predictable apoplectic responses in the NYT comments...what these people don't get is that what they perceive as "TX" is coming to their cities, the complete opposite of what people suggest is a "blue wave" in TX (which does not exist, look at Beto's dismal poll numbers when he entered the Governor's race last week).
NY, Portland, LA, Seattle, SFBay...all places where crime is up and citizens (including typical NYT demographics) are seeking to own firearms. Sorry NYT readers, Plano is coming to Manhattan, not the other way around
Well. I’ve spent some time working on retirement options since my wife and I are close. Arizona really has nothing to recommend it. Florida does, but southern Florida is kind of a wasteland with pending climate issues and northern Florida is a trashy hell hole. I have family there. If not for the cultural issues it would be a no brainer but who wants to retire somewhere awful?
Taxes-wise, I think California is underrated. At 150k a year, the tax rate is basically the same as most states, and prop 13 is incredibly beneficial from a planning perspective. You just can’t afford the parts of coasts with access to good medical care unless affordability isn’t even a question for you.
Texas near Dallas, austin, Houston have medical, culture, etc at extremely low prices. The property tax is insane and regressive but it’s a wash.
I make closer to the second lol. I think I am paying an outrageous amount in rent ($2500/mo but its a 1 bedroom with a pool, spa, sauna and a gym so it's pretty nice.) so many babes down here anyways so it's a pleasant living experience
I like the area, but it's pretty far from any mountains (an entire state, basically), hurricanes and a legitimate crime issue (both violent and property).
I’ve been living in PHX for 2+ years now, and have to disagree.
Low cost of living and high QoL. Great school districts and master plan communities designed to make pre-k -> 12 schools walkable. Great food, amazing supply chains (the stuff you find at grocery stores here can be mind blowing), and well maintained infrastructure.
We are positive sum water, when you build here you are expected to bring the water for your project into the valley. We don’t ration water during the summers here the way I experienced in CA.
We supply electricity to many neighboring states (including CA) thanks to Palo Verde. Our nuclear power plant beats solar at lifetime cost per kilo-watt; the only way solar companies sell their product here is by exaggerating payback.
To me, this state is a testament to man’s perseverance and a great example of positive sum work. We’ve taken a desert and transformed it into an oasis.
Water doesn’t run out in a meaningful way. It moves and gets contaminated. Both problems are solvable.
Our approach to water is part of why we are able to give up so much from our pull on Lake Mead during this drought. Nevada is giving up 21k acre-feet, Mexico 80k af, and AZ is giving up a whopping 512k af. Nothing as far as I know for cutbacks from CA's draw.
I’ll repeat, when you build here you bring your water. And we actually enforce that. You don’t get to build a new subdivision or plant a nut tree farm without sourcing every drop of water you’re going to use.
Water is running out in some states. It’s not running out there because there isn’t water - it’s a symptom of failed water management strategies.
Phoenix is robbing Peter to pay Paul with regards to water. Phoenix survives thanks to extreme planning measures and water diversion from the Colorado river, but that’s not going to be tenable in the next 30 yrs. There is almost no well or groundwater, and before the constant diversion of water, the city of a Phoenix consumed some order of magnitude more water than they were able to restore.
My point is, anyone who lives in an overpopulated desert and says “we don’t have a water problem” should be taken with a grain of salt.
> The property tax is insane and regressive but it’s a wash.
How are property taxes regressive? Working class people bear the tax burden with income taxes, land owners bear the tax burden with property taxes, I'd argue that having 0 income tax and funding the state through property tax is as progressive as it gets. Of course, rental property has to pass that tax on to renters to remain profitable, but still that allows for the vast majority of property that is not rental property to bear more of the tax burden.
Property taxes are regressive because they tend to be flat rate - two properties with the same value in the same place will have the same tax assessment regardless of the income of the owners. The lower income owner pays a greater % of their income to taxes.
Relatively speaking, a steep progressive income tax regime is less regressive than a property tax since the burden is entirely on home value which is largely out of the control of homeowners.
For those who don’t live in Texas, there’s a whole cottage industry of companies that will contest the annual assessment (typically tax increase) for you, often with a guarantee that they can save more than their fee.
I wholeheartedly agree on your criticism of property appraisal as a cornerstone of property tax schemes. I wonder if there is a clean solution to this problem, I personally know people who see their tax burden increase because some county assessor says they could sell their property more now, even though they get no tangible benefit from it. It makes me reconsider the California property tax scheme where peoples taxes are assessed based on the value of them when purchased.
It works like this: Here's a guy who makes $50K a year, has $20K in assets other than his house, and his house is worth $150K, of which $30K is equity. Taxes are proportional to that $150K. Total assets / house price is 1/3.
Here's a billionaire - literally worth $1 billion. He doesn't have a $3 billion house. So the ratio of total assets to amount covered by property tax is much more favorable to the billionaire. His house may be $30 million, but total assets / house price is 33/1.
Yeah, if property taxes are the only taxes I see your point.
But when you also have sales taxes or value added taxes, chances are the billionaire is living a little more exorbitantly than the regular guy. If you want to get more progressive than that you can introduce luxury item taxes.
More importantly though, the brunt of the tax burden is still resting on the higher value properties. If we decide that progressive means "pays more of a percentage of their wealth/income" then you're right, but if we decide it means "most of the overall tax burden falls on richer people" then it is still more progressive than income tax schemes that exist now.
The original claim was that property tax is regressive. You asked how it was so. I explained. To now say "if property taxes are the only taxes I see your point" is to move the goalposts.
I recently saw folks dealing with the flip side of Prop 13, over in Texas. Vehemently against raising property taxes to pay for badly-needed schools, because retirees on fixed incomes can't afford large property tax hikes. OTOH, Prop 13 is also awful, and, surprise, surprise, we can't pay for schools in California, either, so....
Prop13 is really not awful. The extensions to the law that don’t encourage relocation are awful (such as passing properties to heirs) but having tax stability is generally beneficial in many ways. I actually expect to see prop13 laws proliferate as Californians invade places without similar laws, though perhaps tied to age.
No clue about AZ, but lived in west palm beach for a while. Going from NYC to WPB was an interesting experience. It was much cleaner (thats because it is a wealthy area, I assume), quieter and generally nicer. But there wasn't as much to do as NYC. I also didn't see much diversity - mostly wealthy (we are talking high end sports car driving wealthy) white people. I guess it would work for a particular type of demographic.
Weather was nice, though a bit hot for my taste. Everywhere I looked, they were building condos. This was 5 years ago, not what the deal is now.
To be fair, in Texas you can get access to all forms of birth control and family planning except abortions, and even then they're available very early in a pregnancy, in most cases you can get access to these services for free all over the state.
Texas and a lot of more conservative states are hostile to abortions, but hostility to other forms of birth control and family planning are really a myth at this point that was true in a previous era but no longer true at all.
It's somewhat complicated by the issues around the "reproductive health" organizations focusing heavily on minority areas and aggressively promoting abortion and sterilization as a means of controlling poverty growth. There are people on both sides of the issue that don't really like that strategy despite it being very prevalent in traditionally progressive areas/states.
Banning abortions doesn't just affect unplanned pregnancies.
A few weeks after Texas adopted the most restrictive abortion law in the nation, Dr. Andrea Palmer delivered terrible news to a Fort Worth patient who was midway through her pregnancy.
The fetus had a rare neural tube defect. The brain would not develop, and the infant would die at birth or shortly afterward. Carrying the pregnancy to term would be emotionally grueling and would also raise the mother’s risk of blood clots and severe postpartum bleeding, the doctor warned.
But the patient was past six weeks’ gestation, and under the new law, an abortion was not an option in Texas because the woman was not immediately facing a life-threatening medical crisis or risk of permanent disability.
“So we look at them like a ticking time bomb and wait for the complications to develop,” Dr. Palmer said of her patients.
In this case, the woman had the means to travel, and she obtained an abortion in another state, an option unavailable to many low-income and working class women.
The way the Texas law is written it impacts anyone who helps facilitate terminating a pregnancy. Simply walking your friend into an abortion clinic past 6 weeks (which is 6 weeks since the last period) makes you liable.
Nah. If children were all that important, they'd be doing a lot more than passing laws to control women's bodies.
Heck, the whole problem of abortion could be solved by controlling men's bodies. We are, after all, involved in 100% of unwanted pregnancies. Mandatory reversible vasectomies at puberty for all men would be a big step forward. And for men who slip up and impregnate somebody who doesn't want to carry to term, mandatory surrogacy payments to the woman from garnished wages to cover the work and expense.
And that's before we get to other obvious things like 100% free prenatal, birth, and postpartum care, plus a robust parental support system including visiting nurses, child health care, and subsidized child care so that women can quickly return to the workforce.
20+ year Texas resident here. The abortion law was, I believe, mostly passed in order to attempt to keep progressives from moving to Texas. The state legislature and governor know that it is most likely to be struck down by the courts. Therefore, it will be gone and out of the way before the next election, so they don't face much of a backlash, but it may keep a bunch of Californian Democrats who might otherwise move here and vote, from moving here. On the other hand, any Californian Republicans who move here, they would like to get, because Texas has been moving from deep red to purplish red in recent years. It's still for sure a right-leaning state, but an influx of Democratic voters, while small compared to the existing population, could well be enough to tip the balance in a Democratic-favorable year.
The problem is that even if everything you're saying is true, the signaling is enough to have a tremendous chilling effect on actual, material access to abortion in Texas.
To be fair, I believe Conservatives of female persuasion would find it a reasonably comfortable place (I may disagree with that perspective, but we should ignore / pretend it doesn't exist at out peril. 76mil votes for Trump 2020 were not all cast by males. On more personal / closer to home note, a number of my exes would agree with Texas laws more than their/our own Ontario laws and culture. ).
It's even true for many conservative women. It's only relatively recently that no-compromise anti-abortion views came to dominate in US "conservative" spaces. Consider, for example, Republican Majority for Choice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Majority_for_Choice
This was driven by a shift in US evangelicals. At one point being a pro-choice evangelical was a reasonable theological position. Now most evangelicals won't even admit that ever happened: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/18/the-bib...
As someone who routinely crosses state lines, I can't imagine what type of situation would make the need to get an abortion such a common occurrence that it would be the sole factor in deciding what state you'd live in.
That's a valid point on its own, however, I imagine for many, (rightly or wrongly) perceived stance of a state or institution toward abortion is a summarized proxy for stance toward women's rights. In other words, there's an assumed correlation that a place that so vehemently, consistently tries so darn tootin' hard to limit abortion rights, may have other similar perspectives vis-a-vis women's rights, if not minority rights in general.
The good news is that with so many folks coming in, the state has become quite purple. I wouldn't be surprised to see it become blue in the next decade. California did the same thing in the 90s.
Lower taxes, great food, more open space, less expensive property, more freedom to do what you want as long as you don't hurt others. The only problem with Texas is that the economy is too dependent on fossil fuel. It's basically a mini petro state. They need to use that oil money to diversify into other industries. I'm not sure if they have been doing that or not, but I don't exactly have faith that the political class is thinking about long-term plans or goals. They only care about fundraising and the next election.
Pretty sure the Texas political class is thinking about their long-term plans to usher in a new era of Christofascism, starting with the bounty hunter abortion law.
Oh it started well before that specific law. This just made its way to the finish line. They have been trying things like this for a long time. Infamous bathroom bill comes to mind, plus voting rights issues, etc have long been a part of the Texas political agenda.
This is actually a better strategy IMO. Property taxes in Bay Area are ridiculously low and it's leading to people camping in $1M+ properties with very little to return back to the society.
Meanwhile, sales tax is extremely high in Bay Area and it is hurting the little guy more than the big guys.
It's all relative to average housing prices in the state. An average 3 bedroom house in LA will cost you north of $1 mil and have a property tax anywhere between 10-15K, which is comparable to monthly rent in some states even though CA has some of the lowest property taxes in the country. You basically never stop paying rent in California even if you've paid off your house. It just depends on who the rent goes to.
> People mentioned cheap property but property taxes in TX are insane
But the houses--I kid you not--can be 20% the price per sq ft. Any assessment that does not consider this is dishonest.
Austin's prices have skyrocketed by 40% over the last year, but if you compare a house in Austin to SF, even excluding lot size or modernity, it's not a comparison. If you look at Houston or Dallas, it's basically free.
Average sq ft in Austin is 2100 sq ft vs average sq ft of 1150 sq ft in SF. Average price in Austin is $606K and average price in SF is $1.5M.
Austin has had a steady influx of people over the past few decades, but things have really gotten insane over the past couple years. To me it's been a lesson in what I call "hype-tipping points".
Don't get me wrong, there is a ton I really like about Austin: really strong job market with tons of tech jobs, lots of stuff to do outdoors most of the year (the lakes, hike-and-bike trail, etc.), investment in great public spaces (the downtown library is a masterclass in architecture and design, the relatively new boardwalk is great, etc.) But there is also a ton that's not great about Austin (e.g. horrible traffic with extremely limited public transit), and all-in-all I feel like it just kinda got "anointed" as the "cool" city by Elon Musk and friends to the point where it no longer deserves it's hype.
I mean, Austin metro is still relatively small/mid-sized, such that it just doesn't have any of the amenities of larger cities like NY/Chicago/SF when it comes to things like world-class theater, museums, sports teams, architecture, etc. Austin famously touted itself as "Live Music Capital of the World" and its "Keep Austin Weird" slogan, but the dramatic increase in cost-of-living has basically priced out many of the musicians and others that made it "weird".
But, let's be honest, Austin isn't really weird any more, so I guess it's a moot point. I bought my house in the low-cost part of town in 2001, and for about 10 years it more or less stayed the same price, but it has tripled in the last 10 years, much of that in the last 5. I love Austin, but a slowdown in the pace of people moving here would be fine. I am hypocritical for saying this, as I moved to Texas from California...
I was born in Texas and lived the first part of my adult life there. All of my family still lives there. But many years ago, I decamped for Seattle (before the tech boom really got started here) and, bluntly, I'm never going back. I wish everyone who is moving to Texas the best of luck and truly hope you succeed. But if you think moving to Dallas or Austin or Houston and putting a Beto sign on your front window is anywhere near comparable, I disagree a great deal.
Putting aside the politics, weather, and economic structure of Texas, the "mystical ethos" of Texas is the thing that really gets me, and I had to leave the state before I could get a good vision of it. The pervasive myth of Texas being larger-than-life, exemplified by the "I wasn't born in Texas but I got here as fast as I could" and persistently quoting "you may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas" is really something, and it seeps into everything. It's like taking American exceptionalism and raising it several more notches.
Do you mean you found it weird, and plainly annoying?
In graduate school in Illinois, there was a guy from Texas, and he couldn't stop telling us (mostly europeans, but i'm from chicago) how Texas is better than everything.
He released 10 years of tax returns [1], showing modestly high income. His disclosures in Congress - which he would be breaking the law if he lied about, e.g. Trump potential fraud - show higher net with real estate holdings. [2] Still probably 8 digitals starting with a $1 or less.
There are sources that says his father in law is worth $500mm. If you think the father in law will give the couple all his net worth that would put in maybe half way there generously based on that info. But that still doesn't compute with what you said even if misleading. [3] [4]
Robert was defeated despite overwhelming publicity from out of state sources, and being backed by a father in law that 'conservatively' has a 500mm net worth (as of 2 years ago, during which time the S&P 500 has nearly doubled).
"Too smart" is a very subjective statement. We have Abbott and I'd argue that anyone who voted for him is mostly braindead. Beto isn't my dream leader but at least he's not openly hostile to anyone but a very specific type brand of crazy/religious extreme.
He's openly hostile. He's specifically told people coming from CA to not "blow it" when they get here. He makes regular threats against Austin for calling him out on being a hypocrite and trying to overstep authority. Can't help it if people don't pay attention. It's genuinely harder to see until you're in the middle of it though.
If you are a woman who values access to healthcare, specifically abortion, he is very hostile to your wellbeing and interests.
But there are plenty of others who feel the exact opposite in Texas since obviously he is elected. Just brushing aside for a different thread arguing about lopsided representation lol.
Ok. So again, that's his father in law not Beto. but yeah the father in law did spend a few hundreds of thousands on pacs supporting Beto's political career. Which is chump change at that level.
I haven't lived in Seattle but close - Portland and has more similarity to Seattle than differences.
> In 2017 Portland ranked third. Now it has dropped to 66th out of 80. [1]
I am glad I got out. The entire west coast needs less Seattle chadzone, Portland protests, LA homelessness, SF crime and Berkeley wokeness.
The great thing about America is that we have states competing with each other and keeping in check. My hope is that west coast will become better in next decade after some self-introspection. I love the west coast and it is sad to see the decline :-(
All the west coast cities (what you mentioned + Vancouver BC) have roughly the same boom town problems, and, to be honest, have always had them. Hobos hopping trains for LA or SF in the 1920s, skid row being a term invented somewhere in either Seattle, Vancouver, or Portland circa the late 1800s as a place where the logs were skid up to the saw mill, and the muddiest ickiest place for someone (only the destitute) to live, etc...
> My hope is that west coast will become better in next decade after some self-introspection. I love the west coast and it is sad to see the decline :-(
The west coast is the way it is because they've always been boom towns. You could say "I hope Seattle learns it lessons!" when it has grown 25% in the last decade, there just isn't the feedback for that. And from this perspective, the west coast has been in decline since the mid 19th century. I'm actually glad it isn't perfect, or it would attract even more people!
I went the opposite way, I grew up in California, and lived in Seattle for 12 yeas, and I was miserable there. I moved to Texas in 2019, and I love it. I'm happier here, the weather suits me more, the warmth and openness of the people suits better too. The mythos of the state is both taken very seriously and a huge joke, even by native sons, we all poke fun at it, yet give it credence.
I want to change the economic and political structure of the state, many folks here do, we're neither screaming liberals, nor very conservative either, when I can actually get folks to visit here, they're surprised by what they find, its not what they expect, and they usually like it, even if they dont want to live here (usually the weather does not suit them).
This sums up the feeling I had when visiting Texas and why the only reason Texas tempts me is because of economic reasons and that’s it. I noticed how often the lone star was everywhere. And I kept getting this feeling - “people think a little too highly of Texas and themselves here for being in Texas…”
That damn lone star is so common that it shows up in god damn furniture sets. How often are you getting a set of furniture where an apple is prominently featured in every piece because you’re buying something in Washington state?
It’s funny to me that I see some comments talking about moving to Texas for the economic reasons, that also seem to follow up with commentary about changing the political landscape.
He lost me right at "lower climate risks." Liberals who obsessively read The NY Times sit around and obsess about climate risks. Most other folks are not going to even remotely consider this when they consider where to live. If you say "climate change" they might say "yeah that's bad, somebody should do something about it." It's not otherwise on their minds.
Similar for "racial diversity."
So for this guy to say this is why "everyone's moving to Texas" is ridiculous. Maybe it's a good explanation for "liberals I know who work for and read the publication for which I write are moving to Austin."
Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article and then paste it into the thread to complain about it. That seeds discussion with precisely the worst, most flammable and superficial points.
Instead, we (all) need to train ourselves to (a) leave provocations where we encounter them and (b) focus on the genuinely interesting things. Then we have a chance at contributing to a good, interesting forum.
I agree that conversations get more contentious and less productive when these things are brought up, but if it was a point made in the article it is arguably less productive to discussion to just ignore it and not bring it up at all. We are talking about the article after all, and the article says what it says.
With issues like that I always return to the first principle of HN: we're trying to optimize this site for intellectual curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). Since that's the overriding value, the answer easily follows: if there's something that gratifies intellectual curiosity in an article, bring that up and let discussion flow from there; if there's nothing that gratifies intellectual curiosity, then the article is off topic and should be flagged.
Either way, we should abstain from predictable provocations and tedious flamewars. They may feel intense and exciting for a while but they lead to a degraded and ultimately boring forum.
Most articles are a mixed bag: they (hopefully) contain things that can lead to interesting conversation, and they often also contain provocations that will lead to angry, repetitive arguments if amplified. We don't, for example, need yet another generic ideological flamewar. There's no curiosity in those.
Therefore, "it's in the article" is not by itself a good reason for bringing something into a thread here. If an article is burning in places, that does not mean that we should import the flames. Seed discussion with the least predictable, most curious aspects of an article, not the ones that point to hell.
OK, so this is an honest question - if I didn't know you're a mod, I would argue with you instead. Should I just flag these kinds of posts then, or just completely ignore them? Because honestly, articles like this are just junk. The headline of the article and its entire orientation is around a ridiculous premise. It's not like this was a single provocative thing in the article with the rest of it being filled with interesting nuggets. It's a junk article entirely based around the ridiculous premise that this author's pet preferences are why "everyone" or even why a lot of people are moving to Texas.
Correct—if there's nothing that gratifies intellectual curiosity in an article, then it's off topic for HN and should be flagged.
On the other hand, if there's a mixture, then you/all of us should focus on what does gratify curiosity and leave the nasty bits and flamey bits where you find them. That takes some restraint, of course, which none of us is used to on the internet, but it's the way to have the forum we all actually want HN to be. Nobody wants scorched earth—that's the ultimate boring endstate. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
As an anecdotal data point, I have lived in Austin since 2014, but my wife and I are planning on moving elsewhere sometime in the next couple of years. Austin is a fantastic city if you can afford to live in it. Great neighborhoods, great food, relatively laid back culture. The summers are brutal, but borderline tolerable.
However, winter storm Uri was a real eye opener, and the (lack of) legislative response to it, while not surprising, is yet another indicator that no matter how great Austin is, it’s still subject to the state legislature. I can’t see myself staying in a state where the government is trying so hard all the time to insert itself into the culture war du jour and continually failing to actually govern, not to mention the continued assault on women’s and voting rights.
We’re lucky enough to have a house here, but for what we paid for it we can get 2x or more land/house in other places. Now that remote work has taken off, there’s a lot less tying us to this city in particular. We’ll probably try to keep the house and become yet another set of out of state homeowners renting out space in the city (which I swear is at least 80% of the purchases I’ve seen in our neighborhood lately).
In the same situation: Moved here around 2014, have the same observations about being subject to state gov, and looking to move in the next few years.
Another consideration is how the summer are just going to get worse here over the next few decades, so I don’t feel like investing (home improvements etc).
Same to all of the above. We're headed out in the next 6-18 months. The wide range is due to our kid's school. If that wasn't a consideration, we'd be shopping already.
My gay aunt and her partner moved to Austin just before the 2008 housing crash. Within months, they had experienced sufficient discrimination that they desperately wanted to move back to NE but had to wait until the housing market recovered enough for their loss to be palatable.
They miss the weather but don’t miss tradespeople refusing to enter when they realize the house belonged to two women.
That's terrible and completely believable. There's nothing the Texas government hates more than people of color, except women... and LGBTQ... and atheists... and liberals... and the disabled... and millennials... and anyone not born in Texas
You don't get to fully grok just how crap this place is until you get here. I moved for financial reasons and I'm leaving to get away from the ever degrading she cual climate. Texas is not a welcoming place. The mass migrations may change the tone eventually but from what I've witnessed, the ugly side of this state is just planting their feet more firmly and their flags more deeply (literally... so many flags with blue lines and 'let's go Brandon" BS)
An opinion article in the New York Times about how people in California are/should be moving to Texas. With no mention in the text about NYC or NY State. Might be a fine article, but not the first source I’d choose for an insightful discussion about this topic.
Re HN discussion, Austin << TX. Many Texans who know both States would posit Austin is to TX what Berkeley is to CA. Take that for what it’s worth.
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 214 ms ] threadNY, Portland, LA, Seattle, SFBay...all places where crime is up and citizens (including typical NYT demographics) are seeking to own firearms. Sorry NYT readers, Plano is coming to Manhattan, not the other way around
Taxes-wise, I think California is underrated. At 150k a year, the tax rate is basically the same as most states, and prop 13 is incredibly beneficial from a planning perspective. You just can’t afford the parts of coasts with access to good medical care unless affordability isn’t even a question for you.
Texas near Dallas, austin, Houston have medical, culture, etc at extremely low prices. The property tax is insane and regressive but it’s a wash.
I’ve been living in PHX for 2+ years now, and have to disagree.
Low cost of living and high QoL. Great school districts and master plan communities designed to make pre-k -> 12 schools walkable. Great food, amazing supply chains (the stuff you find at grocery stores here can be mind blowing), and well maintained infrastructure.
We are positive sum water, when you build here you are expected to bring the water for your project into the valley. We don’t ration water during the summers here the way I experienced in CA.
We supply electricity to many neighboring states (including CA) thanks to Palo Verde. Our nuclear power plant beats solar at lifetime cost per kilo-watt; the only way solar companies sell their product here is by exaggerating payback.
To me, this state is a testament to man’s perseverance and a great example of positive sum work. We’ve taken a desert and transformed it into an oasis.
Our approach to water is part of why we are able to give up so much from our pull on Lake Mead during this drought. Nevada is giving up 21k acre-feet, Mexico 80k af, and AZ is giving up a whopping 512k af. Nothing as far as I know for cutbacks from CA's draw.
I’ll repeat, when you build here you bring your water. And we actually enforce that. You don’t get to build a new subdivision or plant a nut tree farm without sourcing every drop of water you’re going to use.
Water is running out in some states. It’s not running out there because there isn’t water - it’s a symptom of failed water management strategies.
My point is, anyone who lives in an overpopulated desert and says “we don’t have a water problem” should be taken with a grain of salt.
How are property taxes regressive? Working class people bear the tax burden with income taxes, land owners bear the tax burden with property taxes, I'd argue that having 0 income tax and funding the state through property tax is as progressive as it gets. Of course, rental property has to pass that tax on to renters to remain profitable, but still that allows for the vast majority of property that is not rental property to bear more of the tax burden.
Relatively speaking, a steep progressive income tax regime is less regressive than a property tax since the burden is entirely on home value which is largely out of the control of homeowners.
For those who don’t live in Texas, there’s a whole cottage industry of companies that will contest the annual assessment (typically tax increase) for you, often with a guarantee that they can save more than their fee.
Here's a billionaire - literally worth $1 billion. He doesn't have a $3 billion house. So the ratio of total assets to amount covered by property tax is much more favorable to the billionaire. His house may be $30 million, but total assets / house price is 33/1.
But when you also have sales taxes or value added taxes, chances are the billionaire is living a little more exorbitantly than the regular guy. If you want to get more progressive than that you can introduce luxury item taxes.
More importantly though, the brunt of the tax burden is still resting on the higher value properties. If we decide that progressive means "pays more of a percentage of their wealth/income" then you're right, but if we decide it means "most of the overall tax burden falls on richer people" then it is still more progressive than income tax schemes that exist now.
Weather was nice, though a bit hot for my taste. Everywhere I looked, they were building condos. This was 5 years ago, not what the deal is now.
Edit: Wow, flagged for this. This site has some moderation issues.
Texas and a lot of more conservative states are hostile to abortions, but hostility to other forms of birth control and family planning are really a myth at this point that was true in a previous era but no longer true at all.
A few weeks after Texas adopted the most restrictive abortion law in the nation, Dr. Andrea Palmer delivered terrible news to a Fort Worth patient who was midway through her pregnancy.
The fetus had a rare neural tube defect. The brain would not develop, and the infant would die at birth or shortly afterward. Carrying the pregnancy to term would be emotionally grueling and would also raise the mother’s risk of blood clots and severe postpartum bleeding, the doctor warned.
But the patient was past six weeks’ gestation, and under the new law, an abortion was not an option in Texas because the woman was not immediately facing a life-threatening medical crisis or risk of permanent disability.
“So we look at them like a ticking time bomb and wait for the complications to develop,” Dr. Palmer said of her patients.
In this case, the woman had the means to travel, and she obtained an abortion in another state, an option unavailable to many low-income and working class women.
From: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/26/health/texas-abortion-law...
Heck, the whole problem of abortion could be solved by controlling men's bodies. We are, after all, involved in 100% of unwanted pregnancies. Mandatory reversible vasectomies at puberty for all men would be a big step forward. And for men who slip up and impregnate somebody who doesn't want to carry to term, mandatory surrogacy payments to the woman from garnished wages to cover the work and expense.
And that's before we get to other obvious things like 100% free prenatal, birth, and postpartum care, plus a robust parental support system including visiting nurses, child health care, and subsidized child care so that women can quickly return to the workforce.
They can’t mandate that reversal shall work; the failure rate starts at 5% and goes up over time.
More practically, I expect that research into higher-quality reversible vasectomies would be swift and well-funded if they were mandatory in Texas.
To be fair, I believe Conservatives of female persuasion would find it a reasonably comfortable place (I may disagree with that perspective, but we should ignore / pretend it doesn't exist at out peril. 76mil votes for Trump 2020 were not all cast by males. On more personal / closer to home note, a number of my exes would agree with Texas laws more than their/our own Ontario laws and culture. ).
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Texas_Heartbeat_A...
They shut down in 2018, a decision explained here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/24/opinion/abortion-rights-r...
This was driven by a shift in US evangelicals. At one point being a pro-choice evangelical was a reasonable theological position. Now most evangelicals won't even admit that ever happened: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/18/the-bib...
I hope TX does turn blue eventually
https://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/article253429364...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3Z1urH2OhQ
Meanwhile, sales tax is extremely high in Bay Area and it is hurting the little guy more than the big guys.
But the houses--I kid you not--can be 20% the price per sq ft. Any assessment that does not consider this is dishonest.
Austin's prices have skyrocketed by 40% over the last year, but if you compare a house in Austin to SF, even excluding lot size or modernity, it's not a comparison. If you look at Houston or Dallas, it's basically free.
Average sq ft in Austin is 2100 sq ft vs average sq ft of 1150 sq ft in SF. Average price in Austin is $606K and average price in SF is $1.5M.
Don't get me wrong, there is a ton I really like about Austin: really strong job market with tons of tech jobs, lots of stuff to do outdoors most of the year (the lakes, hike-and-bike trail, etc.), investment in great public spaces (the downtown library is a masterclass in architecture and design, the relatively new boardwalk is great, etc.) But there is also a ton that's not great about Austin (e.g. horrible traffic with extremely limited public transit), and all-in-all I feel like it just kinda got "anointed" as the "cool" city by Elon Musk and friends to the point where it no longer deserves it's hype.
I mean, Austin metro is still relatively small/mid-sized, such that it just doesn't have any of the amenities of larger cities like NY/Chicago/SF when it comes to things like world-class theater, museums, sports teams, architecture, etc. Austin famously touted itself as "Live Music Capital of the World" and its "Keep Austin Weird" slogan, but the dramatic increase in cost-of-living has basically priced out many of the musicians and others that made it "weird".
Which in itself is odd, because it's hard to see it as anything but a carbon copy of "Keep Portland Weird".
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=k...
But, let's be honest, Austin isn't really weird any more, so I guess it's a moot point. I bought my house in the low-cost part of town in 2001, and for about 10 years it more or less stayed the same price, but it has tripled in the last 10 years, much of that in the last 5. I love Austin, but a slowdown in the pace of people moving here would be fine. I am hypocritical for saying this, as I moved to Texas from California...
Putting aside the politics, weather, and economic structure of Texas, the "mystical ethos" of Texas is the thing that really gets me, and I had to leave the state before I could get a good vision of it. The pervasive myth of Texas being larger-than-life, exemplified by the "I wasn't born in Texas but I got here as fast as I could" and persistently quoting "you may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas" is really something, and it seeps into everything. It's like taking American exceptionalism and raising it several more notches.
In graduate school in Illinois, there was a guy from Texas, and he couldn't stop telling us (mostly europeans, but i'm from chicago) how Texas is better than everything.
We didn't understand. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
He released 10 years of tax returns [1], showing modestly high income. His disclosures in Congress - which he would be breaking the law if he lied about, e.g. Trump potential fraud - show higher net with real estate holdings. [2] Still probably 8 digitals starting with a $1 or less.
There are sources that says his father in law is worth $500mm. If you think the father in law will give the couple all his net worth that would put in maybe half way there generously based on that info. But that still doesn't compute with what you said even if misleading. [3] [4]
[1] https://www.texastribune.org/2019/04/15/texas-beto-orourke-2... [2] https://www.opensecrets.org/personal-finances/net-worth?cid=... [3] https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/mar/14/club-growt... [4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2018/11/04/is...
Robert was defeated despite overwhelming publicity from out of state sources, and being backed by a father in law that 'conservatively' has a 500mm net worth (as of 2 years ago, during which time the S&P 500 has nearly doubled).
Texas was too smart for him.
If you are a woman who values access to healthcare, specifically abortion, he is very hostile to your wellbeing and interests.
But there are plenty of others who feel the exact opposite in Texas since obviously he is elected. Just brushing aside for a different thread arguing about lopsided representation lol.
> In 2017 Portland ranked third. Now it has dropped to 66th out of 80. [1]
I am glad I got out. The entire west coast needs less Seattle chadzone, Portland protests, LA homelessness, SF crime and Berkeley wokeness.
The great thing about America is that we have states competing with each other and keeping in check. My hope is that west coast will become better in next decade after some self-introspection. I love the west coast and it is sad to see the decline :-(
[1] https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/06/12/portland-...
> My hope is that west coast will become better in next decade after some self-introspection. I love the west coast and it is sad to see the decline :-(
The west coast is the way it is because they've always been boom towns. You could say "I hope Seattle learns it lessons!" when it has grown 25% in the last decade, there just isn't the feedback for that. And from this perspective, the west coast has been in decline since the mid 19th century. I'm actually glad it isn't perfect, or it would attract even more people!
I want to change the economic and political structure of the state, many folks here do, we're neither screaming liberals, nor very conservative either, when I can actually get folks to visit here, they're surprised by what they find, its not what they expect, and they usually like it, even if they dont want to live here (usually the weather does not suit them).
That damn lone star is so common that it shows up in god damn furniture sets. How often are you getting a set of furniture where an apple is prominently featured in every piece because you’re buying something in Washington state?
Similar for "racial diversity."
So for this guy to say this is why "everyone's moving to Texas" is ridiculous. Maybe it's a good explanation for "liberals I know who work for and read the publication for which I write are moving to Austin."
Instead, we (all) need to train ourselves to (a) leave provocations where we encounter them and (b) focus on the genuinely interesting things. Then we have a chance at contributing to a good, interesting forum.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Either way, we should abstain from predictable provocations and tedious flamewars. They may feel intense and exciting for a while but they lead to a degraded and ultimately boring forum.
Most articles are a mixed bag: they (hopefully) contain things that can lead to interesting conversation, and they often also contain provocations that will lead to angry, repetitive arguments if amplified. We don't, for example, need yet another generic ideological flamewar. There's no curiosity in those.
Therefore, "it's in the article" is not by itself a good reason for bringing something into a thread here. If an article is burning in places, that does not mean that we should import the flames. Seed discussion with the least predictable, most curious aspects of an article, not the ones that point to hell.
On the other hand, if there's a mixture, then you/all of us should focus on what does gratify curiosity and leave the nasty bits and flamey bits where you find them. That takes some restraint, of course, which none of us is used to on the internet, but it's the way to have the forum we all actually want HN to be. Nobody wants scorched earth—that's the ultimate boring endstate. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29363505
However, winter storm Uri was a real eye opener, and the (lack of) legislative response to it, while not surprising, is yet another indicator that no matter how great Austin is, it’s still subject to the state legislature. I can’t see myself staying in a state where the government is trying so hard all the time to insert itself into the culture war du jour and continually failing to actually govern, not to mention the continued assault on women’s and voting rights.
We’re lucky enough to have a house here, but for what we paid for it we can get 2x or more land/house in other places. Now that remote work has taken off, there’s a lot less tying us to this city in particular. We’ll probably try to keep the house and become yet another set of out of state homeowners renting out space in the city (which I swear is at least 80% of the purchases I’ve seen in our neighborhood lately).
Another consideration is how the summer are just going to get worse here over the next few decades, so I don’t feel like investing (home improvements etc).
They miss the weather but don’t miss tradespeople refusing to enter when they realize the house belonged to two women.
Re HN discussion, Austin << TX. Many Texans who know both States would posit Austin is to TX what Berkeley is to CA. Take that for what it’s worth.