere?
It’s not an empirical statement but if you wanted to treat it as such you could look at the churn, how long people stay in the new location, broken out by earnings delta and education level. The extent to which people chase money or lack ambition is increasingly correlated with geography, to the detriment of humanity IMO. The other side of the coin is persistent poverty and social problems for the less ambitious/greedy.
So these folks are leaving California to basically build another San Francisco/Seattle but without the benefit of good weather and stuff to do outdoors.
> 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
Water 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.
For 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.
I 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.
I’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.
There 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.
I'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.
I'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
Houston 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.
As 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.
> has a similar feeling to other cities without zoning laws
Are there any other large cities without zoning laws?
I've been to Houston once. It was definitely weird, sort of as if all the different types of buildings you'd find in a normal city had been shuffled like a big deck of cards.
I 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%.
Montana 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.
I'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.)
I have family in Austin, and I agree with everything in this post... Except the part about Austin being charming. I don't find anything charming about the arrogant texan attitudes, the mini-malls, and the crappy collage-town bars on 6th street.
I want to agree with you on a few points but reducing the vast Texas Hill Country and Highland Lakes to the Oasis is just misleading to strengthen your premise. No disagreement that SF has far better outdoor activities.
6th street? That's a running joke and has been for years. Everything that is happening is south of sixth, or across the river on Rainey, South Congress and Auditorium Shores.
I 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.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 228 ms ] threadIt'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.
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.
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.
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.
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 if enough people want it to change.
Can you give examples?
e.g., https://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/13030.html
Nothing to do with rent seeking. The only thing increased property value does is make property tax and excise tax go up. Nobody cares about that. We don’t want a condo building dropped on both sides of us. Who would?
But if you do allow job creation, while not creating housing for the people working those jobs, that absolutely is rent seeking.
Copenhagen ist built almost completey like that and has a population of about 800k. It feels great: Quite urban, with many cafés and small shops, while still feeling friendly and human. Much of Berlin is also like that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_A...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/miami-is-the-most...
> Miami Is the "Most Vulnerable" Coastal City Worldwide
The local and county governments, unlike the SFBA, are not completely dysfunctional and TBH I trust Miami city and Miami-Dade County to handle global warming induced flooding more than I trust the City of San Francisco to handle a sunny spring day with no issues.
Also, the Dutch figured out how to live with cities below sea level 300 years ago, we'll manage.
Until you see how other state, county and municipality governments function, you can't really appreciate how well Florida gov generally works. When growing up in Florida, I was led to believe it was the most backward ass state in the country. Didn't help I also lived in a rural county. After living in half a dozen states in a decade (and visiting many more for long periods)... no. Florida has its shit together compared to most other states. Are there problems here, absolutely. But no where near as bad as other states. Especially when it comes to environmental planning and protection. Still some problems in the Everglades area with some fucktards, but on a whole, environmentalism is more active here than anywhere else. Just the news coverage is dismal.
While I'm on the Space Coast, you're right to not be that worried in Miami. Plus, there are massive seawall projects that are supposed to start soon if they haven't already. I know they were planned for 2020, but the whole covid thing through a monkeywrench in that. Last I read, there's some $20b being spent in the Miami-Dade area in the next decade all in response to climate change. A lot of the infrastructure is getting reworked, along with water management.
It's like people think we're surprised that nature can kill us. We "worry" about it half of the year, every year. We welcome the challenge... as long as we stock up on alcohol. Then bring it on. But if those liquor stores close, it's panic time.
311 type issues in miami are handled pretty quickly, same day in some cases. In SFBA you could go months before seeing public safety issues addressed, if ever.
More importantly, the efficiency with which the state handles DMV appointments is not necessarily correlated with how well they will handle rising sea levels for (probably) the rest of the century. Miami already suffers from regular flooding that causes a mixture of seawater and raw sewage to flow through its streets. I don't buy that a massive public works project is going to make all these problems go away.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/08/08/analysis-s...
I'm sure a liberal application of SF/NYC money will solve any governmental competency that Miami has build up over the years. Look at how places like Boulder are faring.
They also paid for this infrastructure over the course of 300 years on a national level. How this will work for a single city in a huge state in a short amount of time is unclear to me, besides the fact that Amsterdam was built at the end of a bay, which the Netherlands then closed off using floodgates. Miami is facing open water. Lots of open water.
Uh, yeah, Miami’s a bigger (but poorer) metro than SFBA and doesn't have the seismic issues of the Bay Area, so it would be weird if that wasn’t true.
I was tired of the cost and dysfunction of the SFBA.
Shift towards remote work makes me far less dependent on physically being in the SFBA.
The nice parts of Miami, relative to the SFBA, are shockingly clean and safe feeling. Even the rough and dangerous parts of Miami are still cleaner and feel safer than SFBA. Miami has its share of crime but it tends to be organized and less random and to be blunt, if a bit amoral, far less likely to affect me.
I really enjoy the vibrance and density of coastal Miami. Reminds me of Singapore.
I love warm weather and beaches. The Pacific Ocean is prettier than the Atlantic, but the Atlantic is far warmer and swimmable most of the year.
I grew up in Philly, Miami isn't quite Philly / NYC / Boston but still has more of an East Coast vibe.
Tax benefits to Florida.
My 81 year old mom lives in Boca, so this is far better for family.
My fiancée is Brazilian so this is closer to her family and there is a huge Brazilian population here.
Even though I've always been politically active, the last few years have been exhausting. Miami's dominant political culture is pure apathy and its nice that not every aspect of has to be dominated by some political issue or another.
As for Brickell, its a great way to "start" in Miami. For us, we wanted a simple move where we could rent an apartment for a year before figuring out where to settle more permanently. Its incredibly walkable, safe, etc.
Also, bike lanes have been improving significantly.
I’ll stick to states that aren’t trying to criminalize my partner having to pee.
> tacoma
This is a joke, right? I mean, the phrase "aroma of Tacoma" is popular for a reason.
If you asked someone to build a list of cities where a massive inflow of outside money has screwed things up for everyone the list would look very similar. But nobody moving in notices the decline because the all things considered state at any given time is always better than the state of the place they're leaving (or they wouldn't be relocated).
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.
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.
What ravaging is happening?
Sadly, it's true.
The current landlords and property owners get massive revenue from the young people moving in, while grumbling about loss of culture.
The problems in SV, Austin, Seattle, etc are caused by failures of local governments. The success of big tech certainly fuels the problems, but it is the poor decisions of local citizens and their governments that resulted in the traffic, housing and cultural isssues.
lol everyone realises what's going to happen
why would a tech company care at all or more than any other entity
a quarter of these tech companies are just real estate plays any way
The issues with Austin developing many of the same housing/diversity issues as SF, isn't going to be solved, and I don't think they expect it to.
It's the 2nd largest state in the Union, has a decent set of universities, warm (hot) weather, and several large, wealthy cities, like Dallas and Austin. Houston is set to overtake Chicago as the USA's 3rd largest city before too long.
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.
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.
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.
The long term care insurance benefit amount is pathetic too, so for any WA residents reading, you should buy LTCI ASAP by Jul 20 something so you can opt out of having that premium deducted from your pay.
I would budget paying WA at least 1% of W2 income in tax, and it’s not deductible from federal taxes in any scenario since it’s not classified as a tax.
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
Gonna miss it when I leave.
Also things like power grid failures are good at keeping things afforadble.
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.
The main solution people propose, building more, has a very high likelihood of turning it into a suburban hellscape that people refuse to move to even at gunpoint.
We have plenty of places like that. If the option is just build more without an extremely careful plan, then just move to another city where it’s like that already. Phoenix is a nice sprawl.
In the Western US, certain ability to massively expand a city's water rights is really a prerequisite for insane real estate profits. SF was a mining town before Hetch Hetchy, and LA didn't blow up until they robbed the Owens Valley.
Edit: yep, Truckee River is 100% allocated as of 2015
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truckee_River#River_modifica...
But a lot of this is network effects. University of Nevada doesn't have the CS strength of University of Texas, so you don't have such a strong tech scene.
On a different note, I'm up there to visit family frequently, and despite being proximate to incredible beauty (Tahoe, Truckee, skiing, etc.), Reno itself is pretty Wal-Mart suburban hellscape. There are some nicer pockets but overall very meh. Reno was hit VERY hard after the Recession and there were a lot of empty business fronts downtown for a few years; it has cleaned up and brought some new blood but it still has a way to go.
The casinos are still ever-present. Some are charming but others and are still pretty gross, gaudy, and old-school, in a bad way.
All that being said, I think Reno still has a lot of opportunity. The city owns the hot and cold seasons well. The downtown area and the river could be very cool. I'm also surprised some tech-social-gaming startup hasn't attempted to reinvigorate the gambling world to take on the absolute relics that are the casino industry. PM me if you'd be into that sort of thing.
Strangely, Boise _does_, but comes with state income tax.
Reno had never been immune to “Californication” though. Resistance to it almost defines the local culture.
Another is that locals would love to know that they can afford a mortgage payment in their own hometown sometime in their adult life.
How is this measured? Any should someone born in a community without access to high paying jobs or less desirable weather/amenities not be able to move elsewhere?
Not sure if California or New York gets to claim the Midtown Uniform as its own.
I was taking him seriously until that line. This is such a pipe dream.
disclaimer: I have lived in Austin for 5 years now
:)
what's the water level like in austin? I know some places in texas you dig down and you hit groundwater.
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.
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.
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
Sooner or later, it will be Austin’s turn.
"Life's too short to live in Houston"
Are there any other large cities without zoning laws?
I've been to Houston once. It was definitely weird, sort of as if all the different types of buildings you'd find in a normal city had been shuffled like a big deck of cards.
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%.
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.
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.
6th street? That's a running joke and has been for years. Everything that is happening is south of sixth, or across the river on Rainey, South Congress and Auditorium Shores.