The longer I'm gone, the more I dislike Austin
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12/28/2020
I lived in Austin most of my life. In 40 years, I have watched Austin change from a really friendly, accepting, eccentric, inexpensive place to live into a youth obsessed, money obsessed, status obsessed, truly MEAN city which has managed to price out the native and long-time Austinites, people of color (who lived primarily on the east and south side), and older people.
Austin has managed to get rid of many of the things which made Austin unique: Threadgill's, the Night Hawk, Hickory Street Bar and Grille, the revolving roach at Pease Road and North Lamar, the Moon Towers, just to name a few. The buildings have evolved into a dulling sameness of high-rise flats which are affordable only to the very rich, while those of lesser incomes are relegated to increasingly high-priced suburbs and lengthy commutes.
In the last year I lived in Austin, I remember the Sunday I left church downtown at 1 pm and it took 55 minutes to drive 12 miles to our house in southwest Austin. The day we left the city for good, it took 2 hours and 20 minutes to drive from Sunset Valley to Round Rock *on a freeway* (MoPac Expressway). God help you if you're driving south from Salado towards San Antonio at rush hour: it's going to take your a minimum of five hours to drive those 130 miles -- and here's another thing: you will never leave a city during while those 130 miles!
What were once bona-fide neighborhoods where people took the time to get to know one another are now urban deserts where people may live for ten years and never get to know their neighbors.
Austin has developed a serious attitude. All too often it is snooty, affected, arrogant, haughty, conceited and disdainful. It is the most economically segregated city in the country. If you are over 50, you can forget about getting a job in Austin; what's more, you probably won't even get an interview. (I know: I was laid off when I was 55, applied to over 1400 places to get six interviews before I threw up my hands and left.)
We watched our property taxes increase $1000/year for over ten years before we looked at each other and asked, "Are we having fun doing this?" (The answer was an emphatic "NO".) We got our property tax bill for the coming year in the city where we now live: it was a whopping $1200, or eleven percent of what we were paying the year we left Austin!
Do you like hot weather? I mean, REALLY hot weather? Like, multiple weeks where the high temperatures are 105 to 110 degrees, and the overnight low never drops below 80 degrees? Do you like $500 monthly electricity bills in the summer? Do you have a good allergist for when mountain juniper blooms at the end of December and makes everybody sick into late February?
There are things I miss about Texas: the barbecue (obviously!), the Tex-Mex and Mexican food (incomparable!), Fredericksburg, the Hill Country, the gingerbread court houses dotted all over the state, the state parks (Texas has some of the best state parks in the country). I would come back to visit Texas. I would not want to spend more than a day or two in Austin -- if that.
I'm a trained classical musician -- a composer. I find it interesting that while I lived in Austin for 40 years, I got maybe a dozen performances of my music, and most of those were because I'm a concert-level pianist and I performed my own pieces. We have moved to another city. I've been averaging four performances of my music EACH YEAR; and now I'm actually getting commissions to compose new pieces. I have NO use for Austin's musical cliques.
Austin seems to be doing a very good job of killing the metaphorical goose which laid the golden eggs. The music which made Austin "Austin" -- rockabilly, country rock, etc. -- the musicians who make this music can't afford to live in Austin. SxSW certainly isn't interested in promoting local talent.
I have fond memories of the Austin WHICH WAS. I have very little good to say about the Austin WHICH IS TODAY.
If you're under 40 and you're independently wealthy, you should do fine in Austin. If you're not independently wealthy, and/or you're over 45 -- you need to take a serious look at this city if you're really thinking about moving here. It is emphatically NOT "the Emerald City".
Mark | Indianapolis, IN