Reviews & Comments
Austin, TX
Wanna Be/Has Been/Avoid -
5/28/2015If you are Texan, I'm sure Austin is a great place. Most of the people who don't fit in to the rest of the state, move to Austin. But it will never been anything more than a wanna-be city. It will never be on a par with the great cities in the US, no matter what, because alas, it is in Texas. Too many Texans live there. And a smaller percentage of former Californians live there, and they were the people who couldn't hack it in California, which isn't speaking highly of them.
There is absolutely nothing to do in Austin unless you like excellent musicians playing third rate annoying one- track pseudo country music. Or if you like amazing restaurants, it does have those. Or if you like biking and jogging in 110 degree heat around a very ugly arid climate. (Anybody who says Austin is pretty has never been anywhere else.) But what this place does not have is an active cultural scene, a diverse population (EVERYBODY is white, or segregated Indian/Asian tech people who couldn't hack it in California). There are no art museums, galleries, cool hang outs for different types of people, public transportation, interesting shops, design, style, vibrancy, cutting edge thought, technology, business, anything. If you think it's a power center, you've clearly never been to the Bay Area, NYC, Boston, Chicago, LA, or any other places where things are really happening.
And speaking of that, you either make minimum wage and live like a bum, or you make a lot of money and spend it on stupid things.
It's all a big tax break for out of state corporations. Nothing is really created there. Ok, they have Whole Foods. (But everybody hates Whole Foods and if they're into really good local food, they would shop locally, not at Whole Foods.)
The housing is ugly. The people are backwards and take mellow to an embarrassing degree. And I could go on. I guess the bottom line is that if you think Austin is "all that" then please stay there, and don't be embarrassed when you travel and people could give a fat nothing about where you're from. It ain't Paris, it ain't San Francisco, NY, Miami even, it is basically nowhere. It has a good PR run there for a while, but it's over now.
What really bothers me the most is, people like to think they're green and liberal and pro-environment, but what do they do but run around 24/7 with a carbon spewing air conditioner strapped to their car and house? And drive a giant SUV that gets 10 mpg? It's appalling.
Sorry to be negative, but the best I can say about Austin is, it's probably a nice place to be from, as long as you are now living somewhere else.
Ok, sorry, peace out, good luck, don't move there.