Balanced assessment of San Antonio
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6/17/2011
Preface by stating that I've lived in Indy, Denver, Dallas and Houston and traveled 5 continents. No place is entirely good or bad - it is really what a person wants. So, depending upon what you are looking for, SA might be the ticket or it might not. After 19 months here, here's how I see it.
San Antonio - The Good:
*Friendly people who will bend over backwards to help (I'm white, blond and speak enough Spanish to order a beer or ask where the restroom is and have rarely experienced the racism others complain of on this site)
*Slower pace
*Family centric attitude and family oriented entertainment
*Easy to be a faithful, religious person with numerous places of worship
*Proximity to Texas Hill Country and Gulf Coast beaches
*Mild winters
*Great for entertaining out-of-town visitors
San Antonio - The Bad:
*Filthy, filthy, filthy - trash, poorly maintained homes, infrastructure and business buildings, tagging, etc.
*Uncomfortably hot from April - November
*Regressive socioeconomically
*1 trick pony - the River Walk - other than that, the city doesn't do much investing
*High density of poor, uneducated residents
*Too "small town" with disproportionately few art, culture and sports offerings for the population size
*A workforce that employers complain lacks motivation and skill
*Economically stratified which has created 2 San Antonios: the poor, people of color, 85% San Antonio (west, south and east) and the affluent, predominantly white, 15% San Antonio (north, northwest)
*Illustrating the city government's poor decision making and short sightedness, in an effort to cut $100K from the annual budget, they recently decided to remove the fluoride from the city drinking water
San Antonio - The Ugly:
*Drug cartels' influence
*As the commentary on this site indicates, LOTS of racial tension
*Allergy inducers are so rampant and severe that many allergy drug manufacturers have established test labs here - Doctors have told me that even if you don't have allergies before you move here, you likely will acquire them
*No industry, save for health care, and no city plan to to attract it, that brings educated, white collar workers, which would, in time, better balance the distribution of wealth and propel the city forward
Hope this helps others to decide. To complete, though we've had our fair share of good times here and met some terrific folks, we have decided that SA is not for us.
perky | San Antonio, TX